U-turn or listening ?

31 May 2012

Earlier in the week the Government said it showed it was listening when it announced 'u-turns' from Chancellor George Osborne's Budget following protests by bakers and caravanning enthusiasts
:arrow: A 5% rate of VAT on static caravans will be delayed until April next year.
:arrow: food such as sausage rolls or pasties sold on shelves - that is, cooling down, rather than being kept hot in a special cabinet - will not be liable for VAT, aka the labelled 'pastie' tax
Today comes news that George Osborne has dropped plans to limit tax relief on charitable giving - the announced 'cap' of £50,000 or 25% of income (whichever was higher) on the amount a person could donate instead of paying it in tax. Announcing the rethink, Mr Osborne said: "I can confirm that we will proceed next year with a cap on income tax reliefs for wealthy people, but we won't be capping relief for giving money to charity."
And these are just the Treasury/Budget related ones this week, alongside the climbdown on secret Courts and Inquests announced by Ken Clarke.
Some of the others include :-
:arrow: plans to control escalating numbers of buzzards on shooting estates by taking them into captivity and destroying their nests, dropped within days by Wildlife Minister Richard Benyon.
:arrow: the U-turn, announced by Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, over aircraft for the Royal Navy's new carriers
:arrow: David Cameron ordering Kenneth Clarke to scrap plans to let criminals who plead guilty to have their sentences halved.
:arrow: Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman's plans to sell off England's publicly-owned forests being scrapped.
:arrow: Ministers quietly shelveing a pledge to grant anonymity to defendants after admitting there was no evidence to establish what impact it would have.
:arrow: the thousands of women who would have been heavily penalised by a planned increase in the state retirement age being reprieved from Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith plans.
:arrow: Health Secretary Andrew Lansley's proposals to extend competition on health provision being significantly scaled back.
:arrow: Health Minister Ann Milton saying that free school milk for under-fives should be scrapped as the scheme was too expensive and there was no evidence it benefited children, her idea scrapped and funding remains.
:arrow: the u-turn on scrapping funding for Bookstart, a scheme which provides free books for children
:arrow: Ministers 'dropping' plans to slash housing benefit by 10% for anyone out of work for more than a year.
:arrow: plans to close coastguard stations around Britain were being scaled back so that instead of reducing 19 to just 8, now 11 remain open and all will be around the clock rather than just 2 of them.
:arrow: plans to do away with some benefit payments, the "mobility" part of the Disability Living Allowance, to disabled people living in care homes were dropped.
:arrow: plans to abolish the Youth Justice Board were abandoned.
:arrow: Michael Gove signalling a climb down on "no notice" OFSTED school inspections
:arrow: the pledge in March to grant tax breaks to the computer games industry, a U-turn on a decision less than two years ago to strip the sector of them.
And these don't comprise an exhaustive list
:eeek:
So are these actually forced u-turns or a sign of a listening & caring Government ?
dunno

Welcome your u-turn / 'listening' examples as well.
PS - best description of a u-turn, for those who dislike the term, how about doing a reverse ferret lol

31 May 2012

Quote by HnS
Earlier in the week the Government said it showed it was listening when it announced 'u-turns' from Chancellor George Osborne's Budget following protests by bakers and caravanning enthusiasts
So are these actually forced u-turns or a sign of a listening & caring Government ?

a few pennies on a pasty is not going to save a persons bank balance much. caravans would not have affected that many peeple in reality.
this government or any other government to be honest, only listens when either a group threaten to strike, or actually strike. other than that i believe these so called reverses are nothing more than a smokescreen from more serious issues.
has petrol gone down at all?
is food going up almost on a daily basis?
has education got better?
are there more police on our streets?
are local councils still conning us out of money?
has vat gone down? no in fact it went down to 15% for a while and now it is 20%.
have mp's got more honest?
has GNV come back from france yet? wink

sorry made that one up lol

these HNS are the issues that affect your average man/woman on the street. essential things..anyone can go with out a pasty or a caravan but with fuel prices as they are can anyone afford to drive to there static caravan?
no u turns or any listening, they give 5p and take 65p, and then try to con us all into us believing they are in fact doing us a favour.
rip off britain still exists HNS and most of us are to dumb to realise the game they play.

31 May 2012

A sop to shut people up about the hike in petrol tax - the tax that will affect every man, woman, child, disabled person, pensioner, soldier, nurse and teacher.

