Has Labour taken it literally when people said they are ‘doom and gloom’ and are now giving discounts to theme parks and kid’s attractions as a bit of fun?

[speckledpinkhen]

Whilst these are all quite ‘sweet’ initiatives and will help some families. Lower price theme park entry and cinema tickets don’t really help average working families with the cost of living crisis. Am I just being a grump?

Let me know when you are ready to run through the maths on the idiocy of Reeves’s latest hairbrained scheme.

Await you.

Yep. Youth unemployment is going up due to Labour’s policies.

This. There must be better ways to help those on a low income, including those working.

Parents (modest incomes) have always had to save up to take the kids out. 🙄

We have some idea as economists study this sort of thing globally. The saving gets split between the consumer and the producer.

With the 2020 UK hospitality VAT cut, about 20-50% of the saving was passed to consumers.

It’s one of my own criticisms of the scheme. Who is the govt trying to help? If consumers, they have many better levers. If producers, they have many better levers. This looks like it’s been optimized mainly for good headlines.

(Not sure what you mean by easy to ‘ensure’ the saving gets passed on. The only real way to do that would be to make it illegal not to do so. I really really don’t want our parliament doing that, especially not for a short-term gimmick).

There is no maths. It hasn’t happened yet. And I don’t have a crystal ball. Perhaps you could let me know where you bought yours.

There is no maths.

My goodness.

Are you seriously suggesting that Reeves did not model her ‘Great British Summer Savings’ initiative?

It's a summer holiday scheme, it's giving people a little help for a limited time.

CoL is not going to be resolved that easily, especially not with the war in Iran continuing.

"We want kids off screens but not like that"

Some people must really be on their uppers, if they are grateful for Reeves’s huge act of generosity.

Some people are just really ungrateful.

The thing to do is to search for metastudies on VAT passthrough.

Here’s one (which found about a 30% pass through for VAT drops).

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2681021

And for the 2020 UK hospitality one:

http://carbsecon.com/wp/E2025_4.pdf

Some people must learn to read what is posted.

You don't have to take advantage of the discounts offered and you don't need to be grateful.

People need to spend money so the economy grows. If the working and middle classes feel too squeezed it doesn’t grow.
This kind of thing is meant to do both - hospitality and entertainment help as well as consumer.

Whoever thought there are wide coffers to help the poor, think again and read the IMF report.

If people purchase entertainment then youngsters can get temp employment too over the summer. Staycations also keep money here.

DD is an adult so we won’t benefit but I still think it’s a great idea. A colleague was talking about taking her family to the zoo in the holidays now, and I know she’s generally quite hard up so probably wouldn’t be without the savings.

People will complain if Labour do anything apart from stop all benefits and all immigration. But then they’ll complain when there’s not enough people working in the NHS etc so they can’t be seen, and there’s no state pension for them.

They can’t do right for doing wrong. If Starmer had received a £5million gift from a foreign donor they wouldn’t shut up about that either.

Grateful? We, the British public, stand on both sides of this deal. It’s our money that funds this.

The govt selling this as some sort of great bonanza from their own generosity is part of what irks. The job of the chancellor is to steward and grow the economy, not to take our money and then give it back to us with twee marketing campaigns.

Yes this does seem quite targeted at the squeezed middle. Anything just for those on a low income (and therefore most likely benefits) will get complained about. Costs for days out are most likely to affect the squeezed middle who pre covid could afford it but now may not be able to at all or only just about be able to.

Remember Eat Out to Help Out? It’s hardly new, is it?

It will be partly funded by tax on global oil firms, by closing a tax loop hole.

Is that an issue?

When are you all going to realise the Treasury is running the country. Whatever clown is jumping up and down in Parliament makes no difference. That much was clear post Truss.
Now if someone can deliver the message to the electorate loud and clear for all to understand, Bob‘s your Uncle. Changeing the figurehead who delivers the message is clutching at straws.

Firstly I do think responding to a massive outside shock like Covid is govts core role. So I don’t blame govt for trying big things.

But even granting that, EOTHO was largely a failure. It boosted economic activity a bit, but not in a lasting way, and mostly pulled forward spending from non-EOTHO periods. And it increased infections.

The lessons I want govt to learn from COVID is pandemic preparedness, not money off fish and chips.

The job of the chancellor is to steward and grow the economy, not to take our money and then give it back to us with twee marketing campaigns.

I do think responding to a massive outside shock like Covid is govts core role. So I don’t blame govt for trying big things.

Clearly your opinion depends on which party the chancellor is from. Why aren’t I surprised?

Still no calculations?

Do you think Reeves did any calculations?

What the hell are you talking about?

You think my view on whether it’s govts role to respond to a pandemic depends on what party is in power? Where did you get that from?

(Didn’t vote for Johnson/Sunak either).

Yeh it’s taxpayers impacted by these policies.

It's the new eat out to help out