It's probably unfair to point this out but this is a photo from Sir David Amess's memorial service in Westminister
Boris just looks unwell - that expression reminds me of my Grandfather after 5 years of Parkinson's
I mean he's at the funeral of a friend and colleague who has been murdered and in the company of Mrs May (not to mention John Major)
I think unfair is an understatement don't you?
Nope, look at his face and look at the photos from yesterday - Boris is just drawn / worn out.
Perhaps he never fully recovered from Covid?
Long Covid? Shhhh, can't say them words on here.
In all seriousness I can't tell if he looks unwell or not, his shabby appearance day to day especially with that head of hair makes it difficult.
It's easily one of the hardest, most high pressure jobs you can do so that must take its toll on people who get the top job in the land. So I wouldn't be surprised if Boris is feeling it right now.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
Today I learned, while endlessly prevaricating instead of tackling a difficult flint, that the population of the Ukraine has declined from a peak of 52 million in 1993 to just 41.9 million today (some recent estimates put it down at around 37 million)
That is an incredible fall. A fifth of the country has disappeared in 25 years. If it continues Ukraine will cease to exist in the next century, and will be virtually deserted within a few decades
Bulgaria's has shrunk 30% since 1988 - and that excludes any impact from a separate movement from the countryside into Sofia and the other larger towns.
Yes. People who eulogise the EU forget that the expansion into the East has been calamitous for several countries there, as all their young people vigorously decanted to the richer West, en masse
So why don’t they leave if it is such a calamity?
Because the EU gives them loads of cash
Ukraine isn't part of the EU, this sort of economic movement is inevitable if you can earn more money elsewhere (and have the means to pay for the initial relocation).
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
Nobody pays IHT with an estate under £1 million now if they are a married couple or were a married couple but one partner died.
Nobody pays IHT at all if their estate is under £325,000.
So far fewer estates are affected than care costs which currently every estate worth over £23,250 is liable for
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
It’s the young working poor who are paying to protect the inheritances of the asset rich.
Frankly, the previous settlement was fairer than the scam the government is pushing.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
Nobody pays IHT with an estate under £1 million now if they are a married couple or were a married couple but one partner died.
Nobody pays IHT at all if their estate is under £325,000.
So far fewer estates are affected than care costs which currently every estate worth over £23,250 is liable for
Which is the key point. Having to pay care costs is a lottery at present which oinly some people have to pay, but it hits them hard.
Today I learned, while endlessly prevaricating instead of tackling a difficult flint, that the population of the Ukraine has declined from a peak of 52 million in 1993 to just 41.9 million today (some recent estimates put it down at around 37 million)
That is an incredible fall. A fifth of the country has disappeared in 25 years. If it continues Ukraine will cease to exist in the next century, and will be virtually deserted within a few decades
Bulgaria's has shrunk 30% since 1988 - and that excludes any impact from a separate movement from the countryside into Sofia and the other larger towns.
Yes. People who eulogise the EU forget that the expansion into the East has been calamitous for several countries there, as all their young people vigorously decanted to the richer West, en masse
So why don’t they leave if it is such a calamity?
Because the EU gives them loads of cash
Ukraine isn't part of the EU, this sort of economic movement is inevitable if you can earn more money elsewhere (and have the means to pay for the initial relocation).
Precisely. Only Brexiters attempt to blame the EU for this.
Indeed I recall Poland telling Cameron to piss off when during his failed attempt to renegotiate around EU migration.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
Is it.
Start with £100,000 end little. Start with £1,000,000 end with £900,000.
What's even stupider is that if you allowed the family of the person with £100,000 in assets to inherit some I suspect that extra capital would in a lot of cases allow them to create opportunities and benefits that otherwise wouldn't exist and say allow their children / grandchildren to say go to University or do something else rather than day to day work.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
Yup, that’s about it.
They’re the socialism for the rich party, paid for by the working poor.
They’ve managed to pull off quite the scam in recent years, getting the working poor to vote against their own interests.
Not really, even in 2019 most of those in social housing still voted Labour.
If you are a homeowner whatever the property value then by definition you are not poor
Interesting interview with Michael Osterholm director ofthe Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota:
"TCB: Early on, you used the phrase “we’re gonna have to learn to live with this.” Have we, yet?
Osterholm: Nobody has gotten that far. Denmark is 78 percent vaccinated. They dropped all interventions. Life was normal. But now their cases are going up fast. They’re going to reinstitute restrictions. I just talked to a friend and colleague there yesterday and the amount of anger and wait a minute, you told us this was done, is enormous.
Go three years and if you don’t have any major Covid activity, you’ve probably learned to live with it, but until then you may just be buying a virus holiday. India, 25 percent of its population is vaccinated. They think they’ve won the lottery because they’ve seen little activity since the surge early last summer. [But] they’re going to get hit again."
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
It’s the working poor who are paying to protect the inheritances of the asset rich.
Yes, I agree with that, which is why I have reservations about the cap. Inheritance seems a very strange priority for the tax payer, totally unrelated to need but laden with sentimentality. I would have preferred an option to buy insurance myself.
Today I learned, while endlessly prevaricating instead of tackling a difficult flint, that the population of the Ukraine has declined from a peak of 52 million in 1993 to just 41.9 million today (some recent estimates put it down at around 37 million)
That is an incredible fall. A fifth of the country has disappeared in 25 years. If it continues Ukraine will cease to exist in the next century, and will be virtually deserted within a few decades
Bulgaria's has shrunk 30% since 1988 - and that excludes any impact from a separate movement from the countryside into Sofia and the other larger towns.
Yes. People who eulogise the EU forget that the expansion into the East has been calamitous for several countries there, as all their young people vigorously decanted to the richer West, en masse
So why don’t they leave if it is such a calamity?
Because the EU gives them loads of cash
Ukraine isn't part of the EU, this sort of economic movement is inevitable if you can earn more money elsewhere (and have the means to pay for the initial relocation).
Precisely. Only Brexiters attempt to blame the EU for this.
Indeed I recall Poland telling Cameron to piss off when during his failed attempt to renegotiate around EU migration.
I wonder what Romania and Bulgaria said (Poland is quite unique here as they have a source of labour (Ukraine) that really isn't interested in going elsewhere.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
It’s the working poor who are paying to protect the inheritances of the asset rich.
Yes, I agree with that, which is why I have reservations about the cap. Inheritance seems a very strange priority for the tax payer, totally unrelated to need but laden with sentimentality. I would have preferred an option to buy insurance myself.
That I can certainly find worthy of consideration, as only some of us need care cvosts but all die.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
Is it.
Start with £100,000 end little. Start with £1,000,000 end with £900,000.
What's even stupider is that if you allowed the family of the person with £100,000 in assets to inherit some I suspect that extra capital would in a lot of cases allow them to create opportunities and benefits that otherwise wouldn't exist and say allow their children / grandchildren to say go to University or do something else rather than day to day work.
Tell that to Jess Phillips, who wants her mother's council flat protected.
If you want the asset rich to pay more, the result is that the unlucky few with high care costs will lose everything - right or poor.
There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
It was above all CORBYN.
I loathe Boris. I loathe Brexit. But I loathe Corbyn about a million million million times more.
And I imagine as I think so does perhaps a majority-winning number of reasonably centrist types around the country.
It was above all CORBYN.
You're projecting, I'm analysing.
You would rather that the anti-semitic, Brit-hating, terrorist-loving c**t who you supported was a minor factor in the election result.
But he wasn't.
You replied to my post without reading it. It said that both Johnson and Corbyn were major factors.
I did read it. You are right they were all major factors but the most important one was Corbyn.
But that said I'm sure someone has the evidence to support either your or my point. I tried a mini-google but gave up.
Brexit, for me, since it was the biggest (almost only) issue in its own right and it also impacted positively on Johnson's image and negatively on Corbyn's. Hence it had a massive direct impact and a significant indirect impact. This is to repeat the main point in the post I wrote so I think that needs to be a wrap.
