Can someone from a private security firm arrest Peter Hebblethwaite please?
Nah, when they're arrested we want to ensure they're arrested legally. They're the ones who do things illegally. But when he's sacked, all his belongings should be dumped on quayside in Dover and Hull in black binbags.
That was an absolute car crash. Or should that be ferry crash?
Mr. Stoke, the whole points of ISAs is to be tax free. They're also the only form of savings that many people have.
Taxing them would not necessarily be conducive to electoral success.
Martin Lewis blog this week was advising most people should ditch ISAs as the £1,000 interest tax free rule means better products with better interest rates are effectively tax free
Hmm.
What about the capital gain element with shares?
Think he was referring to Cash ISAs this is part of what he said
So most should DITCH cash ISAs for accounts that pay more. I did a Twitter poll on Monday, and found 85% of the 9,000 who said they had cash ISAs don't pay tax on savings. So why keep them? I know for years many had it drilled into them (often by me) that cash ISAs were nicer - but now people need deprogramming. Most should simply focus on the highest interest rates which come from normal savings. Though there are a few niche reasons some who don't pay savings tax may want to keep cash ISAs...
- If you're close to paying tax on savings. If you're near the limit, as interest rates are likely to rise, keeping money in cash ISAs now can protect you from future tax. - You can withdraw from fixed cash ISAs (unlike normal fixes). Though there are big interest penalties for doing so.
Mr. Stoke, the whole points of ISAs is to be tax free. They're also the only form of savings that many people have.
Taxing them would not necessarily be conducive to electoral success.
Martin Lewis blog this week was advising most people should ditch ISAs as the £1,000 interest tax free rule means better products with better interest rates are effectively tax free
Hmm.
What about the capital gain element with shares?
He was only talking about cash ISAs, going on to say:
"While cash ISAs aren't much cop for most, other ISAs can be. If you're a first-time buyer, check out the Lifetime ISA's 25% boost worth up to £1,000/year on your first home. If you're looking to invest, a stocks and shares ISA is a really good way to start."
Mr. Stoke, the whole points of ISAs is to be tax free. They're also the only form of savings that many people have.
Taxing them would not necessarily be conducive to electoral success.
Martin Lewis blog this week was advising most people should ditch ISAs as the £1,000 interest tax free rule means better products with better interest rates are effectively tax free
Hmm.
What about the capital gain element with shares?
i think ML means cash ISAs which is good advice because of what he says - stock and shares ISAS different
Thanks - I suspected that might be the case but good to be sure. About the only advantage of a cash ISA seems to be to use the allowance up even if you don't want to buy shares then, but later, perhaps into the new tax year.
Mr. Stoke, the whole points of ISAs is to be tax free. They're also the only form of savings that many people have.
Taxing them would not necessarily be conducive to electoral success.
Martin Lewis blog this week was advising most people should ditch ISAs as the £1,000 interest tax free rule means better products with better interest rates are effectively tax free
Hmm.
What about the capital gain element with shares?
He was only talking about cash ISAs, going on to say:
"While cash ISAs aren't much cop for most, other ISAs can be. If you're a first-time buyer, check out the Lifetime ISA's 25% boost worth up to £1,000/year on your first home. If you're looking to invest, a stocks and shares ISA is a really good way to start."
Mr. Stoke, the whole points of ISAs is to be tax free. They're also the only form of savings that many people have.
Taxing them would not necessarily be conducive to electoral success.
Martin Lewis blog this week was advising most people should ditch ISAs as the £1,000 interest tax free rule means better products with better interest rates are effectively tax free
Hmm.
What about the capital gain element with shares?
Think he was referring to Cash ISAs this is part of what he said
So most should DITCH cash ISAs for accounts that pay more. I did a Twitter poll on Monday, and found 85% of the 9,000 who said they had cash ISAs don't pay tax on savings. So why keep them? I know for years many had it drilled into them (often by me) that cash ISAs were nicer - but now people need deprogramming. Most should simply focus on the highest interest rates which come from normal savings. Though there are a few niche reasons some who don't pay savings tax may want to keep cash ISAs...
- If you're close to paying tax on savings. If you're near the limit, as interest rates are likely to rise, keeping money in cash ISAs now can protect you from future tax. - You can withdraw from fixed cash ISAs (unlike normal fixes). Though there are big interest penalties for doing so.
