Best Of

Labour must really be regretting the Runcorn byelection.

If they had put in one more minister day at Runcorn to get 7 extra votes, rather than bottling it, and Sarah Pochin had lost, Reform MPs would be on a trandem rather than in a taxi. Just like the Goodies.

On the header, there's another one this morning - Ref UK Councillor in Kent (for Thanet) hsa been charged with threatening to kill his wife, and has now appeared in court. The Whip was initially suspended at the start of June:

The 37-year-old - who represents the Cliftonville ward in Thanet - appeared at Folkestone Magistrates’ Court today charged with three offences, all of which he denied.

These included making threats to kill his wife on June 1, and a separate charge of sending an offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing message to her on the same day.

It was also alleged between January 1, 2014, and June 1, 2025, he repeatedly or continuously engaged in behaviour which was controlling or coercive.

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet/news/suspended-reform-councillor-appears-in-court-accused-of-thre-326773/

Good news for those of us hoping that the BBC would stop spaffing crazy money on presenters after Gary Lineker left MOTD, the Standard are reporting the Beeb are going to spend the miserly sum of £800,000 for two years to hire the charisma vacuum, half man/half potato Wayne Rooney for his dazzling insight for MOtD.

And do not worry, Wayne isn’t slumming it on £400k a year to host every weekend, just some.

https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/wayne-rooney-bbc-match-day-deal-b1236704.html

£400k a year less than half Lineker's £1 million a year still

There is absolutely zero justification to be paying someone £400k per year of licence fee money to be a pundit on a football highlights show.

Even if he was the second coming of Des Lynam, Ian St John, Graeme Souness, Roy Keane, and Glenn Hoddle rolled into one charismatic insightful person there is seriously no good justification for an hour long show each week, and not even every week in this case.

There are people who write for the Athletic who are able to convey tactical insights at a far greater level and would do it for £10k's a year.

Good news for those of us hoping that the BBC would stop spaffing crazy money on presenters after Gary Lineker left MOTD, the Standard are reporting the Beeb are going to spend the miserly sum of £800,000 for two years to hire the charisma vacuum, half man/half potato Wayne Rooney for his dazzling insight for MOtD.

And do not worry, Wayne isn’t slumming it on £400k a year to host every weekend, just some.

https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/wayne-rooney-bbc-match-day-deal-b1236704.html

£400k a year less than half Lineker's £1 million a year still

There is absolutely zero justification to be paying someone £400k per year of licence fee money to be a pundit on a football highlights show.

Even if he was the second coming of Des Lynam, Ian St John, Graeme Souness, Roy Keane, and Glenn Hoddle rolled into one charismatic insightful person there is seriously no good justification for an hour long show each week, and not even every week in this case.

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.

Since when has complete lack of background knowledge stopped HYUFD posting on a topic?

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

Given the polling about lockdown at the time I think it's highly unlikely that a majority of Basildon voters opposed it. They may oppose it now but that's different. Also, if people do oppose lockdowns then they're going to take an even dimmer view of someone undeservedly profiting from them.

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

I understand the complexity, all changes that are worth doing are generally complex.

I'm not saying merge them without anyone being worse off though, I'm saying merge them so that working people are no worse off, if not better off.

Instead of having a base rate of 20% and NI of 8% you could have a base rate of 28% and working people would be no worse off . . . or have a base rate of eg 27% and have a real terms tax cut for working people while being approximately revenue neutral.

@eek is talking about the Process of having NI. Lots of process to change - lots of jobs will go as a result of this. Whole swathes out accounting software.

Changing to a base rate of 27.9% and an NI rate of 0.1% would be fairly trivial, OTOH

There is a complication in that the thresholds and relative rates used for NICs are different to those for IT, so it's not a straight swap. I have a little model somewhere which would help smooth it out, depending on what criteria you set.

E.g it would push a lot of people over a 50% marginal rate.

The process of simplifying tax will always have winners and losers.

Yes, you'd end up changing the IT rates and thresholds - not just NI +IT. This is where a Labour Chancellor could have finessed even more money.

One reason I've heard given for not merging the taxes, is that it hides real rates from people!

I agree with the sentiment but the point of my model would be that for people with earnings only you would have no winners and losers by developing a ridiculously complex set of thresholds and rates that would allow a merger to have no impact at all.

But it would be better to just have a super simple system that also irons out the weird tax incentives for high earners etc

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

We've just seem how Reform voters feel about being dragged back to vote because the candidate wasn't suitable or stepped down etc, twice
And if he legitimately borrowed Covid funds for his businesses he won't be facing recall anyway, its if he didn't there's a problem.
Reform have not backed him at all, so the chance of him being the Reform candidate in such circumstances are low

It’s a good chance for Reform to field a proper candidate ; McMurdock was a surprise winner last year.

I’m minded to think things like this will be used to good effect in a campaign, and Reform will suffer. Then again, Labour have had an MP suspended for punching a constituent! So they can’t really go in too hard