The issue as to why Corbyn was quite so disastrous though was that he was disliked by all sorts, so there was far less room for Labour to gain or hold people who were bothered about Brexit but might cast a vote differently, whichever way they jumped. A significant number of staunch remainers would never vote for him - either because they were generally Tory and viewed him as PM an even more dangerously stupid idea than Brexit or were ex-Labour/floating voters bothered by antisemitism or the extremism it served as a prime example of. It's remarkable in hidsight given the divides on Brexit that there were no Tory to Labour defections given how the significant anti-Brexit minority were basically told to get out of the Tory Party. Except of course it wasn't because someone like David Gauke was never going to endorse Jeremy Corbyn as PM - even as a gamble to get a desired outcome on Brexit.
Disastrously, though he couldn't embrace Brexit to counterbalance that, as why on Earth would a Labour leave/UKIP voter bothered about things like immigration, sovereignty and national prestige, vote for someone whose entire persona and support base was being vocally in opposition to those notions? Even if they turned round and said 'Brexit is great'. So they ended up where they had to be on damage limitation - in part because they had a leader so unpopular he couldn't take his own stance on Brexit and build a coalition around that.
Brutal dictators who end up dying peacefully in their old age, in power or not, dont seem likely to have many regrets about their path. Not if they one way or another avoided most punishment.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
Is it.
Start with £100,000 end little. Start with £1,000,000 end with £900,000.
What's even stupider is that if you allowed the family of the person with £100,000 in assets to inherit some I suspect that extra capital would in a lot of cases allow them to create opportunities and benefits that otherwise wouldn't exist and say allow their children / grandchildren to say go to University or do something else rather than day to day work.
Tell that to Jess Phillips, who wants her mother's council flat protected.
If you want the asset rich to pay more, the result is that the unlucky few with high care costs will lose everything - right or poor.
Um, I want the Dilnot approach implemented so that for the very poorest there is a tapering applied.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
It’s the working poor who are paying to protect the inheritances of the asset rich.
Yes, I agree with that, which is why I have reservations about the cap. Inheritance seems a very strange priority for the tax payer, totally unrelated to need but laden with sentimentality. I would have preferred an option to buy insurance myself.
This is covered in Dilnot.
Basically, there cannot be a market for insurance without a cap.
So the intention is to create a market because the state will insure above the cap, via a scheme of, er, national insurance.
Today I learned, while endlessly prevaricating instead of tackling a difficult flint, that the population of the Ukraine has declined from a peak of 52 million in 1993 to just 41.9 million today (some recent estimates put it down at around 37 million)
That is an incredible fall. A fifth of the country has disappeared in 25 years. If it continues Ukraine will cease to exist in the next century, and will be virtually deserted within a few decades
Bulgaria's has shrunk 30% since 1988 - and that excludes any impact from a separate movement from the countryside into Sofia and the other larger towns.
Yes. People who eulogise the EU forget that the expansion into the East has been calamitous for several countries there, as all their young people vigorously decanted to the richer West, en masse
So why don’t they leave if it is such a calamity?
Because the EU gives them loads of cash
Ukraine isn't part of the EU, this sort of economic movement is inevitable if you can earn more money elsewhere (and have the means to pay for the initial relocation).
Precisely. Only Brexiters attempt to blame the EU for this.
Indeed I recall Poland telling Cameron to piss off when during his failed attempt to renegotiate around EU migration.
lol, no. I know you adore the EU and it can do no wrong, but this really *is* an EU *thing*. It's not "blaming the EU", it is a feature of the EU. Free Movement. The Baltics got depopulated. Poland desperately tried to persuade people to return.
"Poland’s population, however, continued to rise until 1996, since which time it has declined slowly. It was only in 2004, when Poland joined the European Union, that emigration really took off. While most EU countries instituted transitional arrangements, meaning that for several years Poles did not have the freedom to move to or work in them, the UK was a major exception amongst the big countries.
"The numbers who emigrated during this period are stunning. By 2015 there were estimated to be 2.4 million Poles living abroad, most of whom had left since 2004. By 2017 the number of Poles in the UK alone was more than a million."
The Ukraine is a different case, with unique characteristics. Ongoing quasi-war does not help. It is notable that neighbouring Belarus (not in the EU) has a stable population of ~9m. Tho I imagine many of them would love to leave
Today I learned, while endlessly prevaricating instead of tackling a difficult flint, that the population of the Ukraine has declined from a peak of 52 million in 1993 to just 41.9 million today (some recent estimates put it down at around 37 million)
That is an incredible fall. A fifth of the country has disappeared in 25 years. If it continues Ukraine will cease to exist in the next century, and will be virtually deserted within a few decades
Bulgaria's has shrunk 30% since 1988 - and that excludes any impact from a separate movement from the countryside into Sofia and the other larger towns.
Yes. People who eulogise the EU forget that the expansion into the East has been calamitous for several countries there, as all their young people vigorously decanted to the richer West, en masse
So why don’t they leave if it is such a calamity?
Because the EU gives them loads of cash
Ukraine isn't part of the EU, this sort of economic movement is inevitable if you can earn more money elsewhere (and have the means to pay for the initial relocation).
Precisely. Only Brexiters attempt to blame the EU for this.
Indeed I recall Poland telling Cameron to piss off when during his failed attempt to renegotiate around EU migration.
It's perhaps a more profound problem of which the EU itself is just a symptom: the idea that liberal capitalism will lead to a levelling of prosperity and that this is an unalloyed good predominates our thinking, but the results in practice don't fit the theory.
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
Is it.
Start with £100,000 end little. Start with £1,000,000 end with £900,000.
What's even stupider is that if you allowed the family of the person with £100,000 in assets to inherit some I suspect that extra capital would in a lot of cases allow them to create opportunities and benefits that otherwise wouldn't exist and say allow their children / grandchildren to say go to University or do something else rather than day to day work.
Tell that to Jess Phillips, who wants her mother's council flat protected.
If you want the asset rich to pay more, the result is that the unlucky few with high care costs will lose everything - right or poor.
Um, I want the Dilcott approach implemented so that for the very poorest there is a tapering applied.
A 'modest' 2 bed flat will be worth significantly more than £100,000., so it's certainly not protected under Bilnot.
There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
Yes
And remember that brilliant Xmas Election ad with Boris at the door
The best British political ad I've ever seen. Powerful and persuasive, and it relies almost entirely on Boris' charm and charisma. Of recent prime ministers only Blair at his peak could equal that. Imagine Major or Cameron or May trying it on. Cringe
Farooq made a brilliant analogy on the prior thread. Campaigning is like conceiving, Governing is like parenting. Boris is now surrounded by the tedious nappies of political reality (and real nappies, as well). He needs to learn to be a decent Dad, super quick
That was effective but the killer (imo) was him driving a truck through the fake wall in that factory. The wall was the Brexit impasse and he just damn well drove through it and knocked it over, boom, it's gone. For the Brexit election, with most of the country sick and tired of the wrangling, it was perfect. Worth a million words. And it played to his big bear physicality, also it ... oh ffs I can't go on, all true, this stuff, but I just can't be typing any more of it out, it both bugs and bores me at the same time. BoJo gave us Brexit, yes, but a deeper truth is that Brexit gave us BoJo and we're stuck with him until we aren't.
How much of that campaign really brilliance of Boris or spin doctors utilising him effectively with their own brilliant ideas?
And another element in winning elections, making promises people like and reassures them. Surely the simple answer as polls go against you is you didn’t deliver your promises.
Bit of both, I guess. And you're right about promises. Back at GE19 he hadn't had that long as PM to break any. He has now and boy is he on it. The difficulty is to point to one he hasn't broken.
