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There's a few months to go till the Brexit deadline. Starmer was smart not to push for a Brexit extension, leaving it all on the Tories plate. Aný notion that the public is going to allow the government to smoothly transition into a no deal Brexit is wishful thinking. I don't think the government has any if We about the shit storm that is about to descend on them.
One reason they've extended the furlough extension till the autumn is that they hope it will sedate the people for long enough that they'll not notice when a no deal is sprung upon them and the public will just take it lying down. That's not going to happen.
Because we’re in for a carbon copy repeat of the 80’s
Only if we're very lucky. It all depends on the pandemic. If a second wave hits and is anything like the first, it'll need a second lockdown. If that happens the 80s will look like a party, as we'll be looking at something like the collapse of American rustbelt cities.
Aný notion that the public is going to allow the government to smoothly transition into a no deal Brexit is wishful thinking.
I think you're massively underestimating how determined this lot are to see through their grand project. Their paymasters have too much riding on this. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to roll back the state, tear up workers rights and environmental controls, privatise the NHS and god knows what else.
In order to do this, these disaster capitalists need a disaster. A no deal brexit was always going to provide that. Covid just adds to it.
Gove has come out this morning and re-stated that under no circumstances will they be applying for an extension to the withdrawal agreement. He bloody means it too! Brexit trumps everything in the eyes of these zealots. Us lot will just be collateral damage. They'll give about as much consideration to places like Manchester as Thatcher did in the 80's.
Binners,
Hacienda 86-89, Hulme 86 till present (minus a few months living in Longsight, soon realised that mistake and hot footed it back to Hulme.) I worked for the One Tree Island crew, they gave me my first DJ gigs and set me on the way to being a club promoter myself.
The cultural energy around Hulme and Moss Side back then was phenomenal, its why i moved up to Manchester from rural Oxfordshire after leaving school. Id go as far to say no Crescents, no glass and steel metroplis that we have now. Manchester City council rode the Hacienda myth harder than Liverpool humped the Beatles.
I'm wondering the same things as you with regards history repeating itself. Back then failures in planning for the future and economic conditions led to a swathe of unoccupied property. The same situation exists now so the first question we have to ask is 'Why would it be different this time? There are differences, the empty property isn't council owned this time and it's not sub standard (though still pretty shit and not fit for purpose by other metrics.) The other difference that I keep on going on about is that the youth have been furloughed and they've got time and energy to burn.
Manchester is an interesting case study for another reason, Labour have been in charge here since the last ice age, so responsibility for the kind of 'Logan's Run' utopia they've created can't be laid solely at the tories door.
If a second wave hits and is anything like the first, it’ll need a second lockdown.
But they won't.
Aný notion that the public is going to allow the government to smoothly transition into a no deal Brexit is wishful thinking.
A no deal Brexit is pretty much nailed down in two weeks time. Most of the public won’t even be aware of that when it passed, never mind be in a position to do anything about it. Come January, what the public ‘wishes’ is entirely irrelevant as we can’t turn back time and prevent a whole series of events that made no deal Brexit unavoidable.
But they won’t.
Agreed. We’re being prepared for the virus flaring up again without it triggering a second round of ‘lock down’ style measures being triggered. They think we’ll modify our behaviours enough locally without funding or enforcement.
I'm not suggesting that we won't end up with a no deal Brexit, what I'm suggesting is that leading up to the end of the year we are going to see turmoil the likes of which we haven't seen before. Never mind the turmoil to come once we try to survive in a no deal world.
Both here and over the pond democracy has been dismantled and will need to be put back together from the ground up. One consensus forms around the idea that either Biden is going to save America or Trump is going to drive it into the abyss. I wouldnt pin my hopes on a seventy year old who was the architect of mass incarceration to come to the rescue. Likewise in the UK, were over 4 years away from a GE, politics isn't offering any solutions to the multiple existential threats we're facing right now.
Back at the begining of this thread (or the 'we're all in this together' thread I started with a similar bent) I suggested the coronavirus pandemic would see protests the like of which we haven't seen before and it wouldn't be Antifa that would be leading the charge it would be Aunty Fi with a rolling pin in hand.
