Best Of

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.

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

The postwar social safety net including universal healthcare set out by the Attlee Government is a failed project in every way shape or form. The Conservative Government between 2010 and 2024 crashed the project to write-off status. Whether this was cock-up (Boris Johnson handing out cash and benefits like confetti) or conspiracy ( because they hated the hand put society) is debatable.

Nope.

The postwar plan was 100% based on rapid economic growth *and* demographics (lots of workers who remember to do the right thing and die before collecting benefits).

Everything to be paid out of current taxation.

A move to savings accounts for pensions was mooted in the 90s - reflected comprehensively on the Left.

Even then, with the vanishing of rapid growth (the rising tide reached the inherent level), less workers and the old refusing to die, it’s not dead.

Someone told the story, yesterday, of a relative who has been on a government pension (updated, indexed etc) longer than he worked in the job. Which was his whole working life up to retirement.

Which isn’t a bad thing, morally. It’s just that the fundamental premises behind the system do not work with such outcomes.

Another factor is the inability to cut our cloth according to the measure of what we have. Some little time ago, we had the story of two children in care. Due to special needs etc, a house was being purchase for their use and those of their 24/7 careers. The cost was estimated at £250,000 per child, per year. For life.

Now, I would say that is probably an improvement over the infamous Romanian orphanages. The problem is affordability.

We need to learn how to do functional without gold plating. Because if we say “Gold plated or nothing” - we may well get nothing.