Michael Jacobs @michaelujacobs · 3h I noted yesterday how the biggest announcement in the #SpringStatement2022 was the one Sunak didn’t make, his decision to uprate benefits and pensions by only 3.1%, not by the current inflation rate of 7%+. This makes the lowest income households c£500 poorer. Here’s the chart.
Mr. Stoke, the whole points of ISAs is to be tax free. They're also the only form of savings that many people have.
Taxing them would not necessarily be conducive to electoral success.
Martin Lewis blog this week was advising most people should ditch ISAs as the £1,000 interest tax free rule means better products with better interest rates are effectively tax free
Hmm.
What about the capital gain element with shares?
i think ML means cash ISAs which is good advice because of what he says - stock and shares ISAS different
Thanks - I suspected that might be the case but good to be sure. About the only advantage of a cash ISA seems to be to use the allowance up even if you don't want to buy shares then, but later, perhaps into the new tax year.
I think the two types are distinct - ie you cannot buy shares later in a cash isa
generally use the £40K pension allowance (defo if higher rate payer but still tax advantages if basic ) use £20K a year in ISA allowance- stock and shares one Use the £2,000 dividend allowance (equates to about £50k worth of shares generally) use the £1000 or £500 interest allowance if you can - Peer to peer lending ,junk bonds etc Use the £1,000 micro self employment allowance if you can - bill up to £1,000 a year without needing to declare it Use the £1,000 rent allowance a year - airbnb etc
If have to invest outside various tax wrappers then choose shares that have low dividend yield but high capital growth -REITS , etc
Michael Jacobs @michaelujacobs · 3h I noted yesterday how the biggest announcement in the #SpringStatement2022 was the one Sunak didn’t make, his decision to uprate benefits and pensions by only 3.1%, not by the current inflation rate of 7%+. This makes the lowest income households c£500 poorer. Here’s the chart.
Mr. Stoke, the whole points of ISAs is to be tax free. They're also the only form of savings that many people have.
Taxing them would not necessarily be conducive to electoral success.
Martin Lewis blog this week was advising most people should ditch ISAs as the £1,000 interest tax free rule means better products with better interest rates are effectively tax free
Hmm.
What about the capital gain element with shares?
i think ML means cash ISAs which is good advice because of what he says - stock and shares ISAS different
Thanks - I suspected that might be the case but good to be sure. About the only advantage of a cash ISA seems to be to use the allowance up even if you don't want to buy shares then, but later, perhaps into the new tax year.
I think the two types are distinct - ie you cannot buy shares later in a cash isa
The rules have changed, actually. Indeed it is possible to park money in a share platform firm's ISA for the moment and buy shares within the ISA later, or transfer a cash ISA into the firm - I've done both in recent months.
Michael Jacobs @michaelujacobs · 3h I noted yesterday how the biggest announcement in the #SpringStatement2022 was the one Sunak didn’t make, his decision to uprate benefits and pensions by only 3.1%, not by the current inflation rate of 7%+. This makes the lowest income households c£500 poorer. Here’s the chart.
Labour, LDs and Greens need to get together to form a rainbow coalition for the next election.
It would make little difference, the SNP would still likely have the balance of power on that poll with a rainbow coalition or without in a hung parliament.
A vote which is not a Conservative vote in 2024 is therefore likely a vote to allow an indyref2
Looks like ammunition going off in the ship on fire.
I saw another report that both of the other two ships seen sailing out of port were damaged too, but obviously not taken out of action. But you have to wonder about what this incident has done to the moral and fighting spirit of the Russian navy, particularly those cooped up in the landing ships with all that ordnance.
Mr. Stoke, the whole points of ISAs is to be tax free. They're also the only form of savings that many people have.
Taxing them would not necessarily be conducive to electoral success.
Martin Lewis blog this week was advising most people should ditch ISAs as the £1,000 interest tax free rule means better products with better interest rates are effectively tax free
Hmm.
What about the capital gain element with shares?
i think ML means cash ISAs which is good advice because of what he says - stock and shares ISAS different
Thanks - I suspected that might be the case but good to be sure. About the only advantage of a cash ISA seems to be to use the allowance up even if you don't want to buy shares then, but later, perhaps into the new tax year.