I didn't directly predict the BLM protests having the influence they have but when I see the footage my sister in law sent me of the protest in Guildford, where thousands of Surrey mums and their kids are marching up the cobbled high street in the stockbroker belt it does correspond somewhat with my observation that something is awakening in the public that exists outside the conventional political channels and organisations.
I say I didn't directly predict the influence the BLM protests would have but living where I do, looking over Hulme and Moss Side from a high vantage point I knew something was coming, not from reading the papers or Facebook groups but from just looking out of my window and seeing what's going on with my own eyes.
Covid just adds to it.
The impact of covid is of a different magnitude to the impact of brexit. You're worrying about the wrong thing. Not that brexit isn't important, but even the most negative forecasts were saying a <10% drop in GDP as a result of brexit where covid is threatening 20-30%. Figures released today say 20% in april alone. In a depression scenario the scale flips massively from deregulated market policies to Keynesianism. Even the most die-hard capitalists struggle to justify rolling back the state when 30% of people are unemployed and struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Even if they can do that they're more terrified of the social disorder and unrest it will create. We've already had a taste of what that could be like so I'd say the disaster capitalist masterplan is looking unlikely right now.
The Brexit cost is year on year for a generation or more though… the big hit from this medical emergency will be concentrated mostly within 6 months (with longer lasting effects, yes, but it will not be a year on year impact for the rest of our working lives in the same way as us turning our backs on Europe and handing the keys of the country to US private interests).
6 months
Where do you get that from? There are no treatments and vaccines are years away and every indication this will become endemic. Expecting everything to be back to normal in 6 months is a fantasy. And don't underestimate the impact of mass unemployment. It took nearly 20 years to recover from the unemployment crisis of 1981.
What worries me is that if protests were work based like negotiation, work-to-rule, striking, occupation then people can have an influence on capital and maybe leverage a bit of a result. What we have here is many people without work, or no control via zero hours contracts and so anger will be expressed on the streets. Almighty punch-ups with the police do not go well and confused and unfocused anger without political leadership is unlikely to deliver much.
Almighty punch-ups with the police do not go well and confused and unfocused anger without political leadership is unlikely to deliver much.
On the contrary, the riots in the early 80s pretty much overturned tory policy on regional investment. The poll tax riot brought Thatcher down and overturned her central policy. When protests threaten a breakdown in law and order, the politicians suddenly start listening.
Daz - my point is that for any government that wasn't in the grip of some kind of collective ideological madness, applying for an extension would have been an absolute no brainer. They'd have done it weeks ago as it would be the only reasonabl;e thing to do.
Instead, they doubled down and sent out a signal that rather than soften the enormous economic impact of Covid, they're going to petrol on to the flames instead, then sit back and watch it burn
We are being ruled by lunatics, so to try and apply any logic to their decisions is a pointless exercise. This country may never fully recover from the insanity this lot are about to impose on us
they’re going to petrol on to the flames instead, then sit back and watch it burn
I suspect they've calculated that throwing a few more logs on an already raging inferno won't make a lot of dfference. Counterintuitively, now is exactly the time when you can go out on a policy limb. What was sensible before the pandemic is now irrelevant as we're in a completely different world. Worrying about brexit when the pandemic is still raging runs the risk of coming across as ideological remainerism, and will only add to widespread view which was confirmed at the election that remainers will never accept that they lost. Kier Starmer is right to stay as far away from it as possible.
Daz, point taken (I didn't want to mention it) but governments learn by their mistakes. There is no government conspiracy. To conspire is to plot a future criminal act. The government are doing all this in the here and now and they are not breaking the law, they make the law.
applying for an extension would have been an absolute no brainer
It would be like asking to move back in with your ex, because things are currently difficult.
I'm not a fan of Brexit either (and dont want to turn this into the Brexit thread), but the rest of Europe are going to be same economic mess as we are. Its still generally the same situation, just in different surroundings.
