Best Of

Andrew Neil becoming more out of touch by the day.

"Just because of Trump doesn't make people in the UK think less of America"

Try asking the airlines.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pWZqoRnWRA

I can perhaps guess at what Andrew Neil sort of means here, perhaps - we still massively consume American culture (and swim in a culturally mainly American sea), and American products, many people like the idea of America, of holidays there, there are American people we like, etc - but I'd be very surprised if he isn't measurably wrong. (Maybe @HYUFD has some polling). The vast majority of people, I suspect, have nudged a little further in the anti direction from wherever they were three years ago on the pro/anti American spectrum. There is a graphic I have been hunting for and cannot find of how well-regarded every country is in the world*, showing America dropping 15 places from 30th to 45th in a year - and this data merely reflects Trump becoming president and not any of the mental shite he has donein the past 6 months. I will post it later if I can find it but I am mid-commute.
You don't have to be as firmly on one side in the Middle East conflict as Roger is to think America has made a right bollocks of this.

On a happier note, my tram ride has just been interrupted by the arrival of a panicked pigeon erroneously boarding at Piccadilly Gardens: impressed to report that a gifted passenger was able to calmy usher the pigeon off without any harm being done.

*FWIW, the UK was about 18th, about equal with France and Germany. As you'd expect, Nordics came top.

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Tice pitches that people should pay the minimum possible Tax, to cover up his own nefarious activities.

Whether they break the Law or not, Tax avoidance is as bad as Tax evasion in my eyes and always has been.

Tice may need to explain to his core vote the C and D categories who will rely more on public services than most, that by choice he will be destroying any concept of public services

That in part defines a reason why well off and wealthy do lean left and vote left. It is because we believe in equality of opportunity irrespective of what we were born in to, the polar opposite of the silver spoon brigade, but that wealth earned should be distributed via tax to the less well off, and inherited wealth should certainly be more equally distributed.

That does not allow the NEET state Boris, Truss and Sunak created however.

I will take to my grave my time spent in Sweden when Olaf Palme was in power, a high tax, world class public service system that rewarded enterprise and deliver hope and prosperity. A generation who glady contributed to the wonderful services provided by the State for the benefit of everyone.

One assumes you don't have an ISA then.

No never had one, never will have one.

Some of us have ethics

(FPT) OK, I now believe this is a wind up account.

Of course it is! The account has done nothing else but trash talk Kemi Badenoch for weeks on end. No-one can be that single minded, (our dear Hyufd excluded of course).

I say what I think aboutvBadenoch

I praise other Tories, current and past.

Badenoch is a gibshite with an aggression issue who is not fit to lead any Party.

Well you're not a real person, and if I'm wrong and you are then that's pretty horrible for you really.

Others on here know I'm a real person otherwise I'd be the best fucking AI bot ever created.

I for one, can vouch that @Brixian59 is entirely real, and it's been real for ages

It's not you again, it it ?

We are all Leon.

Except @Leon

Tice pitches that people should pay the minimum possible Tax, to cover up his own nefarious activities.

Whether they break the Law or not, Tax avoidance is as bad as Tax evasion in my eyes and always has been.

Tice may need to explain to his core vote the C and D categories who will rely more on public services than most, that by choice he will be destroying any concept of public services

That in part defines a reason why well off and wealthy do lean left and vote left. It is because we believe in equality of opportunity irrespective of what we were born in to, the polar opposite of the silver spoon brigade, but that wealth earned should be distributed via tax to the less well off, and inherited wealth should certainly be more equally distributed.

That does not allow the NEET state Boris, Truss and Sunak created however.

I will take to my grave my time spent in Sweden when Olaf Palme was in power, a high tax, world class public service system that rewarded enterprise and deliver hope and prosperity. A generation who glady contributed to the wonderful services provided by the State for the benefit of everyone.

Tax avoidance is legal.
Tax evasion is a crime.

Legal behaviour is not as bad as criminal behaviour and never has been.

If you don't want tax avoidance to happen, then change the law.

If taxes are complicated with exemptions then people will minimise tax by engaging in lawful avoidance, which is the system the politicians have created.

Flatter, simpler taxes without exemptions paid equitably by all are the way to go, but that requires simplifying our tax code.

But the accusation Neidle has made, AIUI, is that Tice is evading not avoiding.

Highly aggressive tax planning actually and the journalist who wrote the article, which Neidle assisted on, stated it was Avoidance.

https://x.com/gabriel_pogrund/status/2032951446593786219?s=61

I stand (well, sit with a cat on my lap) corrected.