I think the two types are distinct - ie you cannot buy shares later in a cash isa
The rules have changed, actually. Indeed it is possible to park money in a share platform firm's ISA for the moment and buy shares within the ISA later, or transfer a cash ISA into the firm - I've done both in recent months.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
So you expect a person whose only income is a state pension to pay a capital gains tax on the increasing value of their home?
Labour, LDs and Greens need to get together to form a rainbow coalition for the next election.
It would make little difference, the SNP would still likely have the balance of power on that poll with a rainbow coalition or without in a hung parliament.
A vote which is not a Conservative vote in 2024 is therefore likely a vote to allow an indyref2
Looks like ammunition going off in the ship on fire.
I saw another report that both of the other two ships seen sailing out of port were damaged too, but obviously not taken out of action. But you have to wonder about what this incident has done to the moral and fighting spirit of the Russian navy, particularly those cooped up in the landing ships with all that ordnance.
Are those the LSTs that were standing off and on off Odessa, do we know?
Mr. Stoke, the whole points of ISAs is to be tax free. They're also the only form of savings that many people have.
Taxing them would not necessarily be conducive to electoral success.
Taxing ISAs would be breaking a specific promise. It is also encouraging people to invest for the their future - and not to do so by pouring more money into property.
Taxing pensions - to raise significant amounts of money, you would need to tax some people who will not be getting 100K out of their pension. Perhaps we should consider the State Pension as the equivalent in wealth of a lump sum of X and tax people on that?
Limiting tax relief on pension contributions to the standard rate would not seem too outlandish.
Looks like ammunition going off in the ship on fire.
I saw another report that both of the other two ships seen sailing out of port were damaged too, but obviously not taken out of action. But you have to wonder about what this incident has done to the moral and fighting spirit of the Russian navy, particularly those cooped up in the landing ships with all that ordnance.
Are those the LSTs that were standing off and on off Odessa, do we know?
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Looks like ammunition going off in the ship on fire.
I saw another report that both of the other two ships seen sailing out of port were damaged too, but obviously not taken out of action. But you have to wonder about what this incident has done to the moral and fighting spirit of the Russian navy, particularly those cooped up in the landing ships with all that ordnance.
Are those the LSTs that were standing off and on off Odessa, do we know?
It's one of the Alligator Class landing ships - about 4000 tons.
It would have a quantity of equipment and equipment on board.
Two other landing ships nearby were damaged, with a small no of casualties. Both Ropucha class. Can be seen hirrying away in vids below.
Looks like ammunition going off in the ship on fire.
I saw another report that both of the other two ships seen sailing out of port were damaged too, but obviously not taken out of action. But you have to wonder about what this incident has done to the moral and fighting spirit of the Russian navy, particularly those cooped up in the landing ships with all that ordnance.
Are those the LSTs that were standing off and on off Odessa, do we know?
I think they are part of the 12 ships that have been reported to comprise the Black Sea fleet. My guess is that they have been diverted from the stalled Odesa landings to reinforce stalled efforts at Mariupol, given that Berdyansk is just to the west of Mariupol. But that is just a guess.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
So you expect a person whose only income is a state pension to pay a capital gains tax on the increasing value of their home?
On sale, yes. Not unrealised gains. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to pay tax on unearned income especially if you expect them to pay an effective tax rate on earned income of 50% or more. You could set a minimum threshold of £100k or something if you were feeling generous. It's not going to happen anyway, the right of people to earn ludicrous amounts of money from the appreciation of their house is one of the great British fundamental rights that any politician meddled with at their peril.
Michael Jacobs @michaelujacobs · 3h I noted yesterday how the biggest announcement in the #SpringStatement2022 was the one Sunak didn’t make, his decision to uprate benefits and pensions by only 3.1%, not by the current inflation rate of 7%+. This makes the lowest income households c£500 poorer. Here’s the chart.
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Suburban Leicester and suburban north-west London aren't much different to each other.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
So you expect a person whose only income is a state pension to pay a capital gains tax on the increasing value of their home?
On sale, yes. Not unrealised gains. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to pay tax on unearned income especially if you expect them to pay an effective tax rate on earned income of 50% or more. You could set a minimum threshold of £100k or something if you were feeling generous. It's not going to happen anyway, the right of people to earn ludicrous amounts of money from the appreciation of their house is one of the great British fundamental rights that any politician meddled with at their peril.
It used to happen - I think primary homes were exempted from CGT in the mid-60s.
Looks like ammunition going off in the ship on fire.
