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The election cometh

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27th Apr 2017
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So we approach yet another election about/not about Brexit. Perhaps there are alternatives to the Tory policy of Gadarene rush towards the cliff edge of “hard Brexit” or “this nasty medicine will be good for you”.

While the economy is starting to look a bit ropey at the moment with prices rising and real wages falling, and even shopping starting to tail off now that everyone has maxed out their credit cards, the governing party must be hoping that there is not too much of that sort of bad news before election day (though not to worry, most of the press will resolutely look somewhere else).

This coming election has stopped the massive Finance Bill in its tracks, something which will have absolutely no impact on most of us but strewing wreckage all over the place. It slows down Making Tax Digital, but still leaving the prospect of it crashing like a tsunami into small businesses first, the traditionally favoured option of trying it out on Scotland first not being readily available this time. Jeremy Corbyn has proposed raising the turnover limit (at least) and possibly scrapping the whole idea. Given that it is impossible to see any advantage for taxpayers in the scheme, that sounds right.

All parties of course tell us they will save billions by clamping down on tax evasion and avoidance (note to HMRC – it’s not just football clubs), but we all know that this is the merest ritual platitude since they are not going to spend the money to equip HMRC to do it.

Then comes the question of the triple lock. Possibly Mrs May, deciding that Jeremy Corbyn has frightened the pensioners off voting labour, will promise to drop it and spend the money on social care (that’s the system the last Tory manifesto promised to sort out by April 2016).

And of course we come back to the nuclear button, where we still have the old conundrum that no rational and moral person, knowing that it will kill millions of innocent people, could possibly do it (I do not see how a Christian could do it, but then I’m an outsider on that), but deterrence theory insists that they have to make people believe that they will.

But the best news for Jeremy Corbyn is that Tony Blair has refused to endorse him.

Meanwhile Teresa May continues to work the strong leader schtick. After all, it works for Putin and Erdogan, doesn’t it?

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By Knight Rider
03rd May 2017 17:42

And meanwhile the post referendum boom continues with unemployment at record lows, the IMF and the BoE upgrading their UK forecasts, and the prospect of greater political stability with a freshly returned Conservative government with a huge majority.
Plenty to be upbeat and optimistic about.

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