Still, back to the (imo) bad take of GE19 was all or mainly about how bad Jeremy Corbyn was. Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence against this is that when Mrs May fell Labour under JC were polling strongly - then in short order after Johnson took over and framed his desired Brexit narrative the Cons were smashing them. The poll lead then became the 80 seat Con win. How can this be explained if Corbyn was the main driver of it?
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
Is it.
Start with £100,000 end little. Start with £1,000,000 end with £900,000.
What's even stupider is that if you allowed the family of the person with £100,000 in assets to inherit some I suspect that extra capital would in a lot of cases allow them to create opportunities and benefits that otherwise wouldn't exist and say allow their children / grandchildren to say go to University or do something else rather than day to day work.
Tell that to Jess Phillips, who wants her mother's council flat protected.
If you want the asset rich to pay more, the result is that the unlucky few with high care costs will lose everything - right or poor.
Um, I want the Dilcott approach implemented so that for the very poorest there is a tapering applied.
A 'modest' 2 bed flat will be worth significantly more than £100,000., so it's certainly not protected under Bilnot.
Doesn't need to be completely protected, just protected enough that it's not completely regressive (as Boris's current version is).
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
Is it.
Start with £100,000 end little. Start with £1,000,000 end with £900,000.
What's even stupider is that if you allowed the family of the person with £100,000 in assets to inherit some I suspect that extra capital would in a lot of cases allow them to create opportunities and benefits that otherwise wouldn't exist and say allow their children / grandchildren to say go to University or do something else rather than day to day work.
Start with £100k and you end up with £20k, costs effectively capped at £80k. Start with £1m and you end up with £914k. You pay the full whack.
The estates started off unequal and ended unequal because they got a bill. Unlucky, but why should the beneficiaries of the first get more money at the cost of the taxpayer? Their beneficiaries may of course be rich rather than poor. Its irrational.
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating
However as @eek points out, other East European countries have it even worse. And the demographic crunch is spreading....
Whereas Ukraine is probably going to be a net loser from climate change, it is profoundly unwise to treat “Eastern European countries” as one homogeneous lump.
Russia, Poland and the Baltic states for example are looking to be big beneficiaries from climate change. Poland especially looks like it has got a cracking few decades ahead, and that’s even before you factor in the benefits of warming. Be nice to avoid war mind…
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating
However as @eek points out, other East European countries have it even worse. And the demographic crunch is spreading....
Must be some pretty spectacular properties available at very reasonable prices ...
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
Is it.
Start with £100,000 end little. Start with £1,000,000 end with £900,000.
What's even stupider is that if you allowed the family of the person with £100,000 in assets to inherit some I suspect that extra capital would in a lot of cases allow them to create opportunities and benefits that otherwise wouldn't exist and say allow their children / grandchildren to say go to University or do something else rather than day to day work.
Start with £100k and you end up with £20k, costs effectively capped at £80k. Start with £1m and you end up with £914k. You pay the full whack.
The estates started off unequal and ended unequal because they got a bill. Unlucky, but why should the beneficiaries of the first get more money at the cost of the taxpayer? Their beneficiaries may of course be rich rather than poor. Its irrational.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
It’s the working poor who are paying to protect the inheritances of the asset rich.
Yes, I agree with that, which is why I have reservations about the cap. Inheritance seems a very strange priority for the tax payer, totally unrelated to need but laden with sentimentality. I would have preferred an option to buy insurance myself.
The proposed scheme is essentially a compulsory insurance scheme with an £86,000 excess and paid for via general taxation.
That seems like a very large excess, which makes the insurance effectively worthless for many people. Should general taxation be used to buy insurance only for those with assets above £100k?
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
It's quite a similar story across most of Eastern Europe, their young people all left for Germany and the UK. It's quite sad really.
It's a dreadful trifecta of low birth rate, high death rate, and emigration of the people most likely to have children.
Well, there are at least 3-4m mainly young, child bearing aged eastern Europeans living here. Good for our demographic issues. Not so much for the countries they left behind.
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating
However as @eek points out, other East European countries have it even worse. And the demographic crunch is spreading....
Must be some pretty spectacular properties available at very reasonable prices ...
The €1 house in Italy meme is actually a real thing. People do it. Tho if you add in the fees and whatnot, it's more like a few thousand euro. Still a bargain for a great big townhouse in Sicily
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating
However as @eek points out, other East European countries have it even worse. And the demographic crunch is spreading....
Must be some pretty spectacular properties available at very reasonable prices ...
I saw a property in Sofia that was... well, it would have made a very nice embassy on Kensington Place Gardens.
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating
However as @eek points out, other East European countries have it even worse. And the demographic crunch is spreading....
Must be some pretty spectacular properties available at very reasonable prices ...
The €1 house in Italy meme is actually a real thing. People do it. Tho if you add in the fees and whatnot, it's more like a few thousand euro. Still a bargain for a great big townhouse in Sicily
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
It’s the working poor who are paying to protect the inheritances of the asset rich.
Yes, I agree with that, which is why I have reservations about the cap. Inheritance seems a very strange priority for the tax payer, totally unrelated to need but laden with sentimentality. I would have preferred an option to buy insurance myself.
This is covered in Dilnot.
Basically, there cannot be a market for insurance without a cap.
So the intention is to create a market because the state will insure above the cap, via a scheme of, er, national insurance.
I would be delighted to see it but I anticipate either very, very high premiums or a lot of wriggling by the insurers about undisclosed family history, possibly genetic tests etc.
42,484 (+8.7%) and 165 deaths (-5.5%) and 826 admissions (-9.5%)
We had a particularly big specimen date case day on 15th Nov (49,927 cases). Most of that seems to have been reported on 18th Nov (46,807 cases). There are signs since then that cases are declining.
Fingers crossed for the next few days that that happens. Having said that, hospitalisations are coming down at quite a pace. This is the first time since the Summer that the link between cases and hospitalisations seems to have been broken - cases have been going up since almost the start of November but admissions have been declining and continuing to do so since before then.
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating
However as @eek points out, other East European countries have it even worse. And the demographic crunch is spreading....
Must be some pretty spectacular properties available at very reasonable prices ...
The €1 house in Italy meme is actually a real thing. People do it. Tho if you add in the fees and whatnot, it's more like a few thousand euro. Still a bargain for a great big townhouse in Sicily
However, unless you speak fluent Italian it's pretty tough to get work done at a reasonable price and then it's just easier to buy a standard €200-300k place that's ready to live in.
42,484 (+8.7%) and 165 deaths (-5.5%) and 826 admissions (-9.5%)
We had a particularly big specimen date case day on 15th Nov (49,927 cases). Most of that seems to have been reported on 18th Nov (46,807 cases). There are signs since then that cases are declining.
Fingers crossed for the next few days that that happens. Having said that, hospitalisations are coming down at quite a pace. This is the first time since the Summer that the link between cases and hospitalisations seems to have been broken - cases have been going up since almost the start of November but admissions have been declining and continuing to do so since before then.
Boosters for the most vulnerable working. Thank goodness for that.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
Is it.
Start with £100,000 end little. Start with £1,000,000 end with £900,000.
What's even stupider is that if you allowed the family of the person with £100,000 in assets to inherit some I suspect that extra capital would in a lot of cases allow them to create opportunities and benefits that otherwise wouldn't exist and say allow their children / grandchildren to say go to University or do something else rather than day to day work.
Tell that to Jess Phillips, who wants her mother's council flat protected.
If you want the asset rich to pay more, the result is that the unlucky few with high care costs will lose everything - right or poor.
That's bollocks. The inescapable point is that this plan disproportionately protects the wealthy, while taking away a large proportion of the assets of those with more modest assets (and is paid for by a tax increase on incomes). Any government which was even vaguely interested in levelling up would encourage those towards the bottom end of society saving to pass on assets to the next generation.
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating...
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
It’s the working poor who are paying to protect the inheritances of the asset rich.
Yes, I agree with that, which is why I have reservations about the cap. Inheritance seems a very strange priority for the tax payer, totally unrelated to need but laden with sentimentality. I would have preferred an option to buy insurance myself.