I saw another report that both of the other two ships seen sailing out of port were damaged too, but obviously not taken out of action. But you have to wonder about what this incident has done to the moral and fighting spirit of the Russian navy, particularly those cooped up in the landing ships with all that ordnance.
You say "not out of action", but just because a ship can evacuate does not mean that it continues to be suitable for its purpose as a landing ship.
Good news right...of course not says Mrs Glass always empty....
I suspect current wave will peak next week - helped greatly by school term finishing & nicer weather. but still a few million more people infected, 1000s more admissions and 10,000s more long covid cases to show for it. But what level will the plateau be at? & when's next one?
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Suburban Leicester and suburban north-west London aren't much different to each other.
Yes, they are, because one of them is part of the greatest city in the world, and commands rapid access to all its treasures. And the other is Leicester.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
I'm afraid so. But the basic rate of income tax has become something almost mystical. It can never be raised. And if necessary you raise other taxes so you can cut it. See how Sunak yesterday chose that as his preferred 'mark of the man'. Just 1p off, and not an action but a 'sort of' promise for later, and yet in his mind the most important thing he said.
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Suburban Leicester and suburban north-west London aren't much different to each other.
Yes, they are, because one of them is part of the greatest city in the world, and commands rapid access to all its treasures. And the other is Leicester.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
So you expect a person whose only income is a state pension to pay a capital gains tax on the increasing value of their home?
On sale, yes. Not unrealised gains. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to pay tax on unearned income especially if you expect them to pay an effective tax rate on earned income of 50% or more. You could set a minimum threshold of £100k or something if you were feeling generous. It's not going to happen anyway, the right of people to earn ludicrous amounts of money from the appreciation of their house is one of the great British fundamental rights that any politician meddled with at their peril.
It used to happen - I think primary homes were exempted from CGT in the mid-60s.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
So you expect a person whose only income is a state pension to pay a capital gains tax on the increasing value of their home?
On sale, yes. Not unrealised gains. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to pay tax on unearned income especially if you expect them to pay an effective tax rate on earned income of 50% or more. You could set a minimum threshold of £100k or something if you were feeling generous. It's not going to happen anyway, the right of people to earn ludicrous amounts of money from the appreciation of their house is one of the great British fundamental rights that any politician meddled with at their peril.
Now that I don't disagree with. I have always been pro CGT on one's residential property. However I have been slaughtered here before for suggesting that. I am now in the position of disagreeing with both sides on wealth tax. Think I might get some flack.
All meaningless this far out anyway and the Tories are in deep deep trouble on the economy and the cost of living crisis.
Not meaningless at all, if it shows Partygate was just fluff and blown away so easily.
And Tory and Boris poll gain from last week as revealed by this poll likely to be cemented further with Boris looking so smart and Primeministerial at the big summits today.
It looks like Boris and Biden will score a big victory over Germany, getting EU to phase out all Russian Oil and Coal.
Michael Jacobs @michaelujacobs · 3h I noted yesterday how the biggest announcement in the #SpringStatement2022 was the one Sunak didn’t make, his decision to uprate benefits and pensions by only 3.1%, not by the current inflation rate of 7%+. This makes the lowest income households c£500 poorer. Here’s the chart.
Yay. We all know from experience Elections are won and lost on what happens on Twitter.
You're very attack dog this morning, have you been bitten by @BluestBlue? Because he had the gig when boris looked like an immortal God-Emperor and it was all plain sailing.
1997. don't know whether you were alive/dead/undead in those days. Now, Starmer is no Blair but then Johnson is no Major either, and I stand astonished at the relative innocence of what we thought of as tory sleaze then vs what we have now.
Yep - was alive in 1997 and it was actually my fist GE in which I could vote so I remember it well.
The dynamics are so very different, not only due to the characters involved. For one, the economy was on the up (in large part to Conservative economic policies which Labour vowed to maintain - spending at least). This allowed Blair to combine his astonishing political skill (and yes - charisma) with the knowledge that Labour were inheriting an economy which would allow them, in time, to promise the world. Which they did. All in the context of a huge global economic boom.
Yes there was Tory sleaze in '97, and yes the Tories had been in power for 18 years, but every Government has sleaze. Always. Including Labour from 1997 to 2010. Tory sleaze gets much more attention as, well, they're evil Tories innit. Labour do sleaze more on the quiet.