31 May 2012

Agree with both.
Always said that the Tank Drivers might strike so people must panic buy and hoard fuel when no strike dates had been announced and 7 days notice is required was pure smoke screen so soon after the budget and fuel duty rises..
Wasn't even a sleight of hand, just pure 'con'
The point being that so many 'reverse ferrets' shows a Government chasing positive media spin/stories for popular kudos whenever possible, but with an ill thought out strategy or policies, with a hope that people won't notice - well except the opening media comment.
On a day that Hunt was at Leveson for gorgeous George (sic) to announce the Charities u-turn was so patently an attempt to bury a bad news (Hunt) it could be laughable if it hadn't been so effective across the news rooms.
banghead

1 Jun 2012

Quote by star
has GNV come back from france yet?

I know I write about politics and economics, but to be credited with being a 'feel good' indicator is actually quite flattering :thumbup:

1 Jun 2012

Quote by GnV
has GNV come back from france yet?

I know I write about politics and economics, but to be credited with being a 'feel good' indicator is actually quite flattering :thumbup:
:laughabove::laughabove:

1 Jun 2012

Quote by GnV
has GNV come back from france yet?

I know I write about politics and economics, but to be credited with being a 'feel good' indicator is actually quite flattering :thumbup:
G,
Thought there was a feel good factor there now with Hollande in the Palace.
lol

1 Jun 2012

Quite pleased with the u-turn on DEFRA's proposal to remove buzzards / destroy nests from moorland used for rearing pheasants. Perfect illustration of the complete lack of common sense at the top: persecute a native species already once driven to the brink of extinction in the UK so a non-native species artificially reared for sport is available to shoots! Only an upper-class Tory could ever have thought that one was gonna fly? rolleyes

The thing with most of the u-turns we've seen of late is that while they will try and spin them as re-thinks following a period of public consultation, which is all excellently democratic and what have you, the fact they could come up with half of the plans in the first place simply demonstrates what absolute fuckwits most of them in Govt are.

1 Jun 2012

Quote by neilinleeds
The thing with most of the u-turns we've seen of late is that while they will try and spin them as re-thinks following a period of public consultation, which is all excellently democratic and what have you, the fact they could come up with half of the plans in the first place simply demonstrates what absolute fuckwits most of them in Govt are.

put so much better than i could have put neil.
:thumbup::thumbup:

1 Jun 2012

Quote by HnS
has GNV come back from france yet?

Which is why we're still here wink

I think star was suggesting that if we were back in blighty, it was probably because that was a better hole than the one we are currently in :lol2:

5 Jun 2012

It's the old "damned if you do" "damned if you don't"
Many people live in the world of damned if you do, damned if you don't
The opposition will always call it retreat the followers will call it tactical withdrawal
The opposition will always call it backtrack the followers will call it listening
The wife will call it wrong even when she told you to do it
A celebrity gives to charity it is a case of "well he/she can afford it" along with the "only for the publicity" but do it in secret and they are accused of doing nothing
A policeman shoots an innocent man on a tube and they are trigger happy, but if the man had been a terroist and blown up the train the Police would "not have done enough"
Upto a certain age a man can oggle at all the girls he wants, over that age he is just an old pervert
Who Dares wins but often winning can mean losing at the same time

6 Jun 2012

It appears to me a lot of this is the newspapers. I guess where the government have decided on a few policy decisions and a wider audience highlights the flaws, the newspapers don't put 'After a public consultation the Minster wisely decided not to carry on with Plan B ....... ' .

6 Jun 2012

Rob,

the Minster wisely decided not to carry on with Plan B .......

Since becoming Chancellor, George Osborne has repeatedly said that there is no Plan B and shows no sign of wanting one.
So he he continues with Plan A which is to slash £81bn from government spending as "there was no alternative". despite the International Monetary Fund annual report on the UK urging the chancellor to reduce VAT and increase public spending rather than relying on the private sector for growth.
Whilst perhaps something for the phase 2 of downturn http://www.swingingheaven.co.uk/swingers-forum/viewtopic/303092.html thread,
along the way it's interesting to note that parts of achieving Plan A
- Pastie Tax
- Static Caravans Tax
- Forest 'sell-off'
- Scrap free school milk
- Bookstart
- Coastguard Stations
- DLA changes
- Computer games industry taxation
have all had u-turn/re-think announcements, as highlighted earlier, so perhaps he still might technically still be working to Plan A however no one is sure which version number he's up to at this time.
wink

And just in case any one thinks it's just George who's opposed to any Plan B, David Cameron last night rejected embarrassing secret advice from Britain’s most senior civil servant for the Government to prepare a ‘Plan B’ for the economy, if is to be believed today.

