No, It’s purely a financial issue in this case. They could increase pay/allowances (paid by the Govt) or reduce tax (received by the Govt). The labour market issue is a red herring.
But it doesn’t really benefit the government! The state is *both* the employer and the recipient of the tax. It’s a wash.
But does it matter in any way? Not at all on tax. It’s all public funding (left pocket, right pocket). They’re not “shielding” themselves. VAT which HMG pays goes back to HMG. It is much more costly, I expect, to change contracts for all the public sector workers than to give a VAT exemption.
Great round-up of @productivity.bsky.social research on business investment from BoE's Catherine Mann. Eye-catching research on how London, post-GFC, sucked capital from rest of UK. "QE appears to only have benefited London, with the rest of the UK regions being almost entirely unresponsive." ❗
Agreed. Isn’t this a straw man or misreading of the writing? As I read it: 1. Educating and empowering women is a) a good thing in itself, b) consistently shown to lower population growth (by giving women control of own choices) 2. That has the benefit of also helping address climate change.
My latest for @newstatesman 👇https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/the-staggers/2024/10/sue-gray-and-the-dysfunction-of-downing-street
She was just the latest official to fall foul of a broken system.
James Cleverly’s conference speech seems to have given him a major boost. Another Cameron 2005 moment?
Conservative Party leadership contest, third round of MPs: 39 | J. Cleverly (+18) 31 | R. Jenrick (-2) 30 | K. Badenoch (+2) 20 | T. Tugendhat (-1) Tom Tugendhat has been eliminated.
Broad popularity is difficult to achieve when voters live in their own political worlds.
Agreed!
I think that’s right. I also think it needs a big, salient issue to make people think “hmmm, there are costs in moving but maybe the staying cost is too high”. Like when a long-standing political issue hits median-voter salience, everyone acts (eg Post Office ITV drama). More of those, please, Elon…
