Tom Hill

So you're probably right that it's not progressive but it's arguably not regressive either. What it is doing is shifting the tax burden from income to wealth.

Put another way you should be able to design it so that:

Non earning outright owners (I.e. pensioners) = just LVT so £££ more in tax if they live in a valuable property.

HENRYs = LVT plus MIRAS balance out.

Tenants/middle earners = LVT not applied.

The real question, I think, is how you'd protect renters from LVT. I think that the answer to that is rentiers/landlords are price takers not price makers and so already extract the maximum that they can anyway. And over the medium term, LVT should drive down house prices.

That's a very good challenge and one I'll need to ponder more!

A few thoughts:
- The same is true of the Stamp Duty exemption, so it's not unique to MIRAS
- You'd need to number crunch but you should be able to design it so that the LVT and MIRAS balance out.

Well, that was because you were giving working people more money AND house prices were historically cheap relative to earnings AND there was no effective tax to disincentivise speculating on house price rises.

None of those would really hold now with LVT plus MIRAS.

Maybe. Depends on how long the mortgage is and what the rates are! :)

Still suspect MIRAS would be more elegant and effective though would need to crunch the numbers to test it.

That doesn't really deal with the situation where a worker has a £1m house with a £900k mortgage? Chances are that even if the LVT was offset against the stamp duty they'd still be much worse off after a few years. MIRAS seems far more effective if you want to shift the burden from income to wealth?

Highly leveraged higher earning working professionals would be completely screwed by it without policy mitigation as they wealth generally isn't wealth but debt.

That said, reintroducing something like MIRAS would probably be an effective mitigation for this group.

Ahh I see what David means re radical. The policies themselves aren't radical but it would be radical in the sense that it's the first time a Gov has risked provoking the Boomers.

I think the policies he's recommending would constitute a material shift in taxation.

Suppose not, but both of those are doing what I said and rebalancing money away from the Boomers and towards the working age population.

Agreed. But that's why we're changing leaders every two years and locked into longterm decline.
There's no obvious way of squaring the fiscal circle atm without fairly radical tax reform.

Increased migration is perhaps the only thing that could take the edge off but voters don't like either.

Basically, IMO, the only real way for Labour to have got out of this mess would be for them to rebalance States support away from the old and more towards working families and the young.

There's simply not enough £ in the system to maintain existing promises and avoid decline.

Crockett: "The US is falling apart, partially bc he's allowing for killings in the street, but also bc we have a 34 count convicted felon being shielded from any type of accountability as it relates to a child sex trafficking ring. I don't understand why we're pretending any of this is normal."

Yes, but even bigger than that.

The evidence positions the Epstein operation as the product of a gradual confluence of *several* foreign intelligence services—and moreover establishes that there was an adjacent and at times interconnected Trump operation as well.

This scandal will only get larger.

I'm curious re the use of 'fellow'. Is he saying that Miller is Jewish or that he himself is? Obviously nefarious but also reads oddly.

I'm agnostic about where I sit on it but agree with Ian that it's more about fewer people equalling reduced cost. I also think that there's a strong case that expansion reduced the graduate premium too.

David Frum & @davidfrum • 6h The thing Keir Starmer cannot say: ... "Of course I knew the man had sinister secret ties to Jeffrey Epstein. That's why I chose him. The job was to protect Britain from the madness of President Caligula. Epstein connections are a bona fide job qualification for that mission."

Former speechwriter for Bush the Younger and Senior Editor at The Atlantic:

I feel like Rowling would possibly have been fairly liberal when she was in her 20s but has become much less so as she's got older.

I think there's something to the idea of making a distinction between broad-minded and open-minded (although some may balk at that phrasing).

Broad-minded: taking and maintaining the progressive opinion that was pervasive when you were 20.

Open-minded: adopting the progressive opinion of today.

Do you think the Lib Dems could take over the space that they've vacated here and reposition themselves as the economically conservative, socially liberal party?

A really beautiful blog @jksteinberger.bsky.social, much of which I can relate to. Keep being the grit.

Hey @jksteinberger.bsky.social, long time and hope that you're well. Pls could you follow me. Wanted to drop you a quick note. :)

A screenshot of Lala and Po from the teletubbies. The screenshot is clearly taken from someone's phone, as the borders of the tv can be seen, as well as glimpses into the apartment behind them. Po is in bed wrapped up in a blanket. The text below them reads "I know you were high at my mother-in-laws funeral..."

More screenshots from the Teletubbies. Lala seems to be upset with a terrified Po. the text below reads "Did you kill the dog? Why would you do that?!"

A third screenshot from the Teletubbies, this time the same scene as before. Po is wearing an apron while Lala seems to still be upset at him. The text below reads "You're nothing but a failure of a man."

In the 2010s, the Icelandic tv station Channel 2 accidentally added subtitles from a gritty crime drama to an episode of Teletubbies.

I have translated some of the highlights

There is such huge opportunity cost to each Trump tantrum. So many people with critical jobs have lost another week when they could have been doing something useful.

I really hope that the UK can be part of that.

Agreed. Which is probably why Newsome's intervention is relevant; Republicans in the House and Senate need to rebuke Trump, as do European leaders. It's a fine line tho.

Don't underestimate the value of delay. Midterms aren't that far away; if friendlies on both sides of the Atlantic can kick the can down the road then that might be the most expedient way of avoiding a full-on implosion of NATO.

This last tweet is interesting. Out of interest, why do you think asset discount rates are going to increase?

Interesting list, which shows the dominance of U.S. brands.

Unilever holding out like a Risk Oceania, down on the bottom right...

Nice. As I'm sure you're aware there's good investment reasons for doing this too, what with AI increasingly looking very bubble like...