I'm many ways Brexit could end up being a positive as when we come out of this situation we'll have the flexibility to do what suits us, without all of the bureaucracy and having to prop up the weaker states within the EU.
I’m many ways Brexit could end up being a positive as when we come out of this situation we’ll have the flexibility to do what suits us, without all of the bureaucracy and having to prop up the weaker states within the EU.
The flexibility to tear up workers' rights, shred environmental legislation and privatise everything in sight? Sounds great.
And when you say propping up the weaker states within the EU, you mean the ones like Greece that locked down when they had their first outbreaks and re-opened their economy again a month ago after only a couple of hundred deaths?
The ones that will be facing nothing like the economic hit we're about to take?
Yeah.... who'd want to be associated with losers like that, eh?
You can't really apply history to a completely new and unique problem to try to work out the future.
The 20% drop in GDP at any other time would be terrifying, drops in GDP have been historically used to measure a collapse in consumer confidence. Frankly the press, taking a single month GDP figures and using words like "Biggest Recession in Decades" are risking all our jobs and indeed lives to grab attention - it doesn't even meet the criteria for a simple recession yet.
Consider this, did you spend less in April than you would otherwise? Did you cancel a few thousand pounds worth of Holiday? Did you miss a few nights in the Pub, or the Cinema, or buy less clothes - of course you did, you had no choice - April was the peak of Lock-down, many people hardly left their homes. In April the UK pretty much shopped in Supermarkets for food and a bit more booze than usual, that was it. Almost every workplace in the UK was closed, on purpose - frankly given all of that we should be saying "20% drop in GDP!!" and panicking, we should be saying "80% of normal GDP in lock down!!".
Things are going to be rough for a while, I know this isn't the place to say anything remotely positive about Tory policy but the Furlough scheme (supported by Labour) will go a long way to help, and when I say thousands of people risking their lives to queue for hours to buy a Ikea coffee table I don't worry too much about consumer confidence.
All the furlough scheme has done is delayed the inevitable. As a pretty lackadaisical person myself when it comes to finances, saving and preparing for the future (no kids, mortgage etc) it's been rather interesting to watch the rest of society slacken off and live for the moment under furlough. A few Billy shelves or a Lack coffee table isn't going to pull us out of the mire.
BillMC,
I'm afraid Daz is right, protests and riots do change policy. I remember Michael Hestltine visiting Robert Adam Crescent in the late 80's for a photo opp. He was on the balcony of my friends flat addressing the media assembled down below and promoting the government's new policy on developing the inner cities. Hulme and Moss Side were transformed, areas that didn't riot saw no investment.
You're absolutely right but people can be provoked to violence or vandalism and that gives the excuse for the heavy hand of the law and for the media to divert the issues. In Brazil the (leftwing) army of anti-Bolsonaro football supporters travel around demonstrations in different cities trying to avoid provocations. The forces against them are equipped and trained to win and ofcourse many of them are very keen to use their new skills.
When the Brexit issue began to rear it's ugly head, one of the points made that if we left it would take up to seven years to negotiate a new trade deal with some partners.
Bollox to that I thought, they managed to get WWII done in six. From that moment on I realised that the problems ran much deeper than stay or remain. The problems were systemic, to coin a phrase.
What the toppling of Edward Coulston showed us is that what political processes couldn't deliver in 40 years, the people could deliver in 40 minutes. Within a couple of days we saw Councils and Institutions take down statues unilaterally. What had been stopping them all this time? Political processes, that's what.
Wether it's a no deal or we get a deal. I don't think this Brexit Malarkey is a done deal just yet.
BillMC,
The heavy hand of the law in the UK is a plastic truncheon. The police are massively less equipped to deal with trouble than they were during the 80's.
Brazil is different. When Charles De Gaulle was asked to comment about Brazil he said 'Brazil is not a country.' A South African politician from the Apartheid era commented that Brazil was smart, because unlike S.A. it didn't announce apartheid as an official policy, it just implemented it in practice.
Having seen what plastic truncheons to soft targets do of late, I guess they are a pretty fair compromise.