The proposed scheme is essentially a compulsory insurance scheme with an £86,000 excess and paid for via general taxation.
That seems like a very large excess, which makes the insurance effectively worthless for many people. Should general taxation be used to buy insurance only for those with assets above £100k?
The majority will not need this kind of care. Of those that do the vast majority will not receive £86K of care. Only those who are unlucky and who have more than £106k of assets really benefit from this. I am not sure I agree with the policy but the uncertainty about all of this has left the care system chronically underfunded over the last 20 years and we may be at the point that some decision, any decision, is better.
42,484 (+8.7%) and 165 deaths (-5.5%) and 826 admissions (-9.5%)
We had a particularly big specimen date case day on 15th Nov (49,927 cases). Most of that seems to have been reported on 18th Nov (46,807 cases). There are signs since then that cases are declining.
Fingers crossed for the next few days that that happens. Having said that, hospitalisations are coming down at quite a pace. This is the first time since the Summer that the link between cases and hospitalisations seems to have been broken - cases have been going up since almost the start of November but admissions have been declining and continuing to do so since before then.
Boosters for the most vulnerable working. Thank goodness for that.
Running the numbers now - the cases were stable/falling slightly for the older groups (in England) and rising for the unvaccinated children.....
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
Is it.
Start with £100,000 end little. Start with £1,000,000 end with £900,000.
What's even stupider is that if you allowed the family of the person with £100,000 in assets to inherit some I suspect that extra capital would in a lot of cases allow them to create opportunities and benefits that otherwise wouldn't exist and say allow their children / grandchildren to say go to University or do something else rather than day to day work.
Tell that to Jess Phillips, who wants her mother's council flat protected.
If you want the asset rich to pay more, the result is that the unlucky few with high care costs will lose everything - right or poor.
Um, I want the Dilcott approach implemented so that for the very poorest there is a tapering applied.
A 'modest' 2 bed flat will be worth significantly more than £100,000., so it's certainly not protected under Bilnot.
You do realise that the current legislation isn't Dilnot ? (& can no one spell his name ?)
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating...
Do those numbers include the loss of Crimea?
Even if they do, look at Bulgaria which doesn't have that issue.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
It’s the working poor who are paying to protect the inheritances of the asset rich.
Yes, I agree with that, which is why I have reservations about the cap. Inheritance seems a very strange priority for the tax payer, totally unrelated to need but laden with sentimentality. I would have preferred an option to buy insurance myself.
This is covered in Dilnot.
Basically, there cannot be a market for insurance without a cap.
So the intention is to create a market because the state will insure above the cap, via a scheme of, er, national insurance.
I would be delighted to see it but I anticipate either very, very high premiums or a lot of wriggling by the insurers about undisclosed family history, possibly genetic tests etc.
Why would the premiums be very high? The total they would have to pay out is the cap of £86K. It's life insurance of that level but with maybe ≈ only a 1/10 chance that they would need to pay at all as not everyone gets dementia and ends up in a care home.
(Assuming the insurance is for the capped care costs and NOT the on-going bed and breakfast costs).
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating
However as @eek points out, other East European countries have it even worse. And the demographic crunch is spreading....
Must be some pretty spectacular properties available at very reasonable prices ...
Houses are an asset if they are part of a functioning society with services. That is clearly a risk factor in some of these countries going forward.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
It’s the working poor who are paying to protect the inheritances of the asset rich.
Yes, I agree with that, which is why I have reservations about the cap. Inheritance seems a very strange priority for the tax payer, totally unrelated to need but laden with sentimentality. I would have preferred an option to buy insurance myself.
The proposed scheme is essentially a compulsory insurance scheme with an £86,000 excess and paid for via general taxation.
That seems like a very large excess, which makes the insurance effectively worthless for many people. Should general taxation be used to buy insurance only for those with assets above £100k?
The majority will not need this kind of care. Of those that do the vast majority will not receive £86K of care. Only those who are unlucky and who have more than £106k of assets really benefit from this. I am not sure I agree with the policy but the uncertainty about all of this has left the care system chronically underfunded over the last 20 years and we may be at the point that some decision, any decision, is better.
How does it fund the care system any better?
So far its £86,000 and then someone else starts paying. We don't know what happens at that point beyond the fact in 2024/5 a lot of councils are going to be paying for adults that were previously paying 100% of the bill.
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
As has always been the case. There has never been a time when older people have been protected from losing their homes. Nor would it be prevented by implementation of Dilnot's primary recommendations.
True, but as HYUFD helpfully shows us passim, the Tories are currently making a big thing of intergenerational wealth transfer, and to tax the poor more highly on that than the rich* is not exactly consistent with Mrs T's original promise.
*before IHT kicks in on anyone who hasn't claimed all the allowances that benefit rich Tory voting southerners disporportionately already, and who hasn't put in place basic avoidance methods.
There is no tax on the poor, if you are poor you won't own a property but will be living in social housing or using housing benefits and all your care costs will still be paid anyway.
The £86,000 care cap applies to all homeowners, rich or poor.
The only other alternative would be to say have a policy where nobody will pay more than 40% of their assets in care costs but that would be an administrative nightmare to administer and very costly
Thinking about this some more, it is all about wealth transfer to the next generation. As Tory party policyt and your own frequent comments make clear.
So it has to be seen in the context also of Tory IHT policy. Which does indeed claim 40% of dutiable assets, at the cost of a fair bit of hassle.
And which is carefully crafted to minimise the effect on home owners in wealthier parts of the UK (because it differentiates between the house and other wealth).
You can't suddenly suggest that complex IHT calculations are acceptable while claiming that similar calculations are impossible for wealth in life.
There is a compelling argument that the cap is a bad thing because it protects the estates of the wealthy from open ended costs. It doesn't do much for the estates of the poor because their resources will be exhausted or at least reduced to £20k after which the state picks up the cost. Similarly, the hotel costs are met on a means tested basis.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
It’s the working poor who are paying to protect the inheritances of the asset rich.
Yes, I agree with that, which is why I have reservations about the cap. Inheritance seems a very strange priority for the tax payer, totally unrelated to need but laden with sentimentality. I would have preferred an option to buy insurance myself.
This is covered in Dilnot.
Basically, there cannot be a market for insurance without a cap.
So the intention is to create a market because the state will insure above the cap, via a scheme of, er, national insurance.
I would be delighted to see it but I anticipate either very, very high premiums or a lot of wriggling by the insurers about undisclosed family history, possibly genetic tests etc.
Why would the premiums be very high? The total they would have to pay out is the cap of £86K. It's life insurance of that level but with maybe ≈ only a 1/10 chance that they would need to pay at all as not everyone gets dementia and ends up in a care home.
(Assuming the insurance is for the capped care costs and NOT the on-going bed and breakfast costs).
Because only those with a significantly higher risk than average will buy it.
The EU has enabled freedom of movement of course, but I see no evidence that the countries themselves are keen to stop freedom of movement, presumably seeing the opportunity for experience in London, Paris or Hamburg as a net benefit for its workforce.
Instead, they seem to be looking at ways to improve fertility for eg paid parental leave etc.
Apart from the Ukraine, the Balkans generally seems to have the worst demography problem even though much of it is not in the EU.
Today I learned, while endlessly prevaricating instead of tackling a difficult flint, that the population of the Ukraine has declined from a peak of 52 million in 1993 to just 41.9 million today (some recent estimates put it down at around 37 million)
That is an incredible fall. A fifth of the country has disappeared in 25 years. If it continues Ukraine will cease to exist in the next century, and will be virtually deserted within a few decades
From the official France Diplomacy account: Foreign Minister @JY_LeDrian claims that @BorisJohnson is a "populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally."
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Most books that I read use the American text for the UK version. on one level it's cost cutting on others it makes perfect sense because we just ignore the Americanised spelling.