In 2010, which although global and largely out of the control of ANY government (like the situation today) - the causes of the GFC had been overseen by Labour for over 10 years. They were the regulators and they were the ones happy to turn a blind eye (no pun intended Mr Brown!) to all the lovely tax revenue generated by the astonishing banking profits. So when the GFC hit the government couldn't plausibly deny they "knew nothing". Of course they did. And people cottoned on to that.
Now - now we have had an un-paralleled economic hit due to a bug. Which is not even the evil Tories' fault - or even Johnson's. I didn't agree with the hysteria to save 100,000 people would would have mostly died soon anyway but there we are. But shutting down the economy for the best part of a year was always going to have consequences. And now we're seeing them. This is the result of satisfying all those screaming "Something must be done". It's ironic that a lot of commentators on here now bemoaning how Sunak can't do this or that, or give them free shit, were the same ones criticising the government for not locking down harder, faster and longer. (That's what she said).
Add the ongoing march to WW3 and an energy crisis which has been at least 40 years in the making and I'm struggling to see how any government could have done better.
It is bizzare where people think the money required for all the wished for increases in benefits and decreases in taxes are going to come from. The last 2 years have been unprecedented, millions of people were paid by the Government to stay at home for months and months. Yet people are thinking the Government still has a big pot of money to spray around.
Can Shell & BP pay for it all?
No, but the asset rich can and should pay much more than they do now.
You're confusing asset rich with cash rich. How can an "asset rich" person pay any more when the cash is locked in that asset? Unless you sell that asset, which is now less of value when crystallised because it'll be taxed more.
Just because someone lives in a property valued £1m doesn't make them "rich". They may earn £25k a year but it's just the house which has gone up in value since they've been there 15 years. Which is not their fault or in their control.
It has always been a mystery to me how you tax the value of a house when the person who lives in it may be on a low income. Are we suggesting that they be forced to sale their house to pay tax on it?
There are plenty of ways to avoid forced sale. Also you'd set the % at a modest level.
But fret not - it won't be happening. Vote loser. "They're coming for your house!" will say the party not advocating it.
There's a couple of things about this fantasy of evil old Mr Burns types cackling away in their 20 bed houses at the plight of the poor
1. A lot of them are prisoners of their own fear. The problem is, at 60 you still just about feel you can carry on indefinitely, at 70 you probably realise that the writing is on the wall. But moving house is the most stressful thing you can do short of divorce or bereavement. You are up to it at 60 but don't want to do it, you get to 70 and it is just too overfacing
2 Trading down is not as easy as it sounds because nice but smaller houses are in 2 sets of sights: both elderly downtraders and upwardly mobile young families
Yes, that is a fantasy. And "downsizing" is easier to recommend to people than to do. I've seen that in practice, eg with my parents. What I'm talking about is not that, it's this situation we've evolved whereby residential property has become the main engine for personal wealth accumulation and at the same time lots of people are locked out of it.
Capital values and rents are sky high compared to income levels. You have a very large % of people's assets and budgets consumed by property matters. It's iniquitous and inefficient and a problem we have to a greater extent than most other countries.
So I'd like to see policies which go against the grain of this rather than reinforce it - eg that depress house prices rather than support them. But it's politically difficult because our attitude to housing - eg that it's as much an investment as a home - runs deep. Also you don't want a crash because people can get badly hurt with that.
A crash would ultimately be best...short term pain for long term pain....it would also reacquaint people with the concept of risk after 14 years of QE distortions...and I say that as a homeowner
Static prices for several years would be a less painful correction. Sadly markets tend not to work that way. Once a tipping point is passed they capture future expected loss or stagnation and crystallize it NOW.
Another dreary thread of people claiming that a wealth tax is impossible, forgetting that they exist in those bastions of socialism, Switzerland and the USA.
Looks like ammunition going off in the ship on fire.
I saw another report that both of the other two ships seen sailing out of port were damaged too, but obviously not taken out of action. But you have to wonder about what this incident has done to the moral and fighting spirit of the Russian navy, particularly those cooped up in the landing ships with all that ordnance.
Are those the LSTs that were standing off and on off Odessa, do we know?
Actually, if you watch this video, you can see clearly that at least two ships have serious fires and remain docked, and both fleeing ships have fires.
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Suburban Leicester and suburban north-west London aren't much different to each other.
Yes, they are, because one of them is part of the greatest city in the world, and commands rapid access to all its treasures. And the other is Leicester.
