Best Of

And so the enshittification of James Bond has commenced. The government really needs to think about having restrictions on foreign ownership/control of culturally significant property. Amazon are going to take a great franchise and ruin it and ruin it's legacy.

What's happened?

Amazon seem to believe that using pictures of guns in advertising pictures for James Bond would be triggering for folk.

That must be why Amazon refuse to stream any films and series with any gun violence, well apart from the James Bond films they show, and the millions of other films etc where there are guns and shootings.

Bezos doesn’t strike me as being particularly woke or anything so I’m guessing he will be a bit annoyed at this and get it fixed.

That Reacher show, there is absolutely no over the top violence in that, other than perhaps 75% of every single episode.

James Bond is sex, sadism and snobbery, all wrapped up in the Union Jack.

The Americans can do the sex, badly, and definitely the sadism - but they absolutely cannot do the snobbery, or the Britishness.

How many surgeons live in council houses?

Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.

I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.

I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?

The arguments that the left used when the Tories suggested it was that (I) it would break up communities; (II) it was unfair to kick people out of their houses; others argued that it created a disincentive to improve your finances.

No one seemed to consider that state resources were limited and that they should be deployed to those who need them the most

I’d avoid a cliff edge - but perhaps a sliding scale so that at, say, 67% of the median wage you are paying current levels of subsidised rents up to, say, 120% of median wage where you pay the full market rent

You could even have it so the sliding scale went above 100%. So if you're on 200% of median wage, say, you pay 120% of market rent. A sort of gentle encouragement to free the space up for someone on a lower income. And if you don't do, at least the council has more money.

James Bond: the British owners made a nice mess of the IP themselves to be honest. Escapist entertainment requires the protagonist to escape.

The clear path forward is to make it a period piece. The cars, fashion, music, locations. The main issue bond has had is the big bad in real life is China but they are such a big market for movies they daren’t show that on film.

I think the Craig films were generally pretty good, and a bit of a change from the paint-by-numbers, repetitive approach that the Brosnan era (and before that, Moore) ended up falling into.

Their failing was in trying to tie everything together and write an “ending” for the era (modern screenwriters are generally appalling at writing effective and logical endings).

I think it’s probably time that the series did trade on its nostalgia again. A period piece, as you say, would probably work pretty well nowadays.

It is the 21st Century obsession with arcs. It ruined Dr Who; it ruined Star Whatever; it ruined James Bond. Out went the inter-film reset button, to be replaced by the accumulation of in-universe lore over multi-year story arcs until collapsing under the weight of its own internal logic.

Rightwinger Sanae Takaichi elected by the ruling LDP to be the new PM of Japan

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2pmy7m72lo

Twas ever thus - wrong kind of woman?

She’s against gay marriage and doesn’t think women should be allowed to keep their maiden names on marriage, IIRC. You can imagine why some people might oppose her stances.

If you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married.

It really doesn't seem complicated to me.

Also gay people have always been allowed to get married. Just not, previously, to people they loved.

How many surgeons live in council houses?

Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.

I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.

I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?

Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?

Because it’s social housing owned by all of us. Not the person. It is meant to help poor people - that’s why we all own it and pay for it with our taxes

If you become successful yes of course you should be forced out. You can afford it

I hate cliff edges as a matter of principle, there should be no maximum that leads to being forced out.

However I don't see why it should be subsidised, whoever lives there that can afford it should be charged a full commercial, unsubsidised rate unless they choose to buy it.

If they buy it the funds from the sale should go to build new homes.

How many surgeons live in council houses?

Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.

I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.

I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?

Why should someone be forced to move from their home because they’ve become successful?

Because it’s social housing owned by all of us. Not the person. It is meant to help poor people - that’s why we all own it and pay for it with our taxes

If you become successful yes of course you should be forced out. You can afford it

How many surgeons live in council houses?

Maybe quite a lot, I don't believe there is a maximum salary for social housing. Once you have the house you get to stay there.

I'm not sure we know why they came to the country - if it was as refugees it might explain the council house.

I can’t help but feel that there should be a maximum salary. Why should public resources be used to subsidise the housing costs for those that can afford?

Why should public resources be used to subsidise childcare for the highly-paid, where the cut-off is at £100,000 a year? That is for either parent, so provided mum is on £99,000 a year and dad gets £98,000, the family still qualifies for 15 hours a week of free childcare per preschool child, and that is on top of the 15 hours for which there is no income limit.

Routinely, posh papers and accountants advise the rich (or HENRYs, high-earning, not rich yet) to use salary sacrifice to keep their income below the threshold and at the same time enjoy the Chancellor's largesse on private pensions.

Traditionally those on the left welcome universality of benefits because it means the well-off have skin in the game and will not seek to cut payments that go only to the poor. WFA is a good example. The argument for universality from the right is that it saves money on administration – paying benefits becomes more expensive where you need to check who qualifies.

Personally I would cut off child
benefit at £100k or above household income.

I would then use the savings to increase child benefit for the majority of parents who still claim it

While not disagreeing (if anything I would set lower) you need to be wary of setting cliff edges. There are far too many already and specifically a big one at £100k where the effective tax rate is already 60% with the PA illumination. Better to try as much as possible to smooth the tax curve.

What a twit I am. They already do that.

In the age of computers, having cliff edges in the taxation system is ridiculous.

The issue of rich people and benefits is simple to fix - all income is taxable. This is actually cheaper to administer than multiple cliff edges, special cases etc.