It would be like asking to move back in with your ex, because things are currently difficult.
Nah, it would be like sleeping in the spare room, and you insisting that you’ll move out after Christmas, when they say they’re happy for you to use the room for longer, as long as you ask now so that they can advertise for a lodger in January if you don’t want to use the room. But you don’t have anywhere to go… and you’ve just found out that you’re ill, and are likely to be out of a job at the end of the summer… but you’re stubborn, you have your pride, and no matter how uncomfortable sleeping rough January post viral will be for you, there is no way in hell you’re asking to use the room ‘till the spring.
Within a couple of days we saw Councils and Institutions take down statues unilaterally.
Both making a choice at the ballet box and direct action can have an effect on many things. What it can not do is force other countries to bend to your will. Voting to Brexit doesn’t magically deliver a better trade deal with all our key partners, and nor would protesting or direct action.
Anyway, the economic effect of Cornavirus is just another opportunity for the disaster capitalists… it makes No Deal in January better for them, not worse… and the effect on, and protests by, the little people is all but irrelevant. They may be able to push Johnson aside before the next election, but making it clear he can’t win (we’re nowhere near that yet, despite everything), but they will not, can not, change the course of Brexit over the next two years.
Nah, it would be like sleeping in the spare room, and you insisting that you’ll move out after Christmas, when they say they’re happy for you to use the room for longer, as long as you ask now so that they can advertise for a lodger in January if you don’t want to use the room. But you don’t have anywhere to go… and you’ve just found out that you’re ill, and are likely to be out of a job at the end of the summer… but you’re stubborn, you have your pride, and no matter how uncomfortable sleeping rough January post viral will be for you, there is no way in hell you’re asking to use the room ‘till the spring.
My neighbour let her ex move back in after their divorce, the divorce was due to his infidelity. They managed to cohabit for a further 5 years. He eventually moved out and she's got a great new guy now. The ex died of cancer.
Brexit now to be renamed operation Wacht am Rhein
Don't worry France no longer has any wish to take back all the left bank of the Rhine.
+1 P-Jay
Exceptional circumstances, exceptional impact.
Don’t worry France no longer has any wish to take back all the left bank of the Rhine.
I wasn't thinking of the original use of the phrase, rather it's use in 1944 as the code for the Ardennes offensive. A hopeless doomed to fail vanity project of a unhinged lunatic.
When Charles De Gaulle was asked to comment about Brazil he said ‘Brazil is not a country.’
Fake news. The quote is incomplete in the wrong context and comes from a light hearted comment from the ambassadeur not De Gaulle.
Wacht am Rhein, the song, is a bit like Land of Hope and Glory, or Jurusalem, a second unofficial German anthem.
Translation please Edukator. Don't mind being corrected but in a language I can understand would be nice!
Fair point BillMC, the thing is that owing to budget cuts under austerity, the UK police only have 2 plastic truncheons to go around, one for the north and one for the South.
Boris bought them some water cannons for down south, I think they got water pistols in Manchester.
Type "Google translate" into your browser then copy/paste whatever you don't understand into the box, Inkster.
Don't worry everyone! Boris has got this!
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If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. As we approach an enormous recession, massive business failures, huge scale redundancies and mass unemployment, what we all need to be doing is loading up our credit cards to buy tat that we don't need while simultaneously exposing ourselves to a greatly increased risk of dying.
Genius!
So who's gearing up to hit the shops on Monday - to help retailers move overstocks of tat?
Grab that credit card, increase the spend limit and....splurge.
Alternatively, if you have a smidge of common sense, look critically at your job prospects; assess your incomings and outgoings; reduce discretionary spend to nil; get rid of credit card.
Coffee shops and snacks - no.
Greggs - no.
WFH removes need for wardrobe updates.
Understand difference between need and want.
Cheap clothes - no.
What about re-building UK manufacturing? Would deliver more sustainable long-term value than buying high street tat.
What, you mean don't buy things you don't need if you aren't sure of your job? My god man you're a genius! I can't believe no-one's thought of that before!
molgrips - too many people haven't understood that; you *may* be one of the enlightened but, who knows?
sarcasm is good - when properly used.
genius? thanks but, no; I'll leave you to accept that accolade.