Well I take your point. Give me a choice between a house in Oadby or a house in Pinner and I'd probably choose the latter. I can see the argument for Leicester though. Most importantly - and I don't know who it was who claimed suburban Leicester as his personal nirvana (Foxy?) - but if that's where home is, there is something very powerful about that which overrides any objective criteria. You know where you're at home. It'll be a view which suddenly reveals itself or a road sign you pass which may say something neutral like 'Cheshire' but in your head says something like 'welcome home' while a brass band plays something upbeat and sentimental in the background. So if for you your terroir is Leciestershire, then absolutely I can see why Oadby would be your nirvana.
But there is also a more prosaic reason why Oadby might beat Pinner: which is that you can live in a pretty spacious and comfortable house in Oadby for the price of a small flat in Pinner. In reality, that's what the choice is: would you rather have a small flat in Pinner or a large house in Oadby; or a house in Pinner or a mansion in Oadby? Or equivalently sized houses in each but not have to work any more in Oadby? On that basis, suburban Leicester is starting to look a lot more attractive.
I think I have a very good question to start up a threadette.
One month in, Russia stalled and now in reverse, losses so great and symbolic now it’s putting survival of Putin regime into question, how do we now see this war ending? What is the likely Endgame?
All meaningless this far out anyway and the Tories are in deep deep trouble on the economy and the cost of living crisis.
Not meaningless at all, if it shows Partygate was just fluff and blown away so easily.
And Tory and Boris poll gain from last week as revealed by this poll likely to be cemented further with Boris looking so smart and Primeministerial at the big summits today.
It looks like Boris and Biden will score a big victory over Germany, getting EU to phase out all Russian Oil and Coal.
The gaslighting and prevarication and procrastination seems to be bearing fruit.
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Suburban Leicester and suburban north-west London aren't much different to each other.
Yes, they are, because one of them is part of the greatest city in the world, and commands rapid access to all its treasures. And the other is Leicester.
Well I take your point. Give me a choice between a house in Oadby or a house in Pinner and I'd probably choose the latter. I can see the argument for Leicester though. Most importantly - and I don't know who it was who claimed suburban Leicester as his personal nirvana (Foxy?) - but if that's where home is, there is something very powerful about that which overrides any objective criteria. You know where you're at home. It'll be a view which suddenly reveals itself or a road sign you pass which may say something neutral like 'Cheshire' but in your head says something like 'welcome home' while a brass band plays something upbeat and sentimental in the background. So if for you your terroir is Leciestershire, then absolutely I can see why Oadby would be your nirvana.
But there is also a more prosaic reason why Oadby might beat Pinner: which is that you can live in a pretty spacious and comfortable house in Oadby for the price of a small flat in Pinner. In reality, that's what the choice is: would you rather have a small flat in Pinner or a large house in Oadby; or a house in Pinner or a mansion in Oadby? Or equivalently sized houses in each but not have to work any more in Oadby? On that basis, suburban Leicester is starting to look a lot more attractive.
You could probably buy a Scottish castle for a similar price as a house in Pinner. But that's not really what the discussion was about!
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
I'm afraid so. But the basic rate of income tax has become something almost mystical. It can never be raised. And if necessary you raise other taxes so you can cut it. See how Sunak yesterday chose that as his preferred 'mark of the man'. Just 1p off, and not an action but a 'sort of' promise for later, and yet in his mind the most important thing he said.
My idealised tax system would look something like this: income tax and CGT 25% over 15k, 50% over 75k; land taxed at <1% including primary residence; 10% capital gains tax on gains over £75k on primary residence; 50% IHT on estates over £750k; 10 to 15% VAT; 10 to 15% corporation tax; NI and council tax abolished; all thresholds and brackets uprated with CPI by law.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
I'm afraid so. But the basic rate of income tax has become something almost mystical. It can never be raised. And if necessary you raise other taxes so you can cut it. See how Sunak yesterday chose that as his preferred 'mark of the man'. Just 1p off, and not an action but a 'sort of' promise for later, and yet in his mind the most important thing he said.
Gordon lowered income tax by 1p, I think because it was counter-intuitive and showed how New Labour we all were. I've never met anyone at the time or since who evinced the slightest pleasure about it - it simply sank like a stone from public conversation.
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Suburban Leicester and suburban north-west London aren't much different to each other.
