Do they think we are stupid?

 "A city like Ankh-Morpork was only two meals away from chaos at the best of times".  Patrician Havelock Vetinari [Terry Prachett] You wouldn't normally expect a fictional book to be a source of wisdom but it's become clear to me that civilisation is an illusion - pretty much like money is an illusion.  I often ponder what great mind,  thousands of years ago, managed to convince barbarians to trust each other and stop killing each other and create civilisation.  Without farming, I'm pretty sure that would not have happened. But equally farming is based on land which generally stays in the same place - it's a pretty risky concept to stop being a nomad and invest effort cultivating a spot of land when marauding barbarians can come and steal your food or worse kill you. How civilisation "came to be" clearly was a delicate puzzle. Remove a reliable source of food from the equation and things break down pretty quickly.  The first sign that we are going to...

As widely expected, the Bank of England cut the interest rate by 0.25% last week.  The committee wasn't unanimous - it was Andrew Bailey, the governor, that changed his vote so the committee was 5 to 4 in favour of a rate cut.  Although the UK economy is stalling, inflation is still way in excess of the 2% target so it looks like the cut was largely a political move rather than an economic one. So who benefits from this rate cut?  Who are the losers? It's probably easier to start with who are the losers. There's £1.98 TRILLION in UK savings accounts and the majority of these will be earning 0.25% less interest.  There's about £360 BILLION in cash ISA accounts and similarly these will be earning 0.25% less interest. So the cut has wiped out £4.95 BILLION in interest payments - lets assume the majority of these pay 20% tax on savings interest, that's a reduction in £990 MILLION in tax paid to Rachel. Similarly the rate cut has reduced interest payments in Cash ISAs by...

 So one of the main headlines today is that Starmer is giving the EU £570M per year for the UK to re-join the EU Student Erasmus programme. Given the UK doesnt have this money and will need to borrow it a 5.4% interest per year, it does beg the   question when will the UK see a return on this "investment". Let's start with the obvious.   Students generally are young - the primary people that will go on these schemes are in the age group 21-30.   Secondly looking at the current net migration data, the primary group fleeing the UK to find a better life abroad are young adults in the 16 to 34 age group. So joining these 2 facts together it does look like for the majority of students, this will be a one way trip.  The government is subsidising a brain drain. Also it's worth considering the demographics of this group.  It is highly likely that this group comes from the wealthiest strata of UK households.  Given Labour are communists, it's har...

 Back in Feb 24 I wrote this post stating that Junior Doctors can't do maths. Well Labour caved in and gave them a whopping 29% pay increase and here they are back on strike. Given today's inflation data was far more positive than expected why are they demanding a further 26% pay increase? Since Feb 24 the Junior Doctors have rebranded themselves as Resident Doctors.  I refuse to call them that until they are capable of doing basic maths. Their placards claim they are paid  £18.62 per hour.  So back in 2024 the salaries were Foundation Doctor Year 1 (FY1) has a salary of £32,398 Foundation Doctor Year 2 (FY2) has a salary of £37,303   So currently the  rates are FY1 = £38,831  FY2 = £42,008 These are the MINIMUM.  With 8 hours contractual overtime payments per week, shift allowance, weekend working etc £60,000 is not unrealistic.  Not bad for someone straight out of university. So let's stick with the minimum numbers  40 hours ...

 I'm a firm believer in the Pareto principle.  Vilfredo Pareto, around the 1900s,  came up with the 80/20 observation.  He observed that 80% of wealth was owned by 20% of people.   This generalisation seems to be widespread throughout nature - so much so  that maybe it's the natural order of things. For example 20% of patients consume 80% of NHS resources.  20% of the population account for 80% of welfare payments.  20% of the population pay 80% of the tax.  We can also apply the Pareto principle recursively for example:  20% of the 20% so  4% of the population pay 64% of all tax. It's not a bad approximation - the top 1% pay 30% of all tax - the top 10% pay 60% of UK tax. So I was surprised to see that 18% of the population think Labour/Starmer is doing a good job. I did wonder whether these 18% had really low expectations and therefore expected him to do an even worse job than he is doing and therefore responded positively si...

 We are in a period of high inflation and negative real growth. Unemployment is rising. Businesses are shutting up or scaling back. And the negative effects of Rachel's latest budget have not yet come into effect but are likely to inflationary. Next week will be a bell weather moment. Tuesday is the release of unemployment data and Labour market statistics. Wednesday is the release of inflation data. Thursday is the release of business insights and economic activity and of course the Bank of England Monetary Policy committee meet on Thursday. There is widespread speculation that the Bank of England will cut interest rates by 0.25% on Thursday to stimulate the failing economy despite inflation being 3.6% in October - way above the 2% target.  In theory the Bank of England should be raising interest rates to curb inflation yet they are cutting interest rates to try and stimulate the economy.  They are more concerned about the stagflation that is setting in. So far Rachel ha...

