Founder of CWG | Columnist @ConHome | Politics, Markets & Sports | 🇬🇧 in 🇸🇬 https://xitter.cf/t.co/ApXq6rSZgd
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Britain’s VAT take is 16% lower than the OECD average.
Abolishing zero-rated VAT is the lesser evil in a state that can’t cut and borrowed £65 billion to meet day-to-day spending in the last 6 months.
Singapore shows a way to make that palatable.
from @fletcher_rt Honestly - bring back the pasty tax - why zero-rated VAT needs to go conservativehome.com/2026/10…
ALT a close up of a person holding a pastry
Heard last night, in a room full of sports investors -
Man City's punishment will be lighter than British press expects. 25-30 points and a transfer ban. Unlikely to spend a season outside of Premier League, certainly not expelled.
Sheikh Mansour definitely isn't walking away. And no chance of fit & proper test forcing him to give up the club. He just put another £100m of equity into City Football Group and will want to win again, inside the rules, and repair the legacy.
Rafe Fletcher retweeted
Back in 2010, the minimum wage was £12,064 and the 'higher earner' band started at £43,875.
You only paid 40% tax once you were earning 3.6x the minimum wage.
There was clear incentive to progress, learn and aspire for more.
As things stand, you now start paying 40% tax once you earn £50,270 which is just 1.83x the minimum wage.
If it was the same multiple as 2010, the 'higher earning' band would be £98,841 and everyone below this amount would be paying 20%.
Someone on £98,841 is effectively losing out on £9714.20 net per year if the bandings had simply moved in line with previous multiples relative to minimum wage.
This is one of the reasons why the middle class is being eroded and why there's a cost of living crisis in the UK.
An increase to £13.20p/h equates to a minimum wage of £27,456, based on a 40 hour week.
Once you factor in employers NI and basic pension contributions, the MINIMUM cost to hire a 21 year old for a company would be £31,461.
This is before you factor in any overarching business costs like office space, laptops, phone, software, training, support staff, vehicles etc.
This is going to be devastating to SME's who cant put together a simple 12 month budget without the goalposts being moved & their margins squeezed.
It'll also be catastrophic to youngsters opportunities because businesses will simply not be able to afford to hire them.
What's also incredible is that anything above £50,270 is seen as 'high earnings' in the UK and is taxed at 40%!
We are governed by financially and economically illiterate morons.
This will not end well.
Merz might ask how ask how Singapore spends a higher percentage on defence than Germany - which is just 250 miles from the Russian threat.
Many in Europe underestimate the threat by Russia, Merz says in Singapore:
“I dare to say that developed societies tend to deny real threats for their way of life. This is actually true in Europe toward the threat to Russia. And I’m trying again and again in my speeches … to convince people that this is not just territory, but that this is really the effort to undermine the complete model of how our society lives.
This is obviously the biggest weakness of developed societies, that they are not willing to accept that there are big threats at the horizon. Not just for their business but for their way of life, for their freedom.
And this is something that I try to talk about and which I try to convince my voters and those who are listening to me, that this is something we must not underestimate for our future.“
Imagine if HMRC sent thank you letters instead.
Going out to a top percentile who are disproportionately responsible for its tax receipts and recognising their contributions. A bit like Osborne's Annual Tax Summary but with a small expression of gratitude.
Instead of treating them as the first port of call in any new shakedown.
One cost that won't go up in Healey's budget is ministerial pay - frozen since 2008.
Singapore's increased by 9% as part of benchmarking public-service salaries against the country's top 1,000 earners. PM Lawrence Wong earns about 8x more than Andy Burnham.
Paying politicians more isn't a vote-winner. But Britain offers the worst of both worlds. Incompetent but loyal MPs rise to cabinet and get paid more than they would command in the private sector. Capable ones get less and decide to sack it off.
Either pay well and demand high performance. Or pay less and make it all about sacrifice in the name of public service.
Peter Lim was reportedly quoting €350–400m for @valenciacf in 2024.
Just 3 years later, seems his family is getting a similar sum for under half the asset & maintaining control - with the club now valued at €1.25bn.
US investors are transforming valuations.
Kiat Lim y Pitchwise Holdings conforman una nueva alianza accionarial en el Valencia CF.
El Valencia CF anuncia hoy el comienzo de una nueva etapa en su historia.
🔗 valenciacf.com/kiat-lim-y-pi…
95% of Singapore's electricity comes from imported natural gas.
Indonesia's cuts only affects 2% of this supply but it ups the case for a nuclear future to de-risk in the face of resource nationalism.
Indonesia begins cutting natural gas exports to Singapore from Oct 24: Reports bit.ly/4z6bRRj
I'm being paid less.
As a new Permanent Resident in Singapore, a percentage of my pay now goes into my Central Provident Fund.
Rather than levy high National Insurance rates on employers, I argue Britain could introduce a State Pension Exchange. That would reduce employment costs on businesses, wean people off universal pension guarantees, and offer a compelling alternative for workers.
This week's Otium Den examines what that might look like 👇
otiumden.com/p/can-governmen…
Firmus should have started trading on the ASX this week.
Its pulled IPO raises questions for the southeast Asia data centre story - the region plans to 4x its capacity.
A 360MW on Indonesia's Batam Island is due to be built by Singaporean operator DayOne with Firmus selling the computing power. It now needs to raise the financing privately, likely from NVIDIA.
Singapore wants to be the region's bank for the buildout. Its neighbours hope to profit from selling land & power, jobs in the construction boom, and gaining data sovereignty.
Does the narrative still hold if public markets are getting nervy about the eventual ROI of it all?
Nvidia is in discussions to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Firmus after the Australian AI cloud company abandoned an initial public offering, the Information reports bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Haze is wrecking Singapore - Indonesia relations.
How did it start and what are the implications? 🧵
🧵9/10
So both countries face political pressure to prevent a tit-for-tat spiralling into something greater.
But pride is at stake.