Best Of

JD Vance criticizes “American leaders” who pick a side in the war in Ukraine:

“Unfortunately, you got a lot of American leaders who like to beat their chest and say; this [Ukraine] is the good guy and this [Russia] is the bad guy.”
https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1941304164119953667

We should beat his head whilst telling him "Ukraine is the good guy".

That might just get through.

Its 1940. JD vance posts “Unfortunately, you got a lot of American leaders who like to beat their chest and say; this [Britain] is the good guy and this [Gemrany] is the bad guy.”

There are Americans who think FDR was lulled into the war by Churchill's oratory and British propaganda.

ETA critics of Priti Patel's personal foreign policy should remember that FDR was in communication with Churchill before he became Prime Minister.

Including the US Ambassador to the UK, one Joe Kennedy.

I still can't see Basildon voters being that bothered about how much Mcmurdock borrowed for his businesses in lockdown.

If there was a recall petition and by election in his Basildon and South Thurrock seat I suspect Reform would hold it even if McMurdock was the candidate

You seem to have (although in fairness it is your view of Basildon voters rather than yourself) an unbalanced moral compass. I appear to to be a tax avoider by having ISAs (I forgot to mention I also have premium bonds as well, what a tax avoiding bastard I am) but alleged criminal activity (presumably alleged fraud) is, well, ok.

Bear in mind there is no by election if he is innocent so the scenario of Basildon voters not minding only applies if he isn't.

You spent ages whittering on about how you would keep your WFA without recognising the only reason you did is you albeit legally minimised your tax through ISAs to keep your income below the threshold of taxable income where WFA is removed.

He would need to be convicted and given a jail sentence of over 1 year to be removed as an MP or any jail term, even if suspended, for a recall petition.

I suspect most Basildon voters opposed any lockdown at all and certainly couldn't care less about amounts borrowed to keep businesses going through it. On current polls it would be an easy Reform hold with increased majority

Your first sentence is completely wrong. You have put the cart before the horse and it is mindboggling you can't see it and ISAs are only a trivial part of it.

I have made no attempt to avoid tax

I was not entitled to WFA after the budget because I didn't claim benefits. The U turn that was made means I will now get it when I really shouldn't. That is why I object to the U turn and why I will give it away (if I were a tax avoider I wouldn't do that would I?)

I did nothing whatsoever to get the WFA. It was the Government that made the change, not me.


Here is the list of the so called tax aviodance schemes you seem to think I have taken out:

- I have bought a house and a holiday home which generate no revenue therefore no tax (CGT on sale though)

- I have a drawdown pension that I entirely paid for, but which will give me 25% tax free like everyone else

- I have a relatively small amount in ISAa and Premium bonds which are tax free (the ISAs represent just 2% of my wealth)

- I have shares and saving the dividends and interest on which I pay tax.

Now pray tell me where I have contrived to avoid tax. At least you have ameliorated your accusations now, but you really shouldn't carry on with this nonsense. Buying a home, taking out a pension, taking out ISAs are normal stuff and not some clever tax avoidance so you should not accuse someone who does it as a tax avoider. It is uncalled for.

In addition I did not do it to get the WFA as the change in WFA has clearly just happened.

There will be a huge number of well off pensioners in my position who will now be getting it and who shouldn't.

It isn't a good look to accuse people of stuff like this and smacks of jealousy


PS If I don't give it away my wife definitely will as she is a lot angrier about it.

PPS 'whittering on about it' - How many posts did you make?

WFA is not being given to anyone with taxable income over £35,000 even after the U turn.

The only reason you are still getting it is because of all the tax free schemes you use.

Yes you could send it back to the Treasury but for them to try and trace all the tax free income and wealth the likes of you have to deprive you of your WFA would cost far more in admin costs than it would save, as I already told you

Govt definition - Tax avoidance involves bending the rules of the tax system to try to gain a tax advantage that Parliament never intended.

Parliament clearly intend ISAs and pensions to work in the way that they are used.

Doesn't stop the likes of kjh giving back their WFA if their use of such legal tax avoidance keeps them under the WFA taxable income threshold

We discussed this last:

a) I will give it to charity

b) What about all the thousands and thousands of others who won't who should not be getting it?

And I didn't use and f***ing tax avoidance schemes did I?

Tax avoidance has really negative connotations, you should use the more benign term ‘tax minimisation strategies.’

The advice given to me is to use "mitigation".

Though I'm not sure it is the exact definition we are after.

"Tax planning" is on the face of it neutral, though I've never met anyone who "planned" to pay more tax than necessary.

Terrorists teaching prisoners how to make bombs


The Telegraph is concerned by the rising threat posed by Islamist prisoners, and so is everyone's favourite social media star:-

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said: “Extremists and career criminals now operate with near impunity inside some of this country’s highest-security prisons.

“That is a complete failure of leadership – and a dangerous abdication of one of the state’s core duties: maintaining order behind bars.

“When Islamist terrorists and organised crime figures are left to forge alliances, we aren’t just witnessing a security lapse – we’re watching a national threat incubate in plain sight. This cannot be allowed to continue.”

There is also a helpful graph to demonstrate this rising threat but can anyone spot an anomaly the Telegraph and Rob J have both missed?



Non-paywalled gift link
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/469148674f565da0

The Buddhists are surprisingly violent.

As the Rohingya found out!

As did the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

This seems a reasonable proposition.
What are the arguments against ?

Today, I've written the foreword to a new @LabourTogether & @BritishProgress report asking the question - how can we get Heathrow expansion off the ground rapidly & democratically?