Yes, they are, because one of them is part of the greatest city in the world, and commands rapid access to all its treasures. And the other is Leicester.
Well I take your point. Give me a choice between a house in Oadby or a house in Pinner and I'd probably choose the latter. I can see the argument for Leicester though. Most importantly - and I don't know who it was who claimed suburban Leicester as his personal nirvana (Foxy?) - but if that's where home is, there is something very powerful about that which overrides any objective criteria. You know where you're at home. It'll be a view which suddenly reveals itself or a road sign you pass which may say something neutral like 'Cheshire' but in your head says something like 'welcome home' while a brass band plays something upbeat and sentimental in the background. So if for you your terroir is Leciestershire, then absolutely I can see why Oadby would be your nirvana.
But there is also a more prosaic reason why Oadby might beat Pinner: which is that you can live in a pretty spacious and comfortable house in Oadby for the price of a small flat in Pinner. In reality, that's what the choice is: would you rather have a small flat in Pinner or a large house in Oadby; or a house in Pinner or a mansion in Oadby? Or equivalently sized houses in each but not have to work any more in Oadby? On that basis, suburban Leicester is starting to look a lot more attractive.
So glad you use that word terroir. It is something I believe in very strongly when I think of England and more specifically of those parts of England I have chosen to live. That combination of geography, climate, soil, tradition, myth and natural environment which all combine to make a place so much more than just a place to live.
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Is “ threadette” an actual thing?
Dunno, I use it to describe the protracted discussions that takes flight on PB which have zero relationship to the actual thread header (which is most of them!).
All meaningless this far out anyway and the Tories are in deep deep trouble on the economy and the cost of living crisis.
Not meaningless at all, if it shows Partygate was just fluff and blown away so easily.
And Tory and Boris poll gain from last week as revealed by this poll likely to be cemented further with Boris looking so smart and Primeministerial at the big summits today.
It looks like Boris and Biden will score a big victory over Germany, getting EU to phase out all Russian Oil and Coal.
The gaslighting and prevarication and procrastination seems to be bearing fruit.
That’s a v good point. Since Boris was forced to change the team around him, the new team are very front foot aggressive, the dog whistles in all their mouths, are they not.
This poll was conducted over the weekend, what was the stand out political moment of the weekend in responders minds as canvassed?
“"And it's an absolutely incredible fact - and it's true - at a time when Russia is being led by a president who is capable of bullying and threats who's plainly capable of making dangerous and irrational decisions, we have a Labour Party whose shadow cabinet is stuffed with people who only recently voted to abolish the UK's independent nuclear deterrent. That's right. Eight of them. "Do we want them in charge, my friends, at this moment? Do we want them running up the white flag? Do you see them standing up to Putin's blackmail?"
One well delivered well written front foot speech from Johnson was all it took to bury Partygate and draw the party’s level?
Another little nugget I’ve just picked up from the Spring Statement; the deficit is projected to fall to 1% by 25/26 which will be the lowest since 2001 or something.
Good news right...of course not says Mrs Glass always empty....
I suspect current wave will peak next week - helped greatly by school term finishing & nicer weather. but still a few million more people infected, 1000s more admissions and 10,000s more long covid cases to show for it. But what level will the plateau be at? & when's next one?
Not a lot in the news about long covid and I'm not totally sure why. Its clearly real, but will be different for different people. Those with serious organ damage may well never recover fully, but I'm not convinced that they are the majority. I think for most people the a long covid of symptoms lasting a few months will probably fully resolve, as happened to a colleagues wife who was surprised to still be struggling for 5 weeks, but then was back to normal. I'd like to see serious analysis of the problem (not self reporting) to get a fuller understanding. I'd also like to know if having 99% of adults with antibodies reduces the incidence of long covid, as I would expect.
Looks like ammunition going off in the ship on fire.
I saw another report that both of the other two ships seen sailing out of port were damaged too, but obviously not taken out of action. But you have to wonder about what this incident has done to the moral and fighting spirit of the Russian navy, particularly those cooped up in the landing ships with all that ordnance.
Are those the LSTs that were standing off and on off Odessa, do we know?
Actually, if you watch this video, you can see clearly that at least two ships have serious fires and remain docked, and both fleeing ships have fires.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
I'm afraid so. But the basic rate of income tax has become something almost mystical. It can never be raised. And if necessary you raise other taxes so you can cut it. See how Sunak yesterday chose that as his preferred 'mark of the man'. Just 1p off, and not an action but a 'sort of' promise for later, and yet in his mind the most important thing he said.