Off you trot, prep your cc and....go spend; save the UK economy single-handedly. Fill your wardrobe with (more?) tat.
Don't forget to buy your take-away coffee; every little helps - to support the UK economy.
I see we're now disparaging teenagers. Greta, I believe, is still a teenager. Corbyn used to get it for his age on here. David King is getting on on a bit but doing a fine job. I see middle aged men walking round giving fascist salutes. Age does not guarantee maturity, insight nor sophistication. Socialist Worker, as I remember, was a major force behind the Right to Work campaign, Rock Against Racism, Stop the War Coalition, probably lots more, all nasty stuff. Insults are not quite the same as considering evidence, constructing and defending an argument. A teenager selling a paper might be showing independence of thought, social and environmental concerns, opposition to whatever, prepared to do something for nothing. All this things are laudable and should be encouraged and not condemned by some bitter worn out provincial.
Greggs – no.
Wooooooaaaah there.
WHAT?!!!
Age does not guarantee maturity, insight nor sophistication.
Studies in countries with track and trace actually in place link most of the spreading to 30-45 year olds, not youths or older folk.
Off you trot, prep your cc and….go spend; save the UK economy single-handedly. Fill your wardrobe with (more?) tat.
Bizarre that you think I'm supporting credit card spending on junk..?
Anyway, the point is that the reasons for debt (as other self destructive behaviours) are complex and subtle - disparaging those people who suffer from this behaviour is egregious and also extremely unhelpful.
Travis Perkins to cut 2,500 jobs and 8% of stores, they're forecasting a two year downturn
My local high street is full of begloved, facemask wearing geriatrics getting in everyones way. So much for shielding?
And the boris bollocks spin begins - comparisons with Franklin Roosevelt's 'New Deal' are pathetic and insulting.
The big speech on Tuesday will focus on infrastructure and construction; does johnson or any member of the clown circus have any direct experience of these markets sectors?
No, didn't think so but why would a lack of knowledge or experience stop these poundshop politicians from spouting undeliverable bollocks?
Roosevelt was a political giant; johnson is a political and intellectual midget.
A measure of the 'man', if we can call him that, is that he's running scared of a TV interview with Piers Morgan.
Do johnson or his boss, cummings, have any understanding of...what Roosevelt delivered, how it was done, why it was done, the circumstances which drove his decisions, his long term commitment and focus, his ability to communicate with the public?
No, no, no, no, no and no; all without doubt.
It's funny how Johnson has to keep trying to reframe himself as other actual great leaders
Johnson launching this today is just desperate politics, he's lost control of the narrative & been completely overwhelmed by covid, this was an attempt to seem like he's in control again, Leicester lockdown shows he's not & overshadows his announcement
Anyway, Brown had some good points here
And a July budget seems like a no brainer at the moment
Brown focuses on growth not environment, does not address structural inequality, talks of 'flexibility' (aka zero hours) and is a great admirer of Baron Sainsbury of Turville. Oh lordy, how long before The Right Honourable Baron Brown of Brownnose?
So, 10,000 job losses announced in 2 days.
Andy Haldane says, without providing any evidence, that economy is rebounding more strongly than expected and re-states Bank of England view there will be a v-shaped recovery.
Really?? Some shops opening and an initial surge of spending is no evidence of recovery or re-bound.
As for johnson's stream of consciousness statement yesterday - as expected, hot air; tiny in scale, no new money.
Let's hope that next week Sunak delivers a chunky and innovative package of new spending commitments with a much broader focus than just infrastructure and construction.
Green energy, on-shore manufacturing which has been out-sourced to China specifically - UK's response to HK will anger China so this will be no bad thing.
Publish a comprehensive and heavily funded strategy for UK manufacturing - you know, making stuff rather than just assembling bits manufactured elsewhere.
It would be great to see evidence of innovative thinking but I doubt it will happen.