From the official France Diplomacy account: Foreign Minister @JY_LeDrian claims that @BorisJohnson is a "populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally."
There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
It was above all CORBYN.
I loathe Boris. I loathe Brexit. But I loathe Corbyn about a million million million times more.
And I imagine as I think so does perhaps a majority-winning number of reasonably centrist types around the country.
It was above all CORBYN.
You're projecting, I'm analysing.
You would rather that the anti-semitic, Brit-hating, terrorist-loving c**t who you supported was a minor factor in the election result.
But he wasn't.
You replied to my post without reading it. It said that both Johnson and Corbyn were major factors.
"You replied to my post without reading it." - saves time for busy, politically polarized (and polarizing) PBers.
Brutal dictators who end up dying peacefully in their old age, in power or not, don't seem likely to have many regrets about their path. Not if they one way or another avoided most punishment.
He was at one point sentenced to death for treason. Should, IMO, have spent the rest of his life in jail.
The EU has enabled freedom of movement of course, but I see no evidence that the countries themselves are keen to stop freedom of movement, presumably seeing the opportunity for experience in London, Paris or Hamburg as a net benefit for its workforce.
Instead, they seem to be looking at ways to improve fertility for eg paid parental leave etc.
Apart from the Ukraine, the Balkans generally seems to have the worst demography problem even though much of it is not in the EU.
The problem is assuming that a country is a monolith.
There are people in Poland who have done very well out of flood of *cash* from people working in "London, Paris or Hamburg".
There are also people who find the resulting inflation in various asset types as people come back and buy the place up problematic.
There are also people who are concerned at the hollowing out of the workforce.
In a way it resembles the house price boom in the UK - lots of winners. Lots of losers.
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating
However as @eek points out, other East European countries have it even worse. And the demographic crunch is spreading....
Must be some pretty spectacular properties available at very reasonable prices ...
The €1 house in Italy meme is actually a real thing. People do it. Tho if you add in the fees and whatnot, it's more like a few thousand euro. Still a bargain for a great big townhouse in Sicily
However, unless you speak fluent Italian it's pretty tough to get work done at a reasonable price and then it's just easier to buy a standard €200-300k place that's ready to live in.
Spot on!
Unless you are outstandingly good at Italian, don’t even try to buy property without a local helper. Even in the north. Sicilia?!? Local helper absolutely obligatory.
And those one Euro deals can be safely ignored. Yes, they are a real thing, but unless you are some kind of cultural and property genius, the experience will age you by 10 years in 12 months. Do you want to look like Boris Johnson?
From the official France Diplomacy account: Foreign Minister @JY_LeDrian claims that @BorisJohnson is a "populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally."
It’s true, but very odd to see this sort of thing from an ostensible ally.
Oh dear, oh dear.
France is not our ally.
What rot - your Francophobia does you no credit.
France is a great country, the French are generally nice people, we have much more in common than divides us, the petty rivalries on both sides are pointless and corrosive.
The EU has enabled freedom of movement of course, but I see no evidence that the countries themselves are keen to stop freedom of movement, presumably seeing the opportunity for experience in London, Paris or Hamburg as a net benefit for its workforce.
Instead, they seem to be looking at ways to improve fertility for eg paid parental leave etc.
Apart from the Ukraine, the Balkans generally seems to have the worst demography problem even though much of it is not in the EU.
The problem is assuming that a country is a monolith.
There are people in Poland who have done very well out of flood of *cash* from people working in "London, Paris or Hamburg".
There are also people who find the resulting inflation in various asset types as people come back and buy the place up problematic.
There are also people who are concerned at the hollowing out of the workforce.
In a way it resembles the house price boom in the UK - lots of winners. Lots of losers.
Sure, but I find it disingenuous for some posters to shake their heads and appeal to the plight of poor Bulgaria to justify Brexit.
In reality, these countries think Brexit is nuts and don’t want @DavidL’s mock sympathy.
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating
However as @eek points out, other East European countries have it even worse. And the demographic crunch is spreading....
Must be some pretty spectacular properties available at very reasonable prices ...
The €1 house in Italy meme is actually a real thing. People do it. Tho if you add in the fees and whatnot, it's more like a few thousand euro. Still a bargain for a great big townhouse in Sicily
However, unless you speak fluent Italian it's pretty tough to get work done at a reasonable price and then it's just easier to buy a standard €200-300k place that's ready to live in.
Spot on!
Unless you are outstandingly good at Italian, don’t even try to buy property without a local helper. Even in the north. Sicilia?!? Local helper absolutely obligatory.
And those one Euro deals can be safely ignored. Yes, they are a real thing, but unless you are some kind of cultural and property genius, the experience will age you by 10 years in 12 months. Do you want to look like Boris Johnson?
Is it racial stereotyping to say that the monthly protection money is probably pretty steep in Sicily?
From the official France Diplomacy account: Foreign Minister @JY_LeDrian claims that @BorisJohnson is a "populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally."
It’s true, but very odd to see this sort of thing from an ostensible ally.
Oh dear, oh dear.
France is not our ally.
What rot - your Francophobia does you no credit.
France is a great country, the French are generally nice people, we have much more in common than divides us, the petty rivalries on both sides are pointless and corrosive.
Time to grow up.
What makes me giggle is that the French political class has been using the "Perfidious Anglo-Saxons did it and ran away" excuse to try and blame internal problems on an external factor since.... a long long time ago...
Pretty much as you were then. Our numbers are not really moving, unlike those on the continent.
As far as I can make out cases in the UK have been increasing since the 5th November, but we're not seeing an increase in hospitalizations yet, where the latest data is a continued decline on the 18th - so perhaps an increase is imminent.
The England data on the dashboard is more recent and shows a continued decline in admissions on the 21st, following a rise in cases since the 5th.
I think the previous trough in admissions we on the 28th September, which was following a trough in cases on the 13th September.
We will see in a few days whether the booster campaign is exerting a downward effect on hospitalizations that is greater than the increase in cases.
From the official France Diplomacy account: Foreign Minister @JY_LeDrian claims that @BorisJohnson is a "populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally."
It’s true, but very odd to see this sort of thing from an ostensible ally.
Oh dear, oh dear.
France is not our ally.
What rot - your Francophobia does you no credit.
France is a great country, the French are generally nice people, we have much more in common than divides us, the petty rivalries on both sides are pointless and corrosive.
Time to grow up.
I'm not a Francophobe, I speak the language, love the food, love holidaying there.
The EU has enabled freedom of movement of course, but I see no evidence that the countries themselves are keen to stop freedom of movement, presumably seeing the opportunity for experience in London, Paris or Hamburg as a net benefit for its workforce.
Instead, they seem to be looking at ways to improve fertility for eg paid parental leave etc.
Apart from the Ukraine, the Balkans generally seems to have the worst demography problem even though much of it is not in the EU.
The problem is assuming that a country is a monolith.
There are people in Poland who have done very well out of flood of *cash* from people working in "London, Paris or Hamburg".
There are also people who find the resulting inflation in various asset types as people come back and buy the place up problematic.
There are also people who are concerned at the hollowing out of the workforce.
In a way it resembles the house price boom in the UK - lots of winners. Lots of losers.
There is a lot of cultural tension between patriotic Poles who stayed at home, and the traitors who buggered off to Paris, Frankfurt, London etc. The emigrants are looked down upon, a bit like gypsies. When they drifted home as Covid and Brexit hit they found they were given short shrift. The patriots are in the ascendancy.
From the official France Diplomacy account: Foreign Minister @JY_LeDrian claims that @BorisJohnson is a "populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally."
It’s true, but very odd to see this sort of thing from an ostensible ally.
Oh dear, oh dear.
France is not our ally.
What rot - your Francophobia does you no credit.
France is a great country, the French are generally nice people, we have much more in common than divides us, the petty rivalries on both sides are pointless and corrosive.
Time to grow up.