 This Observer article speculates that Rachel has killed the housing market and will make it a fairer market.  I can kind of agree with underlying logic that the housing market will be more about homes than property speculation. Mansion taxes. Landlord taxes. Section 24. Council tax doubling. Inflation busting council tax increases. Capital Gains tax. Stamp duty  The list goes on why the UK property market is no longer really an investment market any more. However I thought I would give a different perspective on this. So why has property price inflation outpaced actual inflation over the last 20 years?  I read some analysis about 10 years ago that came up with much simpler arguments than those in the Observer article. Indeed these arguments were passed down to me from father to son when I was a teenager.  The simple argument is that when interest rates are high - hold cash. When interest rates are low hold property. So over the last 20 years with near zero inte...

 As I continue to dissect Rachel's budget, it's become clear that she hasnt got a clue about investing or saving for that matter.  I mean as an individual , as it goes without saying that Labour dont want to make any savings.   She has been tinkering with ISAs, savings, dividends making things worse not better. So she is pretty clueless about investment and savings as well as clueless about basic maths and economics.  At risk of mansplaining, I will go through what she could have done which would have been a win-win. Let's start with the big picture. The UK economy is in trouble .  The debt pile is huge and it's getting bigger . Rachel knows this so the budget was really about 1/ Keeping her job 2/ Stopping the bond markets betting against her (raising taxes) 3/ Keeping her job by giving lots of freebies to the welfare class (who generally vote Labour). So currently the cost of borrowing is high.  The 10 year gilt price is 4.5% (there's a touch on yie...

 In Rachel's budget she increased the tax on rental income by 2%.   The "good news" is that the Section 24 relief also shifts by 2% for 20% tax payers and also 40% tax payers get the basic rate of tax relief for section 24 increased by 2%.  It could have been worse and not shifted and be stuck at 20%. Ignorng the fact that Rachel can't do basic maths and incorrectly stated the "difference" in tax landlords pay  compared to tenants. So what's the impact? Let's assume someone is a basic rate tax payer with an income of £12,570 and has rental profits before interest of  £10,800. The interest on the property loan is £4,000. So currently the rental profit of £10,800 is taxed at 20% = £2,160 tax and gets a relief of £4,000@20% = £800 so total tax of £1,360 So from April 2027, rental profits will be taxed at 22%.  In this example the order of taxation is the £12,570 income is taxed first so the rental income will be subject to taxation at 22%. So £10,800 is...

 I am getting fed up with the sound bite phrases that come out of Starmer's mouth. "We are working tirelessly" "A Labour government is about change" "Have no doubt [insert some random phrase]". "We’re [on an] upward trajectory" Starmer is becoming so predictable that I was thinking about writing my own Starmer chat bot. You could ask questions and the StarmerBot would respond with one of his favourite meaningless responses. Me > Why did you give £15 BILLION in benefit handouts and not increase defence spending StarmerBot > Labour has had to make the difficult decisions as a result of the legacy left by the previous government.  Have no doubt - that we will rebuild Britain. Have no doubt that the work of change begins today. My solemn promise to you is I will run a government that honours these principles.  We are working tirelessly to create a fairer Britain Me> The budget was unfair. It taxed the poor to give money to the lazy. Star...

 In Rachel's shambolic budget she introduced a mansion tax - a further tax of £2,500 per year on properties worth more than £2M and £7,500 for homes worth more than £5M. I was reading the letters section in the Guardian where people were justifying this move.  People were complaining about their stretched budgets. For example someone with a £250k house earning £70k per year was saying how hard things were and that the rich should pay more.  The irony is by Labours definition this person was rich so in fact they would be the one's who should pay more tax. It became clear from reading the letters that this is not really about taxation and really about punishing the "rich".  There was clear anger which was directed at the rich rather than the culprits of the problem - government.  The man on the street believes their is unfairness and that is caused by the rich and not the government.  The top 1% pay 29% of all tax and the top 10% pay 60% of all tax. So our £7...

 I was pondering what's in it for Starmer and Lammy to scrap jury trials? A quick intro to the law.  There's civil law and criminal law. Jury trials apply to criminal law.  Around 2% of criminal trials actually involve a jury.  The majority of criminal trials do not have a jury.  For example if I started a fight then that's a criminal offence but is unlikely to heard by a jury. Similarly if I managed to shoplift enough that the police were bothered then that would also be a criminal trial but also not involve a jury. All criminal hearings have the right to be heard by a jury.  So for example as a landlord if the council decided to criminally prosecute me for not having the correct paperwork, I would insist on a jury since my experience of Judges is they are institutionally biased against landlords. So Starmer is allegedly a lawyer.  He was also Chief Prosecutor and head of the Crown Prosecution Service so in theory (but probably not in practice) h...

St Rachel is the patron saint of mansplaining and misogyny.  The gospel according to St Rachel was uttered [leaked] on the holy High Shambles Budget day of 26th November 2025. Her words of wisdom were delivered unto  electorate ( that she believes is stupid): "Currently, a landlord with an INCOME of £25,000 will pay nearly £1,200 less in tax than their tenant with the same salary … because no National Insurance is charged on property, dividend or savings income.  It’s not fair that the tax system treats different types of income so differently… " Hang on - s ince when was rental income earned income ?  The message has always been that rental income is investment income therefore cannot be earned income and therefore national insurance should not apply. I suppose the one thing St Rachel accidentally let slip is that National Insurance is a TAX and nothing more. So let's work though the numbers using Rachel's example. So let's take someone earning £25,000 salary pe...