The answer: pass a public bill through Parliament within a year.
https://x.com/Dan4Barnet/status/1942114934789194079

He makes the point that despite the government committing to major national projects like Sizewell, or Heathrow, they can then be tied up in planning, and judicial reviews, for at least half a decade, often longer.

Parliament could cut that time to a year simply by voting on a bill in favour of a particular project.
Is there any good reason that should not happen ?

As I understand it, that's how the Victorian Railway and Canal Bills worked - in those days the courts challenging Parliament was pretty rare, and the courts said that an Act of Parliament was The Law.

So it was pretty much primary legislation. Nearly all the bunfights and deals were done before the Acts passed.

These days, it would be taken as a massive Attack On Legal Freedom. The Enquiry Industrial Complex is worth many billions.

Can I just point out that anyone saying merging NI with income tax is straight doesn’t understand the complexity.

Last year the Government tried to change how agency workers get paid - their approach has now been scrapped because the impact would have lead to a 2 year delay for the software companies to implement

So because it wasn’t implemented immediately doing it now would result in it occurring just as the election kicks off

One could take the Blair approach to hereditary lords -

Reduce the employee NI rate to a nominal amount, increase Income Tax by a counterbalancing amount, which would likely be lower than the NI drop in percentage terms, then when the final complex switchover comes it will be a much smaller thing in fiscal terms.

Then we just get even more non contributory welfare than now, an absolute disaster when most OECD nations already fund unemployment benefits and healthcare far more by social insurance than we do

Pretty much all our welfare is already non-contributory anyway, so no there is no more, just your vapid lack of understanding.

There is absolutely no, that I know of, welfare in this country that is only available if you've actually made contributions.

Even "new-style" "contributory" JSA you can be eligible for with "contributions" of £0.00 if you were earning more than the Lower Earnings Limit but less than the Primary Threshold.

No it isn't, as I said JSA can only be claimed if you have worked as an employee and have paid NI contributions or credits for the last 2 to 3 years. Otherwise you can only get UC.

We are already one of the most welfare dependent nations on earth, in most nations unemployment benefits can only be claimed through social insurance contributions (sometimes as in the US and Canada and Poland with no other fall basic social benefit fall back). Most nations also fund their healthcare through social insurance not tax.

We should be moving towards a more contributory system rather than the welfare dependency culture you want

If you make £150 per week then have you made contributions? How much are those contributions?

Any contributions made as an employee count

And how much is the total amount of contribution that is being made?

Do you even know how to work it out?

Yes I know you want non contributory ever lasting welfare for all, you are even worse than the Labour backbench rebels!

No, I don't. We already have it!

You are the ignorant one who believes that we have contributory welfare.

What "contributions" is someone earning £150 a week actually making, in pounds and pence, and are they entitled to JSA?

The problem is you are pontificating on stuff you don't understand.

To a limited extent we do. As I said you can't get JSA now without having been an employee and making an NI contribution.

We need even more. In the US and most OECD nations if you haven't contributed in social insurance as an employee you get ZERO unemployment benefits at all. Some don't even have a social assistance fall back like we do in UC either.

Most nations also fund their healthcare through social insurance primarily not tax. You just want dependency welfare everlasting

Bullshit we don't. We have people making a "countribution" of £0.00 and you are counting that as a contribution.

Name any welfare we have that is actually contributory, that requires contributions of £0.01 or above. Anything at all?

Hint: JSA does not require contributions of £0.01 per annum or above.
Hint: Pensions do not require contributions of £0.01 per annum or above.

Yes we do, nobody claiming JSA has not worked as an employee and the vast majority of JSA claimants contributed via class 1 NI contributions.

As I said, you belong on the Labour backbenches with the welfare rebels, such is your commitment to dependency culture benefits rather than contributory welfare

So you believe people whose NI was £0.00 in the past two years would be denied JSA?

You are wrong.

I would be delighted with actually having contributory welfare, but we do not have it today, and you are deluded if you think NI is contributory.

If they had not worked as an employee they would be denied JSA and the vast majority of JSA claimants will have made class 1 NI contributions.

You don't want contributory welfare, even to the limited extend we have it now for most JSA and state pension claimants via NI, hence you want to scrap it.

I am sure a place can be found for you in Corbyn and Sultana's new party where you can scream for everlasting dependency culture and non contributory welfare to your hearts content!

If they have worked as an employee and had NI deductions of £0.00 per annum they're still entitled to the JSA and pension.

I have no desire to scrap any contribution systems that actually exists, but what part of we do not have any contributory welfare are you too thick to understand?

You could merge income tax and NI rates, set all NI tax rates to nil and keep all the "contributions" requirements that we have today.

You scrap NI, you end contributory welfare overnight even the small amount we do have.

JSA would cease to exist as no NI contributions would have been made for it and instead all unemployment claimants would just be on taxpayer funded UC without ever needing to have worked before and been an employee either. The state pension would also just be means tested pensions credit solely funded by tax too.

As I said, you are too leftwing even for Starmer, you belong in Corbyn's new party!

Um no it wouldn’t - the contribution would be based on paying (some) income tax.

But that’s irrelevant because both Bart and myself have pointed out that the point you start qualifying for JSA is well below the point that a worker starts paying any form of income based tax

Any idea on why our usual squad of reporters on ghastly crimes have been so tardy on posting anything about this incident?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj4eq9yelk5o

Not a clue. Do you have a theory?

murders of black people don't tend to feature heavily on the usual alt-right social media feeds

I don't even know what an 'alt right social media feed' is, so I can't comment directly. However, two points: on murders like the one you mention there is usually nothing worthwhile to say as the media print the press release and nothing more is available. So apart from repeating how terrible murder is, which we knew, there isn't anything to add.

Most murders don't get national attention.