Labour single out the public sector for special treatment again:Who gives a fuck? I thought you would support measures that would save the public sector money - what is the point of the Government levying taxes on itself?
"Public-sector workers will be shielded from Rachel Reeves’s plans to mount a tax raid on employers’ pension contributions, while those in the private sector face lower wages and less money in retirement.
It would cost the government an estimated £5 billion, which means that the rise will fall entirely on businesses and, ultimately, private-sector workers. Experts said that employees would have less generous pensions and companies could also absorb costs by reducing future pay rises."
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/rachel-reeves-to-protect-public-sector-workers-from-tax-raid-0n25hxkgg
I would say "overusing" rather than "using" - PFI can occasionally work under very specific conditions. But Brown didn't use it to private public services more efficiently. He never gave a damn about that. He was desperate to get the debt off the Treasury's books, and that allowed companies like Serco to take the taxpayer for a ride every time.You damage some good points, or at least some arguable ones, by blaming Gordon Brown for the Global Financial Crisis. He did not cause it, and led the international response to it.It certainly was a disastrous blunder, but I'm not even sure it was his worse as there are so many to choose from.Good article:Public sector pensions are also of course different in that they are paid from income (ie tax) not from an accrued pension pot.Labour single out the public sector for special treatment again:Who gives a fuck? I thought you would support measures that would save the public sector money - what is the point of the Government levying taxes on itself?
"Public-sector workers will be shielded from Rachel Reeves’s plans to mount a tax raid on employers’ pension contributions, while those in the private sector face lower wages and less money in retirement.
It would cost the government an estimated £5 billion, which means that the rise will fall entirely on businesses and, ultimately, private-sector workers. Experts said that employees would have less generous pensions and companies could also absorb costs by reducing future pay rises."
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/rachel-reeves-to-protect-public-sector-workers-from-tax-raid-0n25hxkgg
That being said, that could be considered an even better argument for not taxing pension contributions. In a field of stiff competition, that was surely Gordon Brown's worst mistake even if he managed to deflect much of the blame.
https://www.fidelity.co.uk/markets-insights/personal-finance/personal-finance/the-unintended-consequences-of-fiddling-around-with-taxes/
On Brown's raid: "Worse still, the reduced incentive for UK pension funds to invest in British companies means that they and other institutional investors now own just 4% of UK-quoted shares compared with half of them in 1997."
There was also his windfall tax on privatised utilities, which incentivised their executives to focus on paying dividends rather than investment, since they never knew when the taxman would demand more again.
And the sale of our gold reserves when gold was at its cheapest, presignalling that this was the intention.
And the staggeringly complacent and incompetent approach to financial regulation which helped give us the financial crisis.
And the diversion of money from the enterprising and productive private sector to unproductive, unreformed public sector unions.
And his arrogant and completely mad assumption that he had ended the economic cycle.
In fact, Gordon Brown's time as chancellor was one blunder after another, at least once he stopped following Conservative economic policies after a couple of years. Most of the economic problems we face today are due to him. And his time as PM was as bad if not worse.
Brown's biggest error was using PFI for public sector investment.
Because the difference is that we then abolished slavery - the first major nation to do so - and THEN we spent billions (in todays money) sending the Royal Navy around the world abolishing slavery globally, using our navel hegemony to do soI’m at the Yasukina Shinto shrine to Japan’s war dead, to honour all the good soldiers who did their best at Nanjing, and to say a prayer for rhe misunderstood medics of Unit 731The Usonian Government knew what they were doing, which is why many were let off being held responsible for their war crimes in exchange for helping the new programmes created by the USA.
Seriously, I'd be interested to know what memorials there are to the prisoners, POWs and Chinese Civilians they experimented on.
https://www.pacificatrocities.org/human-experimentation.html (for just a start).
There's something of a parallel with the furious denial some have that we need properly to consider our slavery legacy.
This isn't about election law - as I noted upthread. As if Trump gave a shit anyway.Trump is going to be really pissed when he finds out Farage is a UK politician.I thought the same. To make it worse Farage correctly files the fact that he had his flights and accommodation paid for in his declaration of money received from outside interests so according to Trump slam dunk illegal.
Still people ignore the facts.
I give a fuck. I'm entirely unimpressed by the government putting all tax rises on private sector workers and pensions, whilst shielding the impact for those who work for the State.Labour single out the public sector for special treatment again:Who gives a fuck? I thought you would support measures that would save the public sector money - what is the point of the Government levying taxes on itself?
"Public-sector workers will be shielded from Rachel Reeves’s plans to mount a tax raid on employers’ pension contributions, while those in the private sector face lower wages and less money in retirement.
It would cost the government an estimated £5 billion, which means that the rise will fall entirely on businesses and, ultimately, private-sector workers. Experts said that employees would have less generous pensions and companies could also absorb costs by reducing future pay rises."
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/rachel-reeves-to-protect-public-sector-workers-from-tax-raid-0n25hxkgg
Officer who shot Chris Kaba likely to face gross misconduct chargesIt's absolutely disgusting the way he's been treated. Found not guilty by a jury based on the evidence so now the Met try to do him by the back door. No doubt he'll get zero support from the government as they'll be livid that the jury had the temerity to tell the CPS to get fucked with their trumped up bullshit.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/chris-kaba-shooting-martyn-blake-police-officer-hfkvsxjqk