Commercial Director & MD, politico, Views expressed are my own. RT not an endorsement.
Preston Lancashire UK
Joined July 2011
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Warren Bennett retweeted
At what point do we stop focusing on who needs to pay more tax and start asking where all of our tax money is going.
Warren Bennett retweeted
What he said when he wanted our votes.
All talk no action.
“Slash VAT & Business Rates.”
That’s the message from Andy Burnham at #NTES26
2 million UK jobs depend on hospitality - yet venues are still closing.
Europe backs its sector. The UK must too.
Support a VAT cut in line with Europe.
👉 Click the link
👉 Follow the steps
👉 Email your MP (fully customisable template)
ntia.co.uk/email-your-mp/fin…
Act now.
#SupportAVATCut #NTE #EmailYourMP
Warren Bennett retweeted
These people are stupid. That’s it, they are just completely idiotic. I honestly don’t know what else to say - this is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and this - as I’ve been saying for a while now - is the problem @hmtreasury are the advisors and they just don’t have a clue it’s like the blind leading the blind. We really have to have a conversation about this and @EmmaforWycombe me and Paul from @BowenPies will meet you whenever you want @HospoVoices
'I don't think employers are working people.'
@CamillaTominey grills Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Emma Reynolds MP, over whether Labour has breached its manifesto pledge in the Budget.
📺 Freeview 236, Sky 512, Virgin 604
Warren Bennett retweeted
If we’re brutally honest, @RachelReevesMP managed to make us poorer, weaker and less secure, her judgement is worth nil and she should probably sit this one out.
Rachel Reeves calls for UK to rejoin EU: ‘Brexit has made us poorer, weaker and less secure’ trib.al/Iusr2uP
Warren Bennett retweeted
Laughable.
@UKLabour MPs all worried about the future of Poundland. Lots of posts.
None make any link between three disastrous budgets, £66+ billion tax rises on families and businesses, ultra expensive energy costs and the effects of their policies on households.
It’s not rocket science.
Warren Bennett retweeted
Slavery was an evil in which people from every continent and region participated. We should be honest about the whole history, not select the parts that are politically convenient today, especially given Britain's leading role in ending the transatlantic slave trade.
If Caribbean countries are asking Britain for a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, will they also be asking the same of the descendants of African kingdoms, rulers and merchants who captured, sold and profited from the trade?
On demands for reparations, whether through cash or debt relief, we have been down this track before. Twenty-five years ago, Jubilee 2000, Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History argued that cancelling the debts of poorer countries would give them a fresh start. More than $100 billion of debt was eventually written off, but many of those countries have since built up even bigger debts. Labour are already spending too much on Britain's welfare state, now is not the time for Andy Burnham to be providing global welfare.
There is no reason British taxpayers today should be held financially responsible for things that happened generations before any of us were born. And I have even less patience for political elites in commonwealth countries who don’t know how to make their own citizens prosperous now looking for another opportunity to blame Britain.
As Prime Minister, Andy Burnham should be Britain’s greatest defender. Instead, he is writing articles saying we need to confront our history (as if we haven't done enough of that) and considering another formal historical apology. Tony Blair already expressed Britain’s deep sorrow and regret for our role in the slave trade nearly twenty years ago. There is no need to do so again.
This is all another navel-gazing distraction. The Commonwealth should be looking forward, not endlessly backwards. That means economic partnerships to make us all richer and deeper military and security cooperation against common threats. If every Commonwealth summit becomes an exercise in presenting Britain with demands for cash then we need to start asking if it is worth the effort.
Warren Bennett retweeted
This is astounding. The government's own figures show working-age welfare will go up by £60 BILLION by 2030, yet the Treasury has to rush out and correct the Chancellor to say there is no timetable for cutting the benefits bill. Looks like foot in mouth syndrome is spreading.
John Healey couldn't even find £10 billion to get defence spending to 3% of GDP - the thing he quit over.
Don't let anyone tell you this was a 'do no harm budget'. In doing so little, Labour have harmed our economic security and they've harmed our national security.
Warren Bennett retweeted
NEW: Labour demand answers after seeing the consequences of their own actions.
NEW: Andy Burnham has demanded answers about the insolvency of Poundland, which has its largest distribution centre in his constituency of Makerfield.
The PM tells @Telegraph: "If there was a potential owner to avoid this that hasn’t been accepted, then the Business Secretary and I want to know why that is the case. We stand ready to support the workforce however we can.”
Burnham wants to know why Gordon Brothers, the chain's owner, rejected a solvent bid from Ireland’s Martin Property Group for the entire Poundland business earlier this week.
