Best Of

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.

Basildon is full of small business owners who were fed up enough of lockdown without being punished for getting the funds to stop their businesses going bust during it

If I accept that those people exist will you accept that they aren't "Most Basildon voters" as you originally said?

No, Reform won Basildon even last year

"I suspect most Basildon voters opposed any lockdown". That has nothing to do with Reform winning the election last time because unless I missed something, 2024 was after the COVID lockdowns. The IPSOS Mori poll conducted between 1-3 April 2020 showed 95% support nationally for the first lockdown. Unless Basildon voters were a massive statistical outlier then your statement is wrong.

And the second and the third etc with all the business lockdowns? The amount given to businesses to keep them going won't be a big issue there, Basildon restaurant and newsagent and pub owners won't want HMRC nosing into how much they claimed either

I'm glad you've now changed your original argument that Basildon business owners never supported any lockdown and have now moved onto the second and third. Now why do you think that those who legitimately claimed various COVID relief money wouldn't be annoyed at someone who (If the allegation are proved) did it fraudulently? People were annoyed at the suggestions of lockdown breaking levelled against Boris Johnson precisely because most people adhered to it.

This is a pretty wild story.
I'd be interested in the take of lawyers like @Cyclefree

TikTok and the "Dispensing Power"
https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/165-tiktok-and-the-dispensing-power
On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order that promised not to enforce the statute for 75 days (a period that could be renewed). But it was only after Attorney General Bondi sent letters to various U.S. tech companies some time later that full access to TikTok was restored—letters that, at least at the time, were not made public (or even leaked)...

Late last week, in response to FOIA requests, 21 of those letters were made public. The letters are worth reading in their entirety (in some cases, multiple letters to the same company sent at different times were included). But to summarize the highlights, across those letters, the Attorney General of the United States memorialized some variation of the following three conclusions:

Companies that continue to support the TikTok app are not, in fact, violating the TikTok statute;
The TikTok statute is “properly read” to not “infringe upon . . . core Presidential national security and foreign affairs powers”; and
The Department of Justice is “irrevocably relinquishing any claims the United States might have had” against the recipients of the letters for both previous and ongoing violations of the act....


..The “dispensing” power claimed by pre-18th-century English kings was the power to decide, on an ad hoc basis, which laws could and should be set aside in individual cases—to exempt the King’s favorites not just from the retrospective operation of criminal laws (for which after-the-fact pardons could have the same effect), but from the retrospective and prospective application of civil laws, as well. The idea was that the King could literally “dispense” with application of whichever laws he wanted, for whatever reasons he wanted, in whatever cases he wanted.

One of the centerpieces of the English Bill of Rights, adopted by Parliament in 1689 at the end of the Glorious Revolution (as part of a package of reforms that had both the purpose and effect of pushing England toward a constitutional monarchy), was the express abolition of the dispensing power. And when the U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787, the Take Care Clause of Article II (requiring the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”) was largely understood as a repudiation of any dispensing authority. Indeed, the Supreme Court would reassert that understanding in 1838, noting that a “dispensing power”
"has no countenance for its support in any part of the Constitution, and is asserting a principle which, if carried out in its results to all cases falling within it, would be clothing the President with a power entirely to control the legislation of Congress and paralyze the administration of justice"...

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.

Basildon is full of small business owners who were fed up enough of lockdown without being punished for getting the funds to stop their businesses going bust during it

If I accept that those people exist will you accept that they aren't "Most Basildon voters" as you originally said?

No, Reform won Basildon even last year

"I suspect most Basildon voters opposed any lockdown". That has nothing to do with Reform winning the election last time because unless I missed something, 2024 was after the COVID lockdowns. The IPSOS Mori poll conducted between 1-3 April 2020 showed 95% support nationally for the first lockdown. Unless Basildon voters were a massive statistical outlier then your statement is wrong.

"Legitimate business" owners might be upset about "pretend business" owners borrowing money they didn't meet the criteria for and not paying it back, which AIUI is the allegation.
BBL fraud is just as much fraud as benefit fraud, except it's generally for a larger amount and with greater intent than not correctly declaring an additional hour at Tescos.

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 have even claimed JSA for a short period and only was able to do so as a result of NI contributions made

And if those contributions had totalled zero pounds and zero pence you would have still been entitled to it.

Actually making a contribution, even a single penny, is not actually required.