7 Jun 2012

Good Morning H,
I was going to comment on this last night but having noticed the news article on the Daily Mail web site about a Linked in password snafu then spent some time changing passwords.
A couple of things quickly (20 minutes and counting until work) -
1. Most of this list of policy revisions is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things? Particularly when compared with some of the policy revisions of the last administration?
2. George Osborne, and indeed David Cameron may be quite so definitive in their statements about reducing the United Kingdom's public sector borrowing to appease the credit ratings agencies? A triple A rating is quite handy if you are running a very large public sector borrowing requirement.
I may appear to be supporting this administration but the motive for my comments has more to do with my opprobrium for the policy reversals of the last lot smile

So far a lot of the critical chaff coming from the Newspapers about this government is just that, there as yet doesn't appear to be much of any real substance.
As I see the bottom line for George Osborne at the minute the United Kingdom's Mastercard had reached it's limit. This leaves two possibilities either, pay some of it back, or decrease the value of sterling by printing money. Since the mechanism for introducing newly minted sterling into the economy is to buy bonds also this end's up paying back debt.
Rob :)

7 Jun 2012

Quote by Robert400andKay
.... the United Kingdom's Mastercard had reached it's limit.....

Given that for decades the main UK bank associated with Mastercard, formerly Access, in the UK has been the Nat West.
As Nat West was taken over by RBS back in 2000 following late 80's financial scandal surrounding the collapse of Blue Arrow, a 1999 announced a merger with Legal & General being given a poor reception in the London financial markets & NatWest's share price falling substantially, it's internal controls & risk management being severely criticised in 2000 after a lengthy investigation by the Securities and Futures Authority.
This course then led to the initial 2008 bailout of RBS and subsequent ones so now 'we' own 84% of RBS at a cost of £45 billion.
On a similar note, two of the other Banks in the Access consortium until it was bought by Mastercard were Lloyds and RBS. The latter we've mentioned, whilst the former was another 2008 bailout.
(By the way the initial 2008 bailouts were £37 billion, more than the total raised from Corporation Tax)
So no wonder 'our' Mastercard is max'd out
:sad:
Which raises the question, how much did - the bank bailouts actually cost us?
And how much are they still costing us?
Luckily the National Audit Office in July last year reported level of financial support given by the government to the Banks since 2009. The report tries to make an assessment of how much they still owe us now, after repayments, fees and interest. The headline figure is .
:eeek:
As for the two possibilities you've mentioned. Well paying it back, or as per historically actually reducing it as no government has been free of national debt, is something all the UK political parties agree on, the speed and how seemingly being the difference.
The value of Sterling being actually determined on the Foreign Exchange markets by a number of factors with government borrowing, printing money/quantative easing, recesssion or GDP growth, government income, etc. just being some of the factors.
By the way, earlier today he Bank of England has once again left UK interest rates unchanged at 0.5% and announced no expansion to its quantitative easing (QE) programme -
QE is the Bank's scheme which aims to boost the economy by buying bonds with this stimulus currently standing at £325bn.

7 Jun 2012

H,
my phrase 'the United Kingdom's Mastercard' was very much a metaphor for Public Sector borrowing. But it is interesting to see that you then go on to raise one of points that I would point to as a major 'policy reversal' (more of a monumental piece of stupidity than reversal really) of the last Labour Government.
Whilst the responsibility for failure of the capital adequacy of RBS, and a number of other banks, can in part be laid at the doors of various bankers. A good part of the responsibility for that failure should be attributed to the government at that time. At the point that the government could have done something I believe the phrase was the banking system only needed 'light touch regulation'.
Given that it was subsequently agreed when Labour bailed out the banks that these organisations were too big to fail, wasn't it a bit stupid not to have done something before the banks did in fact fail?
As I mentioned above against the monumental waste of pretty well all of the points you raise above are in fact pretty small beer? Do you not agree that as a 'U turn' the statement 'we have ended the cycle of boom and bust' to then having to chuck of public money to stop the failure of the banking system is a bit of a corker?
Rob smile

PS. I have used your figure above for money to bail out banks, this is in fact the level of support available to these hand maidens of Beelzebub, I think the actual tax payer money spent to date is between 100 - 150bn.
PPS. Kay just asked what I was up to and suggested that I should put that 'they're all t**ts who try and screw you over'. Can't argue with that one myself :)

7 Jun 2012

Quote by HnS
.... the United Kingdom's Mastercard had reached it's limit.....

