Stephen Baseby

Retired Corporate Treasurer who loathes people who believe solutions are always for someone else to perform.

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@BallouxFrancois Sadly, our long post war decline has been under the rule of a Pangloss political class. There is a structural problem. We cannot feed ourselves. We have insufficient energy. We have twin deficits. Our population grows and ages. And so, we build a super TGV!

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@Stocksandsaving Showing your youth. Had the PA been maintained since its creation, it would now cancel out the average national income.

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@HannieLacey @currys Consider herself fortunate they delivered it. Last item we got something from them, I ended up going to the warehouse, bringing it home and installing it. Never saw the delivery installation fee again.

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@emeyorX A king of a little kingdom, Ithaca, relative to Agamemnon?

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

There is nothing stopping them overpaying now. Any overpayment would sit as a credit on their tax accounts (unless they use it to pay future tax). So come on, start paying. https://t.co/HRIqCXLqlU

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@RHarrabin Which is to ignore Lovelock’s observation. If you have a population growing at the rate it is, get on with the one thing which can produce large amounts of energy. We look up to Norway, Switzerland, and France which have significant hydro, but they also have nuclear.

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@glizzildn Their last effort to build a dam was blocked by the Environment Agency. No, they can’t store any more than they could when privatised. There is at the root of water’s problems a regulatory failure.

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@SimpGanassi @thameswater Australia as an example of unwatered golf courses (sand greens) , but should not a “wildlife” garden be that, not cosseted with an unnatural water supply? If the world is hotter, summer gardens should be dry.

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@afneil For what my unwealthy opinion is worth, the personal freedom and range of luxury facilities which London offers are probably more valuable to the very rich than an asset tax. And I doubt HMRC would ever be able to apply it other than UK assets, and only those readily identifiable

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

1. Transfer the tens of billions earmarked for net zero to defence and supply chain resilience, to create a major industrial/defence sector, thereby creating skilled jobs in UK, rather than China (as net zero does)
2. Radical tough love welfare reform to get 1m people of working age into work, thereby cutting the welfare bill and increasing the tax base. Coupled with massive expansion of German-class STEM skill apprenticeships.
3. Radical reform of planning laws to stop nimbys/greens from thwarting every major infrastructure development. Put judges/courts in their place when it comes to such matters.
4. Put rocket boosters under high-speed rail link between Leeds-Manchester-Liverpool. Brook no opposition/delay.
5. Unleash North Sea oil/gas + slash energy bills by removing all green levies. New breed of gas-fired and smaller nuke generating stations.
Much more to suggest. But this should be good for starters.

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

https://t.co/q6ZF7DzD02

England already has an answer - auction. You may not want an up front discount but: buyer can't get out without risk of losing a 10% deposit; buyer takes "as seen" (no clearing out; and you avoid all the costs of failed sales.

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

https://t.co/3xiK5CIHbd

Searching for that AI tax: consumption taxes would affect all, regardless of ability to pay; sumptuary and capital taxes disincentivise. Why not tax the energy demand rate of data centres and leave it to them to apportion over their AI customers?

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@Peston British PMs are beginning to sound like World War 1 generals.

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@AlexTaylorNews I've found the YouTube sites which try to explain this to we Anglos.

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@Nicoledso @DomSeaward Yes, when the NHS was founded, they never considered that we might live longer as a result. Makes it all the more important to push for a culture of saving. The future generations can't keep funding the aged.

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@Jacob_Rees_Mogg The man who only discovered what the care system did, despite time as the junior Treasury minister funding it, after he left the job (his admission , not my assertion).

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@ruth_deyermond Which was the question you asked before going?

[Sensible Simon @simonwatt85]

If we can't afford the triple lock can we afford index linked civil service pensions?

[Stephen Baseby @BasebyStephen]

@AndyWoodturner So why do you buy this stuff?