Trust in Truss ?

[Observer II]

With an energy and inflation crisis,  folk will be struggling with the cost of living, and by definition, those with the least will be hardest hit.  So how exactly will tax cuts help the poorest in society and how will the NHS and other public services be maintained, without borrowing at increasing interest rates ?     

[ninearches]

I would think VAT cuts  would be a good way of reducing energy costs.

Truss seems a puzzle though ,started as Labour supporter , then Lib Dem ,then Tory & doesn't know if she's in or out on Brexit.

[Confused52]

The poorest pay little in direct taxation but suffer the largest proportion of their income as indirect taxation. Therefore a reduction in fuel duty and VAT has the largest effect of them. By cutting the green levy paid to renewables providers the cost of energy can be reduced by zero rating and those costs feed through into transport and manufacturing reducing pressure on food costs a little.  The amount of renewable subsidy amounts to about 5% which is the same as VAT on Energy. but the impact of fuel duty and VAT on motor fuel is more than 50% of the cost and is an infeed to everything.

The public services are in a mess because the unions are trying to get their pay raises in urgently before inflation is reduced as it will be. They are cashing in and they need to be stopped as surely as the traders in wholesale gas. It seems the rail unions for example have not noticed, or don't want to notice, that the increase in fares next year has been announced as lower than their pay demand. Thus if they get their demands someone else in the public sector will  get sacked.

One might suggest, if being unkind, that the unions are acting rather as Putin's useful idiots at the moment.

The NHS can improve by cutting down on staff absences and sorting out patient handover from ambulances. It may be necessary to reduce the standards that are demanded by local authorities for releasing people back in to their own homes to get the bed blocking scandal which takes up 12% of Acute beds reduced a little in the absence of care homes being prepared to operate on the amounts councils will pay. The public can no longer subsidise councils who divert care funds from council tax into paying loan interest. So called investments in solar farms are highly risky because they assume a particular model in which green is priority. That cannot be the case this winter as demand may exceed supply if we are at all unlucky.

[Confused52]

2 minutes ago, ninearches said:

I would think VAT cuts  would be a good way of reducing energy costs.

Truss seems a puzzle though ,started as Labour supporter , then Lib Dem ,then Tory & doesn't know if she's in or out on Brexit.

I think that is called growing up and being a pragmatist.

[Observer II]

Can't really argue with that Con,  but she sounded like she's referring to income tax -  and imo, the broadest shoulders should bare the heavyist weight.      

[Observer II]

The problem of course is on the supply side, so caps or subsidies will merely sustain demand for a reducing supply;  with eventual rationing and reductions to industry, with consequent job losses throughout a de-industrialised Europe. By supporting the continuation of the Ukraine War, our political leaders are digging ever deeper into the hole that sanctions have created.   The only rational answer is to end the sanctions on Russia, renew the gas and oil supply, and give Putin his victory.  I doubt Truss or any EU leader has the capacity to acknowledge this reality, let alone accede to it.   

[Confused52]

That is not at all rational, Latvia or Lithuania would be next and that really would be WW3.

[Observer II]

Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia are members of NATO,  with US & UK troops currently deployed there,  do you really think Putin would attack NATO, knowing it would mean WW3 ?     Ukraine is NOT a member of NATO,  so nothing to do with us, and certainly not worth wrecking our economy for.   I think Putin has game played this for some time, suckered Germany etc into becoming dependent on his oil and gas, ready for this eventuality; and the West's leaders have fallen into the trap, but can't bring themselves to salvage the situation by calling a halt to sanctions and securing a settlement that will preserve our economies.     

[ninearches]

I would argue that nearly 50 years membership of the European club has made easy opportunities for the UK to become reliant on imports from Europe in general at the expense of not promoting our own self sufficiency.

[Observer II]

It gets worse Dave:  if our industries are unable to afford increased energy costs,  we will start to depend on imports from China and the far east, who still rely on coal and now Russian oil and gas for cheap energy supply.   If it were possible in our two party system, where planning and commitment doesn't go further than the next election; we would have commited to self sufficiency as far as possible, and decades into the future.    😠

[Confused52]

15 hours ago, Observer II said:

Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia are members of NATO,  with US & UK troops currently deployed there,  do you really think Putin would attack NATO, knowing it would mean WW3 ?     Ukraine is NOT a member of NATO,  so nothing to do with us, and certainly not worth wrecking our economy for.   I think Putin has game played this for some time, suckered Germany etc into becoming dependent on his oil and gas, ready for this eventuality; and the West's leaders have fallen into the trap, but can't bring themselves to salvage the situation by calling a halt to sanctions and securing a settlement that will preserve our economies.     

Yes, and so do Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Do not expect rational behaviour from those those who lack sanity.

[Observer II]

I think comiting economic suicide and risking the wellbeing of their own people is an act of insanity, on the part of western leaders if you ask me.  Putin seems to have played them throughout.     😉

[Observer II]

Well it appears Truss has shown her true colours -  just another class based Tory with the DNA of feudalism running in her veins.  1.  With tax breaks to the Patricians while the Plebs worry about heating or eating.  2. Cosying up to Macron with involvement in his new "political" EU, a complete sell out of Brexit.   3. The encouragement of MORE immigration to provide cheap labour, undercutting the wages of indigenous workers, again a total sell out of Brexit.   So the Brexiteer Plebs in the Red Wall areas, that gave the Tories a 70 seat majority in 2019, have been crapped on from a great height and have now nowhere to go.  LIB/Labs will no doubt win back those seats and saddle us with an even worse hung parliament.  An act of massive self harm by Truss.   😠

[Observer II]

Well she's now resigned, leaving someone else to sort out the mess, unfortunately that someone will be a creature of the globalist elite, so nothing for the Plebs - again.   😠