2.5% VAT CUT ON THE CARDS
Hammond hints at High St boost
PhIlIP hammond is to pave the way for a £12billion VAT cut in his mini-budget on Wednesday.
The Chancellor fears slower growth, a weakening pound, creeping inflation and £100billion lost to Brexit will stall high street spending next year.
So he will use his Autumn Statement to hint at a temporary reduction in VAT from 20 to 17.15 per cent – but keep it up his sleeve for the 2017 Budget in March.
Tax expert Chris Sanger, of global investment firm EY, said he expected a Statement of “hints and winks, with the real RUSSIA is to ask Donald Trump to give it the OK to carry on bombing Syria.
The shock move is today revealed by Vladimir Putin’s London ambassador in an exclusive article for the Sunday Mirror. Alexander Yakovenko says talks
IT has to be borne in mind that Russia sent its Air Force to Syria only on 30 September 2015.
According to our Western interlocutors, it was a critical moment when Damascus was about to fall to the ISIS onslaught.
The foreign terrorist organisations, proscribed by the UN, such as ISIS and “Nusra”, are the single most important factor that distorted the entire setup in Syria. In fact, the terrorists are leading the opposition militarily, including in East Aleppo.
Accordingly, if they call the tune on the battlefield, they’ll do the same in Syria if they prevail. Our only strategy in Syria is to allow the Syrians to decide for themselves. The Syrian opposition, if it is to be a credible partner in the political process, should disengage from the terrorists. They are offered places at the table in Geneva.
The open-ended political talks will be aided by the International Syria Support action to follow in the spring”. Mr Hammond, below, will spend £1.3billion on improving roads, saying traffic jams cost £13billion a year in lost output. Last month the Chancellor got a boost when figures showed the economy had grown by half a per cent in the third quarter, above expectations. But only two weeks later the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned of a £25billion hole in public will begin with the US President-elect when he takes office in January. He admits Russia tried and failed to get President Obama to do the same.
He writes: “Use of the Air Force in Syria is part of a diplomacy backed by force. We have been trying to coordinate with this US administration. We’ll Group, of which Britain is a member. Use of the Air Force in Syria is part of a diplomacy backed by force, which is the central point in foreign policy strategies of our Western partners. We have been trying to coordinate with this US Administration. We’ll continue doing so with the next one.
Already for a month our Air Force hasn’t been attacking East Aleppo. The Air Force operations resumed to hit terrorist infrastructure in the provinces of Idlib and Homs. No civilian infrastructure is targeted.
The Russian military does what they can, based on extensive reconnaissance, to exclude any loss of life among civilians. No lies will undermine our resolve.
Unfortunately, like in Mosul, the terrorists use civilians as human shields in East Aleppo. They also prevent finances by 2020. IFS economist Thomas Pope said this could herald “significant further austerity”.
A £4billion cash injection into the NHS is on the cards and pensioners will get greater protection from fraudsters.
But Mr Hammond will not cut Corporation Tax, as George Osborne promised, and salary sacrifice arrangements – where staff agree to reduce their pay in return for other benefits – will be hit.
There are also plans to build houses, freeze fuel duty and cut air tax.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said Mr Hammond’s failure to invest enough risked turning the “Tory infrastructure pipeline” into a “pipe dream.” continue doing so with the next one.” The US and Britain have considered no-fly zones over devastated Aleppo, but they have held off for fear of starting a world war. A three-week pause in the savage bombardment ended last week. delivery of humanitarian aid.
While fostering ceasefire at the grass-root level (almost 1,000 villages have already signed up), our military has been delivering over 30 tons of food, clothes and medicines weekly. Some of this assistance is now delivered by rail (we helped repair the railway in Latakia).
The opposition doesn’t offer secular democracy. So far, their alternative seems to be an end of history rule by fanatics. Whatever the reasons for the dynamics of civil war in Syria, it is clear that the opposition can’t prevail militarily without outside assistance.
This says a lot. Unlike, say, in the English Civil War, people prefer to sit the violence out in refugee camps abroad. But most of them find refuge in the areas under government control.
Syria is a multi-ethnic and multireligious sophisticated society with a deeply ingrained business culture.
They deserve peace.