Neidle appears to be phrasing his words to say the most accusatory thing he can without actually quite saying evading. Presumably out of concern of litigation.

Tice pitches that people should pay the minimum possible Tax, to cover up his own nefarious activities.

Whether they break the Law or not, Tax avoidance is as bad as Tax evasion in my eyes and always has been.

Tice may need to explain to his core vote the C and D categories who will rely more on public services than most, that by choice he will be destroying any concept of public services

That in part defines a reason why well off and wealthy do lean left and vote left. It is because we believe in equality of opportunity irrespective of what we were born in to, the polar opposite of the silver spoon brigade, but that wealth earned should be distributed via tax to the less well off, and inherited wealth should certainly be more equally distributed.

That does not allow the NEET state Boris, Truss and Sunak created however.

I will take to my grave my time spent in Sweden when Olaf Palme was in power, a high tax, world class public service system that rewarded enterprise and deliver hope and prosperity. A generation who glady contributed to the wonderful services provided by the State for the benefit of everyone.

Tax avoidance is legal.
Tax evasion is a crime.

Legal behaviour is not as bad as criminal behaviour and never has been.

If you don't want tax avoidance to happen, then change the law.

If taxes are complicated with exemptions then people will minimise tax by engaging in lawful avoidance, which is the system the politicians have created.

Flatter, simpler taxes without exemptions paid equitably by all are the way to go, but that requires simplifying our tax code.

Tax avoidance and tax evasion are plainly not the same thing. One is legal use of rules Parliament wrote, the other is breaking them. Pretending they are morally identical is just sloganeering for people who can’t be bothered with detail.

That said, “legal” is not the same as “defensible”, especially for politicians who like to wrap themselves in flag, family and ordinary taxpayer cosplay while using structures most ordinary taxpayers will never see in their lives.

So the right test is fairly simple:
if Tice acted lawfully, then it isn’t evasion;
if the structure was artificial and didn’t meet the rules, HMRC should flatten him;
and if he wants to preach about how everyone should minimise tax, he can also explain which services he’d cut for the voters he claims to represent.

Struggling to see how anyone cannot agree Ed M is absolutely right about the need to get off fossil fuels and onto nuclear and renewables as soon as possible.

He is right, Horse, but he is also Ed Milliband and should not be allowed anywhere near 10 Downing Street.

I'm not sure why this is a struggle for Horse. There is no gain to be made in forcing the public and companies to adopt renewables (especially shit ones) via punitive measures, whilst also importing from countries that pollute big. It rewards polluters by off-shoring our economy to them.

China has done the opposite - used the cheapest, dirtiest fuels, widened its lead over Western economies (especially the British economy - in the 90s we actually used to manufacture solar panels), and is no using renewables in a considered way where it makes economical sense. Do they face a storm of invectice from us for taking that approach? Nope. Instead UK greenies like ours here coo and gush about the amazing strides they've made in 'emissions increases decelerating' like parents admiring a shit picture by their child.

We should do the same. Use fossil fules to power our economy, our technological growth, and our transition away from fossile fuels, in good time.

UK produced crude enters the international market. It would help the Exchequer in taxation terms but does not give us any greater self determination for our energy security. When the wind blows and the sun shines we generate good old British electricity for our own consumption. This is sovereign electricity.

UK oil is sold at the global price, and yes, helps increase the tax take and get us out of debt. Gas is priced locally.

Wind and Sun isn't sovereign, unless you mean the sovereign wealth funds of Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Norway and Spain.

Gas is priced locally - um it's not, it's priced on a global market which is why you will find filled LNG containers changing destination fairly often...

So why would they change destinations if the price was the same across the world?

A wholly disingenuous interpretation of the post you're answering. As a free marketeer you should know that a "global market" does not mean that prices are the same throughout the world! I learned on PB itself that LNG tankers are chartered on the "spot market," so their cargo isn't always locked into a fixed destination by long-term contract. If prices surge in one region after a ship sails, say, a cold snap in Europe suddenly drives up gas prices, the cargo becomes far more valuable there than at the original destination. The owner or cargo trader can pocket the difference by diverting mid-voyage.

Much of the world's LNG is bought and sold by commodity traders who actively look for price discrepancies between markets. A ship at sea is essentially a floating warehouse, and redirecting it is standard.

Many LNG contracts are "free on board"/"destination-flexible". This explicitly gives the buyer the right to send the cargo wherever they want, unlike older long-term contracts had strict destination clauses. As alluded to above, this became highly visible during in 2021–2022 when dozens of LNG tankers headed to Asia were diverted to Europe mid-voyage because European gas prices spiked above Asian prices.