What makes me giggle is that the French political class has been using the "Perfidious Anglo-Saxons did it and ran away" excuse to try and blame internal problems on an external factor since.... a long long time ago...
All politicians want someone else to blame.
See in particular Nicola Sturgeon and Scotland who use the UK government everytime anything goes wrong in Scotland.
WATCH: Labour’s Shadow NI Secretary tells me that if there was a referendum on a united Ireland that the British government and British political parties should not campaign for the Union “if there is a border poll, we should remain neutral”
Blair publicly supported the union. Starmer has said he would campaign for the union in a border poll. But such is the facile level of understanding about the Good Friday Agreement it is now assumed the UK is the only state in the world that cannot campaign for its own existence.
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating
However as @eek points out, other East European countries have it even worse. And the demographic crunch is spreading....
Must be some pretty spectacular properties available at very reasonable prices ...
The €1 house in Italy meme is actually a real thing. People do it. Tho if you add in the fees and whatnot, it's more like a few thousand euro. Still a bargain for a great big townhouse in Sicily
However, unless you speak fluent Italian it's pretty tough to get work done at a reasonable price and then it's just easier to buy a standard €200-300k place that's ready to live in.
Spot on!
Unless you are outstandingly good at Italian, don’t even try to buy property without a local helper. Even in the north. Sicilia?!? Local helper absolutely obligatory.
And those one Euro deals can be safely ignored. Yes, they are a real thing, but unless you are some kind of cultural and property genius, the experience will age you by 10 years in 12 months. Do you want to look like Boris Johnson?
Is it racial stereotyping to say that the monthly protection money is probably pretty steep in Sicily?
Northern Europeans are not expected to pay protection money. Harassment is not our problem. Our problem is that we look like, and sound like, total mugs, and are treated accordingly.
The Scottish tourist industry has for decades done exactly the same thing selling tartan junk to American mugs. It is very hard to say no to free meals.
WATCH: Labour’s Shadow NI Secretary tells me that if there was a referendum on a united Ireland that the British government and British political parties should not campaign for the Union “if there is a border poll, we should remain neutral”
Blair publicly supported the union. Starmer has said he would campaign for the union in a border poll. But such is the facile level of understanding about the Good Friday Agreement it is now assumed the UK is the only state in the world that cannot campaign for its own existence.
Pretty much as you were then. Our numbers are not really moving, unlike those on the continent.
As far as I can make out cases in the UK have been increasing since the 5th November, but we're not seeing an increase in hospitalizations yet, where the latest data is a continued decline on the 18th - so perhaps an increase is imminent.
The England data on the dashboard is more recent and shows a continued decline in admissions on the 21st, following a rise in cases since the 5th.
I think the previous trough in admissions we on the 28th September, which was following a trough in cases on the 13th September.
We will see in a few days whether the booster campaign is exerting a downward effect on hospitalizations that is greater than the increase in cases.
It clearly is, otherwise the rise in cases would have resulted in more hospital admissions rather than less. The link between infection and hospitalisation has been significantly weakened, almost broken. It is a public health triumph that we don't appreciate enough.
WATCH: Labour’s Shadow NI Secretary tells me that if there was a referendum on a united Ireland that the British government and British political parties should not campaign for the Union “if there is a border poll, we should remain neutral”
Blair publicly supported the union. Starmer has said he would campaign for the union in a border poll. But such is the facile level of understanding about the Good Friday Agreement it is now assumed the UK is the only state in the world that cannot campaign for its own existence.
There does seem to be a global movement away the countryside and towards the cities.
We don’t really see this in the U.K. much - maybe parts of Scotland? - but it’s a big issue across most of Europe.
Maybe Covid will stall this somewhat?
Highlands* and Scottish Borders Regions have seen modest but real increases in population over the last two decades (didn't check back further).
PS Had a thought - but no, not entirely due to growth of Inverness (real as it is).
Rural to urban migration is still a huge social shift in Sweden. The three big cities are growing at an astonishing rate, whereas many rural areas are being reduced to just elderly people.
Personal statement - yesterday got my copy of "The British General Election of 2019" which was published just this past spring.
Cover photo features Boris Johnson wearing a sly grin (composite of Benny Hill & Alfred E. Neuman?) and a "Get Brexit Done' apron, and carrying what appears to be a casserole of some sort (perhaps an old Etonian favorite such as "badgers in a trap" or somesuch?) fresh from the (Brexit) oven.
My copy is paperback fully 1.5 inches thick, 659 pages. Chock full of both nuts (for example Nigel Farage), facts and analysis until the cows (or the chickens?) come home.
For me only downside is the choice of cartoons used as illustrations/examples, as I do NOT like as general rule complex, multi-color, often downright nasty and/or macabre efforts in faux Gilray-Stedman style. Much prefer the work of Marf and Matt - much more in the spirit of Low humor!
FYI, am now the proud possessor of all 21 editions of "The British General Election" series from 1945 forward, if you are not familiar with them, check them out!
From the official France Diplomacy account: Foreign Minister @JY_LeDrian claims that @BorisJohnson is a "populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally."
It’s true, but very odd to see this sort of thing from an ostensible ally.
Oh dear, oh dear.
France is not our ally.
What rot - your Francophobia does you no credit.
France is a great country, the French are generally nice people, we have much more in common than divides us, the petty rivalries on both sides are pointless and corrosive.
Time to grow up.
I'm not a Francophobe, I speak the language, love the food, love holidaying there.
You slip into Boris-lite mode too often when referring to the French for me to believe you are being ironic (same thing regards Wales and the Welsh).
It does you no credit, and I say that as a strong admirer of the majority of your views and posts.
WATCH: Labour’s Shadow NI Secretary tells me that if there was a referendum on a united Ireland that the British government and British political parties should not campaign for the Union “if there is a border poll, we should remain neutral”
Blair publicly supported the union. Starmer has said he would campaign for the union in a border poll. But such is the facile level of understanding about the Good Friday Agreement it is now assumed the UK is the only state in the world that cannot campaign for its own existence.
I think the best policy is not to campaign... let the people of NI decide.
Do you think the Irish government will follow your advice?
Yep - because any sane Irish Government would be doing it's best to avoid having to support the basket case that is the Northern Irish economy and it can't campaign for it's silently preferred option of Never, Never, Never.
WATCH: Labour’s Shadow NI Secretary tells me that if there was a referendum on a united Ireland that the British government and British political parties should not campaign for the Union “if there is a border poll, we should remain neutral”
Blair publicly supported the union. Starmer has said he would campaign for the union in a border poll. But such is the facile level of understanding about the Good Friday Agreement it is now assumed the UK is the only state in the world that cannot campaign for its own existence.
I think the best policy is not to campaign... let the people of NI decide.
I find that argument so strange though, because it connects two things which are not connected - the people of NI would decide either way, whether or not there is campaigning by UK political parties, their choice to do so or not does not affect it being NI's decision.
Yes it is for the people of NI to decide, but people outside NI are allowed to have a view and to seek to persuade the people of NI of that view, there's nothing odd or unreasonable about that - people in ROI and the rUK would not have a vote, but are absolutely relevant to the choice people in NI would be making.
Just because it is for X to decide doesn't mean Y cannot or should not comment, yet the clear implication from such arguments is that it is untoward somehow, as if it is diminishing the decision making of X.
On the contrary, it enhances the decision making of X. If, say, there was an overwhelming view in ROI or rUK that they did not want NI to be joined with them, that might well be relevant to some.
The EU has enabled freedom of movement of course, but I see no evidence that the countries themselves are keen to stop freedom of movement, presumably seeing the opportunity for experience in London, Paris or Hamburg as a net benefit for its workforce.
Instead, they seem to be looking at ways to improve fertility for eg paid parental leave etc.
Apart from the Ukraine, the Balkans generally seems to have the worst demography problem even though much of it is not in the EU.
The problem is assuming that a country is a monolith.