Given that for decades the main UK bank associated with Mastercard, formerly Access, in the UK has been the Nat West.
As Nat West was taken over by RBS back in 2000 following late 80's financial scandal surrounding the collapse of Blue Arrow, a 1999 announced a merger with Legal & General being given a poor reception in the London financial markets & NatWest's share price falling substantially, it's internal controls & risk management being severely criticised in 2000 after a lengthy investigation by the Securities and Futures Authority.
This course then led to the initial 2008 bailout of RBS and subsequent ones so now 'we' own 84% of RBS at a cost of £45 billion.
Er no. These may well have been contributory factors in NatWest being taken over by RBS but not in the eventual RBS bailout. That was mainly due to exposure in the American sub-prime market and the ill-timed takeover of ABN Amro
On a similar note, two of the other Banks in the Access consortium until it was bought by Mastercard were Lloyds and RBS. The latter we've mentioned, whilst the former was another 2008 bailout.
(By the way the initial 2008 bailouts were £37 billion, more than the total raised from Corporation Tax)
So no wonder 'our' Mastercard is max'd out
:sad:
So all the while these banks were being badly run and severely criticised by the SFA, the Government of the day did SFA about it, other than loosen regulations even further. Of course the then Chancellor, whose watchword was "prudent" kept telling us that he had got rid of the "boom and bust" cycle for ever. Of course, he may well be right......we may never again achieve "boom" and be eternally bust.
Which raises the question, how much did - the bank bailouts actually cost us?
And how much are they still costing us?
Luckily the National Audit Office in July last year reported level of financial support given by the government to the Banks since 2009. The report tries to make an assessment of how much they still owe us now, after repayments, fees and interest. The headline figure is .
:eeek:
Let's examine that figure. The hard cash figure is £123 bn, which was used to buy shares and provide loans in/to the failed banks. The remainder, £323 bn is in the form of guarantees, which the Government will only have to pay if things go badly wrong. That headline figure had also been reduced by some £156 bn in the preceding year.
.

8 Jun 2012

Rob / Maxx,
The 'light' regulatory approach was the vogue amongst the parties in the last decade, endorsed by they key policy makers and carried forward by the Bank of England and SFA, encouraged by the Financial Sector it must be said - especially given the historical approach by the industry via lobbyists, special advisors, secondments, and the 'revolving door' employment by many in the industry as they seem to switch between poacher and gamekeeper then back to poacher again - something that continues.
As for capital adequacy, in the days of a separate 'retail' sector then it probably served, however since the big de-regulation of the mid 80's and the growth of investment banking the 2007 crisis suddenly revealed the inadequate capitalisation within the industry, as well as the lack of internal controls and compliance within many, never mind the understanding of the complex deals and trades that many were undertaking within a short term/bonus driven culture.
What is startling from the various investigations, reports and published Freedom of Information requests is that no one within the 'gamekeeper' / Regulatory community seems to have been charged nor internally disciplined on competency or regulatory 'blindness' as to what was going on. So in the main the political class have shuffled chairs and largely got away with it, whilst the regulatory leadership have largely stayed the same or moved sideways as well.
is an awful lot of money, be it comprising £123bn cash and £323bn guarantees that hopefully won't 'go bad', though on the plus side as of last July when the last NAO report was published at least it's down from a peak of some pGEAzAtPv5IalDtz even if still equated to 31% of UK GDP as of March 2011.
As the advert "every little helps" says, the Budget and various spending reviews have highlighted cost savings though it's fair to say that whilst many have been proceeded with, this thread has highlighted some that 'ran into trouble' and have been reversed, u-turned or re-considered (depending on your view point).
By the way love Kay's assessment of capitalism, with or without regulation lol

12 Jun 2012

I think that the banks and the FSA (or what ever they were called at the time) got a lot more interested in the capital reserves of banks after Nick Lesson bankrupted Barings in about 1995.
Kay's response was a description of politicians, but yes can be applied equally well to capitalism, and socialism to my mind smile