DKO

"Employers aren't working people, they're companies." Let's look at the facts, shall we? 🔹 99.85% of UK businesses are SMEs. Only 8,335 are big corporates. 
🔹 4.7 million people run one-person businesses with no staff. 
🔹 The rest are builders, hairdressers, café owners and shopkeepers, grafting 60-hour weeks to employ 12.2 million people. They do the job by day, the books by midnight, and pay their staff before they pay themselves. Not working people, @EmmaforWycombe? They pay your salary and expenses…

You're so right to raise the loss of social trust. My mother had a horrific experience with a rogue tenant who scammed her out of tens of thousands of pounds. What struck me most was the way the state essentially connived in her misery; e.g. the council advised the tenant to stay put and keep rinsing an honest person, presumably to avoid them becoming responsible for housing her. Police refused to help when the tenant caused extreme property damage and even broke into my mother's property, saying 'it's a civil matter'. Once you've experienced that kind of anarcho-tyranny it makes you distrustful not just of the state but basically everyone you don't already know and trust. More and more people will come to feel that way and behave accordingly, which probably means more clan-like in their dealings with others. It's hard to quantify but something very precious is being destroyed

🚨 SUMMARY: The OBR forecasts following John Healey's Budget - Welfare spending will rise to £431.3bn by 2030/31 - an increase of £97.5bn a year in cash terms - This includes £209.8bn on pensioner benefits, £110.7bn on Universal Credit, £69.6bn on disability benefits, £13.9bn on Child Benefit and £27.2bn on other welfare - Inflation will peak at 3.75% in early 2027, up from the earlier prediction of 2% - UK GDP growth will slow from around 1.25% in 2026 to 1% in 2027, before climbing to 1.6% in 2031 - Average UK unemployment will rise to 5.1% across 2026 and 2027 - The Employment Rights Act will "likely" have a negative economic impact because of reduced flexibility and greater uncertainty for businesses - The landlord tax increases (property income) could contribute to a long-term rise in private rents and discourage landlords from entering the market - Real household disposable income per person will be around 0.75% lower in 2030-31 than it expected in March 2026 - Higher earnings and frozen tax thresholds will increase income tax and National Insurance receipts by £9bn in 2026-27 and around £8bn on average in subsequent forecast years compared with March - Net migration is forecast to fall to 120,000 in the year to mid-2026, then gradually rise to 230,000 by the year to mid-2031 - Nominal weekly earnings growth will slow to around 3.5% in 2026, then average roughly 2.25% a year - Andy Burnham's first-time buyer scheme could raise house prices by increasing demand without enough new homes being built

Time to post my biannual “how artificially compressed are British wages”. Rising minimum wage and a 50k+ p/a tax bracket that runs to 40% of earnings, and hasn’t adjusted for inflation. This form of artificial wage compression has turned everyone in Britain into low productivity tax cattle - you have zero incentive to become anything other here. This is also a form of ambition and productivity compression. Source, ONS, Fig 5: ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabo…

Chaotic lobby briefing eventually clarifies that just because Andy Burnham said he would hold a referendum before reviving free movement with the EU, that does not mean he will