There are people in Poland who have done very well out of flood of *cash* from people working in "London, Paris or Hamburg".
There are also people who find the resulting inflation in various asset types as people come back and buy the place up problematic.
There are also people who are concerned at the hollowing out of the workforce.
In a way it resembles the house price boom in the UK - lots of winners. Lots of losers.
There is a lot of cultural tension between patriotic Poles who stayed at home, and the traitors who buggered off to Paris, Frankfurt, London etc. The emigrants are looked down upon, a bit like gypsies. When they drifted home as Covid and Brexit hit they found they were given short shrift. The patriots are in the ascendancy.
There is also issues with people coming home, buying up a huge parcel of land and build huge, ugly houses. For example.
In some areas, house price inflation is pushing out the "local" locals... Sound familiar?
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
From the official France Diplomacy account: Foreign Minister @JY_LeDrian claims that @BorisJohnson is a "populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally."
It’s true, but very odd to see this sort of thing from an ostensible ally.
Oh dear, oh dear.
France is not our ally.
What rot - your Francophobia does you no credit.
France is a great country, the French are generally nice people, we have much more in common than divides us, the petty rivalries on both sides are pointless and corrosive.
Time to grow up.
What makes me giggle is that the French political class has been using the "Perfidious Anglo-Saxons did it and ran away" excuse to try and blame internal problems on an external factor since.... a long long time ago...
All politicians want someone else to blame.
See in particular Nicola Sturgeon and Scotland who use the UK government everytime anything goes wrong in Scotland.
Yup, hence her new name in the Yoon-Twitterverse - #ElsieMcSelfie
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
From the official France Diplomacy account: Foreign Minister @JY_LeDrian claims that @BorisJohnson is a "populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally."
It’s true, but very odd to see this sort of thing from an ostensible ally.
Oh dear, oh dear.
France is not our ally.
What rot - your Francophobia does you no credit.
France is a great country, the French are generally nice people, we have much more in common than divides us, the petty rivalries on both sides are pointless and corrosive.
Time to grow up.
I'm not a Francophobe, I speak the language, love the food, love holidaying there.
You slip into Boris-lite mode too often when referring to the French for me to believe you are being ironic (same thing regards Wales and the Welsh).
It does you no credit, and I say that as a strong admirer of the majority of your views and posts.
Agreed. It's absolutely pathetic stuff from Eagles.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
From the admittedly few scandi-dramas I have seen when they speak English they sound pretty american to me.
Personal statement - yesterday got my copy of "The British General Election of 2019" which was published just this past spring.
Cover photo features Boris Johnson wearing a sly grin (composite of Benny Hill & Alfred E. Neuman?) and a "Get Brexit Done' apron, and carrying what appears to be a casserole of some sort (perhaps an old Etonian favorite such as "badgers in a trap" or somesuch?) fresh from the (Brexit) oven.
My copy is paperback fully 1.5 inches thick, 659 pages. Chock full of both nuts (for example Nigel Farage), facts and analysis until the cows (or the chickens?) come home.
For me only downside is the choice of cartoons used as illustrations/examples, as I do NOT like as general rule complex, multi-color, often downright nasty and/or macabre efforts in faux Gilray-Stedman style. Much prefer the work of Marf and Matt - much more in the spirit of Low humor!
FYI, am now the proud possessor of all 21 editions of "The British General Election" series from 1945 forward, if you are not familiar with them, check them out!
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Doesn't TSE say 'stepmom'? He's not from Brum is he, or do I misremember?
@Leon, those Ukraine demographic statistics are horrendous.
Yes, the equivalent in the UK would be our population falling from 67 million to about 50 million in the next 25 years. Twice the population of London: disappearing. In one generation. Remarkable and desolating...
Do those numbers include the loss of Crimea?
I believe so, there is a sudden drop around the time of the annexation. However it was falling hard before that, and it has continued to fall, hard, ever since
Pretty bleak outlook for Ukraine. It is also a negative feedback loop. The more young people leave the less viable the economy becomes, the fewer the opportunities, the villages are dead and the cities become sadder, and so even more people run away...
From the official France Diplomacy account: Foreign Minister @JY_LeDrian claims that @BorisJohnson is a "populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally."
It’s true, but very odd to see this sort of thing from an ostensible ally.
Oh dear, oh dear.
France is not our ally.
What rot - your Francophobia does you no credit.
France is a great country, the French are generally nice people, we have much more in common than divides us, the petty rivalries on both sides are pointless and corrosive.
Time to grow up.
I'm not a Francophobe, I speak the language, love the food, love holidaying there.
You slip into Boris-lite mode too often when referring to the French for me to believe you are being ironic (same thing regards Wales and the Welsh).
It does you no credit, and I say that as a strong admirer of the majority of your views and posts.
Agreed. It's absolutely pathetic stuff from Eagles.
WATCH: Labour’s Shadow NI Secretary tells me that if there was a referendum on a united Ireland that the British government and British political parties should not campaign for the Union “if there is a border poll, we should remain neutral”
Blair publicly supported the union. Starmer has said he would campaign for the union in a border poll. But such is the facile level of understanding about the Good Friday Agreement it is now assumed the UK is the only state in the world that cannot campaign for its own existence.
I think the best policy is not to campaign... let the people of NI decide.
Do you think the Irish government will follow your advice?
I suspect they will.
It is not currently clear to me whether the Irish government would want a united Ireland given the financial and social issues that come with it; I very much doubt whther they would want it on the back of a devisive referendum the outcome of which they have narrowly helped sway.
Comments
In all seriousness I can't tell if he looks unwell or not, his shabby appearance day to day especially with that head of hair makes it difficult.
It's easily one of the hardest, most high pressure jobs you can do so that must take its toll on people who get the top job in the land. So I wouldn't be surprised if Boris is feeling it right now.
Dilnott thought that what he called catastrophic care costs were unfair and that some of that risk should be shared by society as a whole. I am somewhat ambivalent about that for the above reason. But this argument that this scheme penalises the poor and less well off is just economically illiterate, it really is.
Nobody pays IHT at all if their estate is under £325,000.
So far fewer estates are affected than care costs which currently every estate worth over £23,250 is liable for
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Frankly, the previous settlement was fairer than the scam the government is pushing.
Only Brexiters attempt to blame the EU for this.
Indeed I recall Poland telling Cameron to piss off when during his failed attempt to renegotiate around EU migration.
Start with £100,000 end little.
Start with £1,000,000 end with £900,000.
What's even stupider is that if you allowed the family of the person with £100,000 in assets to inherit some I suspect that extra capital would in a lot of cases allow them to create opportunities and benefits that otherwise wouldn't exist and say allow their children / grandchildren to say go to University or do something else rather than day to day work.
If you are a homeowner whatever the property value then by definition you are not poor
"TCB: Early on, you used the phrase “we’re gonna have to learn to live with this.” Have we, yet?
Osterholm: Nobody has gotten that far. Denmark is 78 percent vaccinated. They dropped all interventions. Life was normal. But now their cases are going up fast. They’re going to reinstitute restrictions. I just talked to a friend and colleague there yesterday and the amount of anger and wait a minute, you told us this was done, is enormous.
Go three years and if you don’t have any major Covid activity, you’ve probably learned to live with it, but until then you may just be buying a virus holiday. India, 25 percent of its population is vaccinated. They think they’ve won the lottery because they’ve seen little activity since the surge early last summer. [But] they’re going to get hit again."
https://tcbmag.com/mike-osterholm-on-covids-next-act/
If you want the asset rich to pay more, the result is that the unlucky few with high care costs will lose everything - right or poor.
Disastrously, though he couldn't embrace Brexit to counterbalance that, as why on Earth would a Labour leave/UKIP voter bothered about things like immigration, sovereignty and national prestige, vote for someone whose entire persona and support base was being vocally in opposition to those notions? Even if they turned round and said 'Brexit is great'. So they ended up where they had to be on damage limitation - in part because they had a leader so unpopular he couldn't take his own stance on Brexit and build a coalition around that.