Andy Haldane says, without providing any evidence, that economy is rebounding more strongly than expected and re-states Bank of England view there will be a v-shaped recovery.
I'm always amazed these claims are made without any supporting evidence. As always they need to show their working, because it doesn't take a genius to look around and see almost every business in the hospitality sector on the brink of ruin, along with lots of others in manufacturing and other non-desk jobs.
As for Sunak, it's seems pretty obvious that 'whatever it takes' has rapidly turned into 'the least we can get away with'. It's not surprising as the core problem is they just don't have the genes to be an interventionist, economically radical government, and that's what this crisis needs.
Publish a comprehensive and heavily funded strategy for UK manufacturing – you know, making stuff rather than just assembling bits manufactured elsewhere.
Good luck with that - having sat on numerous joint industry initiatives / MP select committees / seminars with Government officials I wouldn't hold my breath. Politics in this country has reduced strategic industrial policy to 2-3 'spin cycles' where the new minister announces a new raft of initiatives, obtaining funding by cancelling all the current ones created by their predecessors, but there's no new actual money. On one project, I spent 3 years bidding for 5 year / multi-million funding for skills - one year after starting the programme, the Government canned the lot to fund another programme. With 5 year Parliamentary cycles, the chance of sustainable, year on year investment of the scale needed (hundreds of millions) with match funding from industry is remote.
The only way manufacturing investment in the UK is attractive is access to a large, local or adjacent tariff-free market, maybe like 600 million people?
large, local or adjacent tariff-free market, maybe like 600 million people?
We had one of those but the wheels fell off.
dovebiker - I'm not holding my breath; more like living in (vain) hope...
the least we can get away with
That's Tory ideology in a nutshell.
I have horrible feeling the UK is going to enter a period of pain.
Job losses announced today. Furlough scheme ends soon and companies don't have the money to keep their staff ticking over. Oh, and brexit is coming.
Things here in Germany aren't exactly rosey, but a darn sight better than the outlook in the UK.
Please, do not forone minute think I'm gloating. My life is also about to get ****ed over by this shit show.
Revision to job loss numbers - now 12,000 over two days.
I think it's striking that Accenture have announced job losses; if they can't find ways to extract fees from gov and business generally we really are staring down the barrel.
Now 4 weeks until the furlough scheme begins to unwind; more job losses to come before then.
August 1st will be when job losses really begin to escalate and deferred redundancy stops being deferred.
The further reductions in support at September and October 1st respectively will accelerate the job losses.
Who knows what will happen after that?
I know a few small business owners who haven't re-opened yet and are pessimistic about ever re-opening; this is probably typical across the country.
Deeply concerning and depressing.
They are also about to re-institute claimant commitments for Universal Credit - i.e. making you spend many hours a week looking/applying for jobs with failure punished by 'sanctions' (i.e. no money for you sonny boy).
I have horrible feeling the UK is going to enter a period of pain.
Of course it will, every country will. Some worse than others.
So far Sunak has talked about austerity from September but Cummings said no. Nudge Unit a while ago tasked with looking at Keynesian reflationary measures. Good so far but it's been claimed £5bn of his spending splash had already been purposed so not extra lollie and M Hyde claims his total investment equates to 0.6% of Roosevelt's New Deal. If there is no mention of extra pay for NHS staff then the rest can go hang too (although the MPs did manage to give themselves a £200pw rise for wfh). Now we're being told to clap the bankers, or something like that. The focus of the government is business (Boris's first words at the beginning of the crisis), the bigger the better, and if you're not part of that then you're on your own. The thinking of a government minister that is prepared to shaft one of the poorest boroughs out of £40m planning gain for a photo op and a £12k bung from a billionaire pornographer requires no further explanation.
£7m Question:
how have your circumstances changed since the Brexit vote?
how has JRM's circumstances changes since the Brexit vote?
A significant chunk of unemployment will facilitate more 'flexible' arrangements for the workforce, reduce the chance of major protests and the chaos and misery will allow for 'reforms' in the NHS to be part of a trade deal negotiated largely out of view. If the government is prepared to pass the Agriculture Bill in the face of farmers, loyal tories to a T, what might you imagine they've got lined up for the workers?