Story here with @LukeVanceBarr: telegraph.co.uk/business/202…
Warren Bennett retweeted
Nothing highlights the fiscal failure of this government more starkly than the plight of Poundland. The chain's 600 stores and 12,000 workers sit on the verge of collapse, not because its customers have walked away - Poundland's sales grew by 6.7% in September - but because of this government's unaffordable tax rises, which makes it impossible to run a business that works on slim profit margins to keep its prices down for its customers. How ironic that a government preaching about helping the least well-off is forcing a company out of business that does just that.
Warren Bennett retweeted
🚨NEW: A UK bank chief executive, reacting to John Healey's decision to raise the bank's profit surcharge said:
"Taxing the engines of growth to reduce VAT on gherkins is end-of-Rome level of stupidity"
[@FT]
Warren Bennett retweeted
Listening to @JohnHealey_MP on @BBCr4today saying that “dividend income” is more valid than money earned through renting someone a home is bizarre. He hasn’t got a clue what landlords do & you can’t attack landlords and say you want “better housing”.
Warren Bennett retweeted
In her response to the Budget, Kemi Badenoch not only blasted it to kingdom come, but gave the speech of a future Prime Minister. My article in the Telegraph: telegraph.co.uk/gift/1eafcc2…
Warren Bennett retweeted
Just another Labour lie…
Warren Bennett retweeted
An enterprising opposition would UQ this astonishing breach of convention. Lewis says he's a journalist, but no journalist would blab about a pre-briefing hours before the budget is delivered. This man is regarded as some sort of saint, but he seems utterly unaccountable to anyone. Parliament should step in
CONFIRMED. Gas Standing Charges to be scrapped. I've just come out of a meeting with the Chancellor. The gas standing charge will be scrapped in 2027 (my guess, either for 1 Oct price cap or the 1 Jan 28 price cap). Having campaigned against the moral hazard of standing charges for years, I'm pleased.
It's currently £108 a year. That cost will be shifted onto unit rates. We don't know how much yet, but I suspect just under 1p per kwH.
The Chancellor also said he will be talking to Ofgem about how they get rid of the charge on electricity as well, but that is 'trickier' apparently and will take longer.
This is primarily about the price cap standing charges. There will still be an open market, so other firms can offer other forms of prices with or without the standing charge. My suspicion is that once it goes on the price cap, it will tend to be reduced on other tariffs as well.
As for those on fixes: if you get a fix now, the rate of your fix is fixed, so this should not affect it. You will pay what you pay and if it has standing charges they will continue (some asking if they should delay fixing because of this, no if a fix is right for you and will save you money, don't let this change that - this is about the structure of bills, as opposed to the actual costs on bills).
About 60% of people will pay less due to this, 40% more. My guesstimate is the dividing line will be somewhere around 12,500 kilowatt hours of gas (can't know until there is actual pricing). According to a study by Nesta, this switch would leave the majority of people in all income groups under £100,000 better off.
Of course, when this does come in, if we're still in the nightmare that we are right now, there will need to be support put in for vulnerable higher users, who will have to pay more. Though hopefully by then the mid-east will have calmed and energy prices lower.
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That's all long term. The biggest issue in energy right now is that we're expecting a 27% rise in the price cap in January. I asked the Chancellor whether he will be intervening on that. He told me I'd have to wait for the budget, but reading between the lines, yes, there will be an announcement today.
Whether it's an increase in the Warm Home Discount, or whether it's council tax banned, or whether it's done via a payout for people in say council tax bands A-D as a proxy for household income as Rishi Sunak did who knows.
Warren Bennett retweeted
Big row potentially brewing on defence…
Tories alleging that Healey - the man of principle who quit over DIP - might actually be *cutting* defence spending
In the next two financial years, the budget for the MOD will be £1bn a year less than Rachel Reeves planned when the DIP was published in June.
The total departmental spending can be calculated from the Budget Red Book pages 145-147. When compared to the DIP settlement, the Tories claim it shows that Labour are cutting £1bn a year from the MOD budget for the next two years.
Why? It appears that they are forecast to spend less than expected on pensions. Rather than the MOD being allowed to reuse this Resource Department Expenditure Limit, the Treasury has kept it
Cartlidge: “This is a complete dereliction of duty from the Chancellor”
Warren Bennett retweeted
A bitterly disappointing budget for #pubs.
Considering the Prime Minister’s claim that “cavalry is coming” for pubs, what happened? Who ambushed them?!
Not only no real help but #Budget2026 increases costs for at least 95% of UK pubs.
As bad as any budget in recent years.
Warren Bennett retweeted
@KemiBadenoch wiping the floor with him - about his failure today to do on defence spending what he said in June was essential.
Warren Bennett retweeted
I’m wondering where the cavalry for hospitality is @andyburnham ?
Don’t talk about business rates. Removing business rates for those rates under 18k is a JOKE when our rates were changed from 18.5 to 73.5k less than a year ago!!