Basically, there cannot be a market for insurance without a cap.
So the intention is to create a market because the state will insure above the cap, via a scheme of, er, national insurance.
"Poland’s population, however, continued to rise until 1996, since which time it has declined slowly. It was only in 2004, when Poland joined the European Union, that emigration really took off. While most EU countries instituted transitional arrangements, meaning that for several years Poles did not have the freedom to move to or work in them, the UK was a major exception amongst the big countries.
"The numbers who emigrated during this period are stunning. By 2015 there were estimated to be 2.4 million Poles living abroad, most of whom had left since 2004. By 2017 the number of Poles in the UK alone was more than a million."
https://balkaninsight.com/2021/04/01/polands-population-imponderables/
The Ukraine is a different case, with unique characteristics. Ongoing quasi-war does not help. It is notable that neighbouring Belarus (not in the EU) has a stable population of ~9m. Tho I imagine many of them would love to leave
Still, back to the (imo) bad take of GE19 was all or mainly about how bad Jeremy Corbyn was. Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence against this is that when Mrs May fell Labour under JC were polling strongly - then in short order after Johnson took over and framed his desired Brexit narrative the Cons were smashing them. The poll lead then became the 80 seat Con win. How can this be explained if Corbyn was the main driver of it?
Start with £1m and you end up with £914k. You pay the full whack.
The estates started off unequal and ended unequal because they got a bill. Unlucky, but why should the beneficiaries of the first get more money at the cost of the taxpayer? Their beneficiaries may of course be rich rather than poor. Its irrational.
Russia, Poland and the Baltic states for example are looking to be big beneficiaries from climate change. Poland especially looks like it has got a cracking few decades ahead, and that’s even before you factor in the benefits of warming. Be nice to avoid war mind…
That seems like a very large excess, which makes the insurance effectively worthless for many people. Should general taxation be used to buy insurance only for those with assets above £100k?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/italy/one-euro-villa-rural-italy-wheres-catch/
I could have afforded it.....
Fingers crossed for the next few days that that happens. Having said that, hospitalisations are coming down at quite a pace. This is the first time since the Summer that the link between cases and hospitalisations seems to have been broken - cases have been going up since almost the start of November but admissions have been declining and continuing to do so since before then.
Traditional values, socially conservative, very little immigration, large properties affordable to westerners etc
The inescapable point is that this plan disproportionately protects the wealthy, while taking away a large proportion of the assets of those with more modest assets (and is paid for by a tax increase on incomes).
Any government which was even vaguely interested in levelling up would encourage those towards the bottom end of society saving to pass on assets to the next generation.
(& can no one spell his name ?)
(Assuming the insurance is for the capped care costs and NOT the on-going bed and breakfast costs).
So far its £86,000 and then someone else starts paying. We don't know what happens at that point beyond the fact in 2024/5 a lot of councils are going to be paying for adults that were previously paying 100% of the bill.
Instead, they seem to be looking at ways to improve fertility for eg paid parental leave etc.
Apart from the Ukraine, the Balkans generally seems to have the worst demography problem even though much of it is not in the EU.
Number in hospital with Covid has been trickling down since end of October.
Ditto patients in ventilator beds.
We don’t really see this in the U.K. much - maybe parts of Scotland? - but it’s a big issue across most of Europe.
Maybe Covid will stall this somewhat?
I applaud them.
France is not our ally.
lee harpin
@lmharpin
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12m
Lisa Nandy confirms Labour will back Priti Patel’s move to ban Hamas
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/lisa-nandy-confirms-labour-will-back-priti-patels-move-to-ban-hamas/ via
@JewishNewsUK
Should, IMO, have spent the rest of his life in jail.
There are people in Poland who have done very well out of flood of *cash* from people working in "London, Paris or Hamburg".
There are also people who find the resulting inflation in various asset types as people come back and buy the place up problematic.
There are also people who are concerned at the hollowing out of the workforce.
In a way it resembles the house price boom in the UK - lots of winners. Lots of losers.
Unless you are outstandingly good at Italian, don’t even try to buy property without a local helper. Even in the north. Sicilia?!? Local helper absolutely obligatory.
And those one Euro deals can be safely ignored. Yes, they are a real thing, but unless you are some kind of cultural and property genius, the experience will age you by 10 years in 12 months. Do you want to look like Boris Johnson?
France is a great country, the French are generally nice people, we have much more in common than divides us, the petty rivalries on both sides are pointless and corrosive.
Time to grow up.
In reality, these countries think Brexit is nuts and don’t want @DavidL’s mock sympathy.
The England data on the dashboard is more recent and shows a continued decline in admissions on the 21st, following a rise in cases since the 5th.
I think the previous trough in admissions we on the 28th September, which was following a trough in cases on the 13th September.
We will see in a few days whether the booster campaign is exerting a downward effect on hospitalizations that is greater than the increase in cases.
See in particular Nicola Sturgeon and Scotland who use the UK government everytime anything goes wrong in Scotland.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/nov/23/social-care-costs-jeremy-hunt-boris-johnson-sajid-javid-covid-uk-politics-live-latest-updates
WATCH: Labour’s Shadow NI Secretary tells me that if there was a referendum on a united Ireland that the British government and British political parties should not campaign for the Union “if there is a border poll, we should remain neutral”
https://twitter.com/darrenmccaffrey/status/1463129064420651011?s=20
Blair publicly supported the union. Starmer has said he would campaign for the union in a border poll. But such is the facile level of understanding about the Good Friday Agreement it is now assumed the UK is the only state in the world that cannot campaign for its own existence.
https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1463181618043043840?s=20
*PS Had a thought and went back and checked - but no, not entirely due to growth of Inverness (real as it is).
The Scottish tourist industry has for decades done exactly the same thing selling tartan junk to American mugs. It is very hard to say no to free meals.
Cover photo features Boris Johnson wearing a sly grin (composite of Benny Hill & Alfred E. Neuman?) and a "Get Brexit Done' apron, and carrying what appears to be a casserole of some sort (perhaps an old Etonian favorite such as "badgers in a trap" or somesuch?) fresh from the (Brexit) oven.
My copy is paperback fully 1.5 inches thick, 659 pages. Chock full of both nuts (for example Nigel Farage), facts and analysis until the cows (or the chickens?) come home.
For me only downside is the choice of cartoons used as illustrations/examples, as I do NOT like as general rule complex, multi-color, often downright nasty and/or macabre efforts in faux Gilray-Stedman style. Much prefer the work of Marf and Matt - much more in the spirit of Low humor!
FYI, am now the proud possessor of all 21 editions of "The British General Election" series from 1945 forward, if you are not familiar with them, check them out!
It does you no credit, and I say that as a strong admirer of the majority of your views and posts.
Yes it is for the people of NI to decide, but people outside NI are allowed to have a view and to seek to persuade the people of NI of that view, there's nothing odd or unreasonable about that - people in ROI and the rUK would not have a vote, but are absolutely relevant to the choice people in NI would be making.
Just because it is for X to decide doesn't mean Y cannot or should not comment, yet the clear implication from such arguments is that it is untoward somehow, as if it is diminishing the decision making of X.
On the contrary, it enhances the decision making of X. If, say, there was an overwhelming view in ROI or rUK that they did not want NI to be joined with them, that might well be relevant to some.
In some areas, house price inflation is pushing out the "local" locals... Sound familiar?
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Pretty bleak outlook for Ukraine. It is also a negative feedback loop. The more young people leave the less viable the economy becomes, the fewer the opportunities, the villages are dead and the cities become sadder, and so even more people run away...
It is not currently clear to me whether the Irish government would want a united Ireland given the financial and social issues that come with it; I very much doubt whther they would want it on the back of a devisive referendum the outcome of which they have narrowly helped sway.