I know a few small business owners who haven’t re-opened yet and are pessimistic about ever re-opening; this is probably typical across the country.
I cant blame them in some ways if you can shut down again days later like in Leicester - I don't see how that is sustainable for them to keep opening and shutting.
Wife's furlough was extended until end of this month but we aren't hopeful of a return. She works for a charity that provides lunch clubs for the elderly so we don't think that will restart. I am lucky in that work is stable and our business has been recruiting during lockdown so no risk to me but we have had to swallow a 10% pay deferral (hoping it doesn't change to a pay cut!) so we are down a lot of disposable income per month so wont go out and spend in other businesses.
'provides lunch clubs for the elderly so we don’t think that will restart', very droll.
Wasn't supposed to be! They have been very lucky in that very few members have actually been affected but a lot of these people are lonely and depressed and this situation has only made that worse. A large number will likely be afraid to leave their homes.
I put it in the redundancy thread but the main contractor I work for has mothballed it's West London division which had over a billions worth of projects set to go
Boris's big build won't do anything bar help those at the top as bidding for sub contracts are going to hit rock bottom pricing
Labour-run Tower Hamlets is sacking workers and re-employing the lucky ones on worse contracts. Haven't heard any protests about it from the Labour MP or Starmer or Lord Sainsbury.
Crikey, so Sunaks announced:
- £1000 to the employer for bring a Furloughed employee back
- a 50% voucher (max £10) for all of us to pop out and eat
- VAT down to 5% on food in Restaurants, Cinema and attractions
- Removal of stamp duty up to £500,000
...all for limited times to kickstart the economy.
Interesting times!
Crikey, so Sunaks announced:
– £1000 to the employer for bring a Furloughed employee back
– a 50% voucher (max £10) for all of us to pop out and eat
– VAT down to 5% on food in Restaurants, Cinema and attractions
– Removal of stamp duty up to £500,000
…all for limited times to kickstart the economy.
£1000*X employees won't stop a business going under...
£10 voucher won't get many more people eating out.
VAT cut is might stop a few restaurants going under but won't get more people out as the price we pay won't change.
Stamp Duty cut is pandering to the Tory base who don't like the idea of affordable housing...
So now Boris is telling us it's not safe to stay at home.
Not safe for the economy that is.
Here we ****ing go- Johnson urges Britons to go back into work.
Surely proof that life is one big Ponzi scheme.
All my life, governments have been urging me to be prudent, save for the future, for a house, for a rainy day for retirement. It's all bs. We need to go back into work- and why? So we can spend, spend, spend. The government really hates it when we save, despite what they tell us- unless we waste money the whole ****ing deck of cards will collapse.
Vinnyeh - google any definition of Capitalism. The big people need the little people to be earning and spend money to pay taxes. The more taxes the little people pay the bigger the big people get.
The only reason your allowed to be well of and encourage to spend your money in a shop is that more of it goes upward in an ad Infiniti’s circular motion.
The government really hates it when we save
Erm, yes as our economy is largely based on consumerism thats pretty obvious. Spending = more taxes.
More taxes = more/improved services such as the NHS.
Will be interesting to see how many few businesses will now encourage employees to stop WFH and return to office-based working.
A permanent transition away from WFH is bad news for coffee shops early morning and lunch time trade; that, in turn, leads to more business closures and job losses.
Also likely to put an end to 'just nipping out to pick something up' - translate to...a quick bit of light shopping.
Employers will be looking at their property costs; combined with the reliability of
home-working technology, requirements around work-based social distancing and providing
CV19-safe environments this will be a major driver in decisions about vacating office space.
That, in turn, will negatively impact on the commercial property sector.
All under-pinned by economic uncertainty and employment fears.
will negatively impact on the commercial property sector
The commercial property market is hugely financed by pensions companies - any 'readjustment' of property values could have a big impact on our future pensions as well as business rates revenues to your local councils to pay for services etc. Whilst the government is trying to avoid the term austerity, this is going to be austerity with knobs on.
dovebiker - how right you are.
