Starmer’s chronicles

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by nomadking

Part of the reduction in energy bills was to be by insulation. Not everybody needs further insulation, so their bills won't be lowered because of it.

No it wasn’t.

But if you can show me that caveat in the Labour manifesto…….I’ll look at it.

Pension changes are stupid.
Everything else is meh.

Freezing tax bands is annoying but fully expected, don't think any government will change that until we get some growth from somewhere.

---------- Post added at 23:24 ---------- Previous post was at 23:22 ----------

Originally Posted by Paul

Chipping at or taking away all the incentives to save, or build up your pension, what complete muppets.

* ISA Limit reducing to 12,000
* Tax on interest rising higher than other income.
* Pension contributions above £2,000 a year made via salary sacrifice will be subject to National Insurance.

ISA will be higher if the remaining investment is Stocks and Shares, I think. Part of the reason is that the government want people to invest both to boost business but also so they get higher returns. It's hard to beat inflation with bank rates so people's money is slowly devaluing. A lot of dead money is sitting around. That's why these changes don't apply to people over 65 who might want to start drawing down their cash rather than letting it grow (and have smaller time horizons in case things go south).

Originally Posted by Damien

ISA will be higher if the remaining investment is Stocks and Shares

People are not interested in "investing" in stocks or shares, most dont really understand them, but they do understand the warning "you may get back less than the amount you invested". So of course, they prefer the safer option of interest (Me included, IMO stocks/shares are a gamble).

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by Paul

People are not interested in "investing" in stocks or shares, most dont really understand them, but they do understand the warning "you may get back less than the amount you invested". So of course, they prefer the safer option of interest (Me included, IMO stocks/shares are a gamble).

A bit of both? Stocks and shares are give bigger returns in the the long term. Over time they do much better than cash savings. With cash savings if inflation is higher than the saving rate, then they are a guaranteed loss.

analysis from AJ Bell shows that £1,000 deposited into the average cash ISA when ISAs were launched in 1999 would today be worth £2,079. The same investment into UK stocks via a typical UK All Companies fund would be worth almost twice as much, at £3,787.

https://moneyweek.com/personal-finan...cks-and-shares

Originally Posted by Paul

People are not interested in "investing" in stocks or shares, most dont really understand them, but they do understand the warning "you may get back less than the amount you invested". So of course, they prefer the safer option of interest (Me included, IMO stocks/shares are a gamble).

Sure, and it's risky for short-term savings, but for long-term savings, it does become an issue as people are getting smaller returns. I.E, A lot of pension saving has to be in shares, otherwise the growth will be really poor.

[Sephiroth]

I deduce from this budget that Labour simply wants to stay in power by buying the votes of people on benefits. Hence a no-growth budget.

But Labour won't keep the pensioners' vote (imo) because that cohort suffers under Labour.

But then what? Kemi gave a star performance yesterday - but then her party chairman made that disgraceful Hitler jibe (which she dismissed as "joking"). I'm seriously reconsidering my membership of the Conservative Party (that'll give some of you something on which to bite).

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by Pierre

No it wasn’t.

But if you can show me that caveat in the Labour manifesto…….I’ll look at it.

Can you show me any mention of £300? Not there

We will bring down the cost of energy. We will reduce food prices
by removing barriers to businesses trading.

When did that happen?
Link

We will end the chaotic Conservative chopping and changing on policy, harness clean power to boost our energy security, and invest in home insulation upgrades. We will save families hundreds of pounds on their bills, not just in the short term, but for good.

It was never all just about energy prices, but a £300 reduction on average on bills.

Hansard

The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
(Ed Miliband)
In 2025-26 alone we will upgrade up to 300,000 homes through the warm homes plan and other measures. That is more than double the number of homes upgraded last year. Later this year we will set out more detail of our warm homes plan to upgrade up to 5 million homes with energy-efficient technologies such as heat pumps, solar and insulation in order to deliver warmer homes and lower bills.

Ed Miliband
We said we would cut bills by up to £300, and that is absolutely what we are determined to do.

So now it's an "up to", which could be just 50p.