UK Wealth, Editor at large, Bloomberg. Ex Ed in C @Moneyweek. Ex Columnist/Contrib Editor @FT Opinions personal. NED: THRG and Schroder Japan.Author #SharePower
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Rising yields might not be about fiscal crisis. Maybe it's AI crowding out. Maybe it's oil prices. BUT rising yields will themselves cause fiscal crisis. Look at interest/GDP ratios and worry. Plus why spaceports need tunnels and why space needs defence. bloomberg.com/authors/AOfCy5…
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As if the news isn't depressing enough..
In my 40s I've started clearing out my house in preparation for death - everyone should inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/…
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Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Rising yields might not be about fiscal crisis. Maybe it's AI crowding out. Maybe it's oil prices. BUT rising yields will themselves cause fiscal crisis. Look at interest/GDP ratios and worry. Plus why spaceports need tunnels and why space needs defence. bloomberg.com/authors/AOfCy5…
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Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Britain's first reservoir for 30 years has been delayed another five years.
Now, Heathrow 3rd runway delayed until 2039
Why? The regulatory purgatory that imprisons UK growth - and will imprison Burnham unless he reforms.
My Times column:-
times-comment.com/hs2
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Key here: new build. Not helping you buy a house. Helping them by having you buy a house from them. Them being housebuilders.
Let's be honest.
A lot of young people have stopped believing they'll ever own their own home.
That's what happens when rents are high, house prices are high, and saving for a deposit feels impossible.
My Labour government is stepping in to help.
With Your First Home, first-time buyers will be able to buy a new-build home with a deposit of just 2.5%.
Because hard work and saving should count for something.
And because the dream of owning your own home shouldn't belong only to those with help from the bank of Mum and Dad.
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Oh no. This one one of the worst policies ever. Huge profits for housebuilders. Persimmon FGS. Horrible overpriced deals in shitty leaseholds for buyers. Why can't they learn.
Burnham is looking at reviving the ‘Help to Buy (Votes)’ scheme, possibly trapping hapless new buyers into leasehold flat traps. ft.com/content/e23be690-2cc2…
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Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Now that a growing number of first-time home buyers understand the legal liabilities of being a leaseholder, they are refusing to buy, even as prices fall. Developers are still looking for alternatives. The one developers don’t want is Commonhold. Occupiers own the building.
New: London's developers are abandoning "struggling" leasehold for rental, student or co-living accommodation, the London Assembly Housing Committee heard this week.
Londoners are increasingly wary of buying leasehold due to service charge concerns
mylondon.news/news/zone-1-ne…
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She was First Minister in Scotland for a long time. She never thought about this stuff? Bit late to think differently now.
Why Nicola Sturgeon now thinks differently about defence
Sky has launched its new four-part series The Wargame - looking at what could happen if Russia was to launch an attack on UK soil. To watch the full interview download and subscribe to the Sky News Defence Insider app.
Paid subscription required for full access. UK only. 18+. T&Cs apply.
qrcode.skynews.com/XDefenceI…
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Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
Good thread and pertinent to the discussion of "anthropomorphisation", which is rapidly becoming a politicised word, and thus one which is losing its meaning.
We need to educate the public about the nature of AI, now.
The public discourse is totally misguided and shaped by unrealistic fearmongering and other narratives that are out of touch with the technical reality.
The obvious sign of this is the talk about "dangerous" models.
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Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
1.1% of people EACH YEAR. Not the same people every year. Also that 1.1% number is historic. Allowances have fallen significantly. Also you can't compare CGT and income tax rates... because of inflation. CGT operates as a wealth tax over longer holding periods.
Capital gains tax affects just 1% of Britons - those who by definition are better off than the majority. They currently enjoy a 50% discount to income tax rates - for no good reason. Changing this is about introducing fairness into our tax system - one tax rate for us all.
What is wrong with that?
buff.ly/PlDfzxS
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Surely easier just to learn the stuff.
Kurdish immigrant caught using Bluetooth earpiece to cheat in driving theory test three times avoids jail trib.al/Y2hMmYJ
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It's not their money. It's taxpayer money. It's quite nice to hear these things said aloud again...
"Isn't it patronising? To tell people how to spend their own money?"
@bbcnickrobinson asks shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately, as the Conservatives promise to prevent benefit claimants from spending their welfare payments on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling.
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Not like it works anyway. So what difference.
Glasgow drug services to be combined in £2m savings drive bbc.in/3VdfCFF
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We talk about this on the pod today. Democracy requires participation.
More than a third of adults don’t pay a single penny in income tax.
That is fiscally unsustainable, morally irresponsible – and not the historic norm.
Forget the fiscal cost of raising the personal allowance for a moment - we need to speak more about the moral toll.
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May have
Police officers who Tasered and pepper-sprayed one-legged dementia sufferer, 92, in care home may have contributed to his death, inquest hears trib.al/TGslU6G
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Merryn Somerset Webb retweeted
A desperately sorry tale of luxury beliefs overriding economic growth and prosperity in my home town of Hull.
The most depressing line in the whole article: "the BBC understands workers across the sites will be kept on while Ineos tries to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) directly from the US at lower prices"
Sourcing that LNG will come at four times the carbon footprint of domestically-extracted gas. Well done everybody for an energy policy that makes us poorer, more polluting, and less resilient.👋👋
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw30…
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