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All over Chew Valley
Joined January 2012
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So @RachelReevesMP is planning to loosen mortgage lending which will inflict (1) higher house prices + (2) increased mortgage debt upon first time buyers - another utterly awful policy from @UKLabour #ChewValley #Somerset @DarrenpJones @labourlewis
inews.co.uk/news/rachel-reev…
Chew Valley retweeted
A reminder that this Labour government were elected with a *173* seat majority. Larger than Clement Attlee’s majority.
Andy Burnham promised to ‘end 40 years of neoliberalism’.. yet he won’t even use this historic majority to even introduce rent controls.
Remember this in 2029.
I see the nonsense “rent controls are back” takes keep coming.
There is no rent control in England.
The legal right to challenge rent increases at tribunal was introduced by the Thatcher Government in its 1988 Housing Act.
It was rarely used in practice only because it inevitably resulted in a landlord serving a Section 21 notice.
Labour’s Renters’ Rights Act abolished Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and renters are now rightly empowered to challenge unfair or above-market rent increases.
In both the recent cases that have been the cause of so much debate, the tribunal has been operating exactly as it should – determining that the landlords in question were charging rents that simply did not reflect local market values for comparable properties.
Chew Valley retweeted
This kind of thing is extraordinary. An MP. We must put a compulsory basic economics/business course in place before these people are allowed to take their seats.
'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
Andy "I'm not a neoliberal" strikes again. @andyburnham - utterly vile.
Chew Valley retweeted
Wage compression is a massive and under-rated issue in the UK
Chew Valley retweeted
This is the smoking-gun government policy that pushes up house prices by credit expansion, and hurts affordability.
It's not properly reported outside the financial press. It's great for banks. It's bad for borrowers.
You don't solve affordability issues with more lending.
Chew Valley retweeted
My entire adult life has been defined by the fallout of the financial crash and the nearly 20 years of austerity that followed, and you're telling me THOSE were the salad days???
"Painful" years ahead, think tanks warn, as living standards set to fall
bbc.in/4k5Vgsz
Chew Valley retweeted
Indeed. This is what poorly thought through regulation does. This set of changes has made us poorer. This will particularly hit young people. Governments doing real damage.
Chew Valley retweeted
Was this John Healey's quiet revolt against Ed Miliband?
Government insiders say the budget made a big break with Miliband's approach on energy.
“We’re not sprinting headlong towards net zero anymore at the short-term expense of bills,” one says. “That’s not a repudiation of the past two years, but the circumstances have changed. So this is a clear shift.”
Miliband allies say it's just rhetoric and a mischaracterisation of his approach. Bit of a war of words going on... newstatesman.com/politics/20…
Chew Valley retweeted
Nerdy point on #Budget2026 - the OBR's growth forecast of 1.2% for 2026 is almost certainly too low, because it does not take account of the most recent GDP data... 🤔
Let me explain what's happened, and why this doesn't really matter...
The OBR has assumed quarterly growth of 0.6% (Q1), 0.4% (Q2), 0.3% (Q3) and 0.2% (Q4).
(Remember the annual growth rate is the average level of GDP in 2026 compared to the average in 2025, not the sum of the quarterly growth rates.)
But we already know Q2 was revised up to 0.5%, and the monthly data for August were better than expected.
The simple explanation is that the OBR did not update the numbers after the pre-measures economy forecast was completed on 8 September. The upward revision to Q2 was announced on 30 September and the August figures were released on 15 October.
The upshot is that (barring a very weak rest of the year, which is still possible) growth is likely to be about 1.5% this year, rather than 1.2%. The OBR's 1.0% for 2027 may be a tad low too.
Does this matter? Not really. Some people will use this as another excuse to bash the OBR ("if they can't even get this quarter right..."), but this would be unfair.
For a start, most forecasters have under-estimated the recent resilience of the UK economy.
More importantly, the OBR is not in the business of making short-term economic forecasts - and nor should it be.
The outlook for the public finances depends on medium- to long-term trends. A few tenths of a percentage point on growth in 2026 is little more than a rounding error.
Instead, it was perfectly reasonable for the OBR to focus on assessing the economic and fiscal implications of the nearly 100 policy measures in the Budget, rather than keep fiddling with the baseline.
Nonetheless, it is now more likely that the next set of economic forecasts (expected in the Spring) will paint a slightly rosier picture for both 2026 and 2027.
This could be handy for an early election, though I would stress again that this is simply a reflection of when the OBR closed the forecast rather than any political manipulation of the data.
Chew Valley retweeted
This is a right mess... 🙄
#Budget2026
Chew Valley retweeted
Good grief... 🙄
Mark Carney is still suggesting that Canada will become the EU's first 'Associate Member'.
Needless to say, this term does not appear in the joint EU-Canada statement, which simply refers to a 'closer association of Canada to the EU'!
consilium.europa.eu/media/5p…
Canada and the EU are working towards the deepest possible partnership — short of full membership — with Canada becoming the European Union’s first Associate Member.
Today in Montréal, we took a major step forward with more than twenty new measures that will create greater affordability, opportunity, and sovereignty on both sides of the Atlantic.
pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releas…
Chew Valley retweeted
Everyday price changes after the 2026 UK Budget:
Up:
- Beer: 3p a pint
- Wine: 16p a bottle
- Petrol: 7.64p a litre
- Car tax: £10 a year
- Long-haul flights: £7.95
Down:
- Gherkins: 4p
Finally, some breathing space.
Chew Valley retweeted
The UK's unsustainable fiscal arithmetic: interest and welfare up, investment down . . . chart shows change in percentage points as a share of GDP
Reflecting on Wednesday’s Budget, I stick to my view that it is one that markets can live with. Judging by the press coverage, however, the reception of the public appears less than lukewarm. No wonder.
For all the Prime Minister’s claims to have big ambitions and a 10-year plan, his government’s first Budget was a small and timid affair.
Critically, it did not even attempt to tackle a key voter frustration: that more of their taxes are going on debt interest and welfare – which is set to rise by an eye-watering amount of almost £100bn between 2025-26 and 2031-32.
On the OBR’s projections, welfare rises by 0.5 percentage points of GDP over this period while debt interest jumps 0.7 points. Meanwhile, public sector net investment is set to fall by 0.5 points. Total spending rises by 0.2 points to 44.7% of GDP. So the cut in investment pays for only part of those increases.
This mix of decisions is decidedly anti-growth: a rising share of spending, partly financed by borrowing, that goes on welfare and interest rather than on productivity-enhancing investment – which is badly needed to lift trend growth and get public finances on a less unsustainable track.
#Budget2026 #burnham #Healey
Chew Valley retweeted
The Bank of England will not be happy..
Net borrowing of mortgage debt by individuals decreased to £3.9 billion in September, from £4.2 billion in August,
Net mortgage approvals for house purchases decreased to 53,400 in September, below an average of around 58,800 over 6months
Chew Valley retweeted
We've got to stop calling it a cost of living crisis, it's a low income crisis nitter.cf/PJTheEconomist/status/…
Chew Valley retweeted
High yield spreads going exponential. Fairly reliable financial crisis indicator. 🫧💥
Chew Valley retweeted
If only he was in a position to do something about it.
Burnham says he wants to cut welfare bill 'as soon as we possibly can' bbc.in/4iq10L0
