Are the Tories going to tear themselves apart?

kinger101

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Why is it the wrong solution? The Treasury recovers the bonus paid back plus more through the tax revenues generated by the activity of property purchased.

I don't think taxpayers' money should be used to fund the ownership of assets by individuals. The properties would have been purchased anyway, so there's no extra revenue. Unless you're implying the property prices will increase as a result, in which case it's not actually helping people buy their own home.

HornetSaver

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Ever heard of pensions?

This is probably the first step in evolving a new type of pension scheme. The flexibility to use the money to buy a first property is a major step forward.

Indeed. If I could put money into a pension fund with a one-time allowance of an unlimited tax-free withdrawal to buy my first home, I would have started ploughing large proportions of it in early.

A stocks and shares LISA, if available, seems a good fit for me, as barring a premature death I will definitely buy a house at some stage. Meanwhile I can hedge my bets by continuing my HTB cash ISA (fewer restrictions, plus it appears to me at a very premature reading of the system that you could use the HTB bonus to buy a home and retain the LISA bonus for retirement?). Besides, 4% is currently a good rate for cash, even allowing for the new personal allowance somewhat levelling the playing field between ISA and non-ISA rates for modest savers.

The Lifetime ISA has its flaws (you get everything if you're about to die, and lose all the bonus plus 5% of your own money if you have a life-changing but not terminal health condition). But it does at least recognise the magnitude of the challenge facing the majority of people too young to have voted in the 1990s in terms of getting onto the housing ladder. Personally I'd have made the age limit 45, as I think that was roughly the cut-off age at which a southerner at D on the ABCDE scale could have gotten onto the housing ladder without taking unnecessarily large risks or saving an MSE-type proportion of their income.

The one thing no Conservative would ever do is to radically alter the fundamentals of the housing market - if it ever happens it will be done by another party. But credit where credit is due, they have acknowledged the problem exists, and gone about as far as they can politically and financially get away with doing.

Moby

From what Ive heard Osborne planned to remove the 40% tax relief on pensions in this budget. He saw himself as leaving a legacy of a pension reforming Chancellor. He had to row back on this when he saw it was politically unacceptable and tried to fill the gap with the mish mash of measures we see that then blew up in his face.

michaels

daveyjp wrote: »

Plenty going on, all because again of Europe.

EU in or Out
Cameron is going
Gideon wants his job
Cameron wants Gideon to have his job
But Boris wants his job
If EU out Boris may will get his job
What does Cameron do before the EU vote to make life difficult for Boris should the vote be Out?
Gideon misses targets, maybe austerity isn't working but he's Cameron's mate so he can't sack him as it shows he thinks Gideon isn't very good, but he wants to hand the keys to no 10 to him otherwise Boris may get them.

I don't understand why people say Bors needs to win the Brexit election to win the leadership election?

Moby wrote: »

From what Ive heard Osborne planned to remove the 40% tax relief on pensions in this budget. He saw himself as leaving a legacy of a pension reforming Chancellor. He had to row back on this when he saw it was politically unacceptable and tried to fill the gap with the mish mash of measures we see that then blew up in his face.

I sort of agree that the LISA was to have replaced the pension but because he did not dare kill off the pension he ended up offering both but with lots of restrictions on the lisa to prevent people benefiting to much from doing both.

wotsthat

This time next year the pre-budget talk will still be about the removal of higher rate tax relief and tax free lump sum. If he'd done it this budget I would've voted for Brexit out of spite.

Who knows though - there might be a post-referendum budget whatever the result - GO does like a budget. Again, if these changes are implemented I won't be voting for them at the next GE. The government should spend less instead of hassling me for more money.

As for question about whether the Tories will tear themselves apart the answer is yes. It's the natural scheme of things and nothing lasts forever. It's looking like they'll get through the referendum and the GE in 2020 but not much surprises me these days.

michaels

I know no one ever credits politicians with intelligence or planning but one explanation might be that ids,actually believing in brexit, saw the best way of boosting brexit support as not being arguing for brexit and being called a racist little englander but by doing the maximum to hurt the tory govt on the grounds that many will treat the vote as a referendum on the govt. How best to hurt the govt? Have his dept to draw up some 'nasty' policies towards a defenceless group for the budget then at the moment calculated to cause the most harm announce his resignation in protest to the nasty changes.

Mistermeaner

I would suspect that there is no such deep!y thought through plan.

Reminds me of when I first started working for big company. I was rank and file, all sorts of stuff used to happen out of the blue re senior leadership and m&a etc. Us rank and file used to gossip, speculate and second guess endlessly producing complex and convoluted yet logical stories as too why what was happening was happening and what would happen next

Gradually I worked my way up to the point I'm now in the know and involved in a lot of the key decisions. What I've realised is that those at the top (now including me) don't have much more of a master plan than those at the bottom. Were as reactive to all the random stuff that happens as anyone else. We just tend to know stuff first.

What I have learned is to keep and air of indifference and distance from the rank and file speculation so that I can maintain the myth that there is a master plan and that I am in some way in control of this plan

wotsthat

michaels wrote: »

I know no one ever credits politicians with intelligence or planning but one explanation might be that ids,actually believing in brexit, saw the best way of boosting brexit support as not being arguing for brexit and being called a racist little englander but by doing the maximum to hurt the tory govt on the grounds that many will treat the vote as a referendum on the govt. How best to hurt the govt? Have his dept to draw up some 'nasty' policies towards a defenceless group for the budget then at the moment calculated to cause the most harm announce his resignation in protest to the nasty changes.

That's the odd thing about it. Surely he was involved in drawing up these policies so shouldn't have been surprised when he heard about them on budget day.

He might look more principled if he'd refused to be a party to the policy and resigned at that point rather than some weeks/ months later.

Thrugelmir

kinger101 wrote: »

I don't think taxpayers' money should be used to fund the ownership of assets by individuals.

I used to get MIRAS and tax relief on endowment policies. Nothing new in such policies.

wymondham

IDS ended his career with Dave/George the moment he went against the EU.