I think most businesses will return to the office. Many people don't have a good reliable broadband connection yet, even mine which is 30 mbps on a good day and an average of 20 mbps has dipped during this so meetings freeze. People have found somewhere to work from home because this is a crisis, often using their own PCs etc. Permanent working from home means properly setting people up with works stations and hardware, it'll be expensive. Many people don't have the space or won't want a permanent reminder of work at home. One good thing about commuting is there is a hard break between work and home, home can be a space away from work for many. Blurring the lines will mess with the heads of a lot of people.
As for Boris, yes this blatant politics and nothing to do with covid controls, he wants the coffee shop economy back and people to feel like we've got covid done. Unfortunately we haven't, another month of decent controls maybe, but all the way through we've been too lax and eased off early, hence our death tollwhich no one can argue paints the UK in a good light.
stumpy - interesting counterpoint to my earlier post. Time will tell.
My SiL (lawyer) said it costs £60k pa for a desk in an office in London. Wfh has shown them they don't need it and are off to the midlands. A lot of her high net worth clients are very keen to get in on the PPE supplies, it seems that killings are being made.
Yeah working from home wont stick I agree. For many their work is their life despite what they may tell you otherwise. People are generally hard wired to need to be doing something in a crowd with others - you only have to look at mob behaviour to see how that works. Working solo at home suits some, but the majority will lose the plot fairly quickly after the absolute need subsides and want to return to the office.
I've said in other posts and other threads that the long terms affects of covid economically are going to be felt in the cities. City centres are completely dependent on the weekday working population spending money. Since i've been working from home I reckon I'm saving at least £500 a month. That's £500 that would be spent on coffees, lunches, snacks, beer, takeaways and whatever else I manage to spend money on. Even if only a minority of the office workers like me don't go back that's a huge drop in income that many city centre businesses won't be able to absorb. The result will be shuttered shops, pubs and cafes, lost jobs and all the associated decay that comes with it.
And that's just the impact from people not spending money in cities. Once office based businesses start scaling back their office space due to increased home-working (and they will given how much cheaper it is), it'll cause a collapse the commercial property sector. The result again will be more boarded up properties, social decay etc. Following all that then the residential property prices collapse because no one wants to live in a dead city where the homeless and drug dealers are the main street presence. It's a downward spiral, and will need massive intervention to prevent cities turning into decaying, crime-ridden ghost towns.
r. The result again will be more boarded up properties, social decay etc.
perhaps, but probably not in london. There's no reason a desk in london costs much more than a desk elsewhere (I guess the costs to hire servicing staff are slightly higher) other than demand. If demand drops right off (I suspect you're right on that), I think we would see a lot of significant losses in the commercial real estate world, but places that have enough underlying demand will just be able to drop prices until the bare running costs (ie power, support staff etc) aren't covered. Any outstanding loans & other sunk costs will just be wiped out by bankruptcies - the result would be the same number of people in the City, just their employers paying less per square foot for real estate
the result would be the same number of people in the City, just their employers paying less per square foot for real estate
If, for arguments sake, 30% of office workers continue working from home (and that's a massive underestimate I reckon), then that's obviously going to result in less people in the city. The fuel for a city centre is people, and the money they spend. Take that away, as covid inevitably will, and they will quickly decay, and that will cause a feedback loop where less people will go to them. I reckon we're about to see a massive transfer of economic activity away from city centres (especially outside London*) to the suburbs and surrounding towns.
*London is a special case on account of its size and the distribution of its population.
So 20% hit in April and less growth than hoped in May
June should see better as things opened up a bit more but things looking more U than V shaped although at this stage L shaped might not be impossible.
And Andy Haldane (the one Cummings wanted as BoE head,) assured us it'd be a quick bounce back
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53233705
Interesting chatting to family & colleagues, people keen on home insulation scheme & eating out vouchers, although they are delaying doing those now until the schemes start in September & August.
Maybe pre-anouncing them so far ahead will suppress activity until they are available