My idealised tax system would look something like this: income tax and CGT 25% over 15k, 50% over 75k; land taxed at less than 1% including primary residence; 10% capital gains tax on gains over £75k on primary residence; 50% IHT on estates over £750k; 10 to 15% VAT; 10 to 15% corporation tax; NI and council tax abolished; all thresholds and brackets uprated with CPI by law.
So you would be expecting most people in London to be paying an average of almost £9000 a year if they own their own house even when they have little or no income at all?
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Is “ threadette” an actual thing?
Dunno, I use it to describe the protracted discussions that takes flight on PB which have zero relationship to the actual thread header (which is most of them!).
*Heading* in the wrong direction. What is wrong with people?
It's rather sad how Americanisms are slipping in, even in professional discourse. I even have a friend who calls aeroplanes, airplanes. Movies is now sanctioned by usage (sadly) and scheduled with a sked rather than a shed is now more commonplace than the RP.
All this seems to have accelerated in recent years. It's fighting a losing battle I fear: rather like those of us who were brought up that H was spelled and sounded like this: aitch; and that haitch was simply wrong. I even hear haitch on the BBC now (although to be fair to them, Americans don't use it!)
Good news right...of course not says Mrs Glass always empty....
I suspect current wave will peak next week - helped greatly by school term finishing & nicer weather. but still a few million more people infected, 1000s more admissions and 10,000s more long covid cases to show for it. But what level will the plateau be at? & when's next one?
Not a lot in the news about long covid and I'm not totally sure why. Its clearly real, but will be different for different people. Those with serious organ damage may well never recover fully, but I'm not convinced that they are the majority. I think for most people the a long covid of symptoms lasting a few months will probably fully resolve, as happened to a colleagues wife who was surprised to still be struggling for 5 weeks, but then was back to normal. I'd like to see serious analysis of the problem (not self reporting) to get a fuller understanding. I'd also like to know if having 99% of adults with antibodies reduces the incidence of long covid, as I would expect.
Her definition, and others of her ilk, has always been rather disingenuous. They talk about any negative self-reported symptoms after I think 3 months (I might be wrong on the time frame), but that can be literally anything from total organ failure to still suffering fatigue / some shortness of breath, which for really bad flu is not uncommon e.g. I suffered pneumonia 3 years ago, it took me 6 months to really get back to full fitness.
That isn't to dismiss that particularly pre-vaccination there was definitely some very negative effect of COVID and there seems to be some evidence that it lead to re-admissions, even deaths, with organ damage.
What we really need is some concrete definition / parameters and data on that i.e. I don't think suffering fatigue at 12 weeks is in itself meaning that person is going to be suffering a life time of "long COVID". However, we do need to know if even with vaccines are people suffering the really serious effects like organ damage.
I think if the really serious "long covid" was as widespread as the likes of Pagel try to make out, we would be seeing it show up with hospital overload, massive rise in people claiming disability benefits, etc.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
So you expect a person whose only income is a state pension to pay a capital gains tax on the increasing value of their home?
On sale, yes. Not unrealised gains. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to pay tax on unearned income especially if you expect them to pay an effective tax rate on earned income of 50% or more. You could set a minimum threshold of £100k or something if you were feeling generous. It's not going to happen anyway, the right of people to earn ludicrous amounts of money from the appreciation of their house is one of the great British fundamental rights that any politician meddled with at their peril.
It used to happen - I think primary homes were exempted from CGT in the mid-60s.
They still are.
Indeed, so before that people paid CGT on property gains on their primary residence. Since then they have not.
That indicates it isn't impossible, though doubtless it would be politically difficult.
Wollaton, west Nottingham – Matlock Bath, Peak District 47 mins Breadsall, north Derby - Matlock Bath, Peak District 31 mins
Hardly a critical difference is it?
Fair point. But from Beeston it always seemed such a slog to get to somewhere which should be pretty close. An hour was not typical but not uncommon while you pass unedifying little towns like Codnor and Ripley. You get better journey time reliability from Breadsall.
I'd also say the nice bits of Derbyshire start at about Little Eaton. So Breadsall - Little Eaton: about 2 minutes. Beeston - Little Eaton: about half an hour.
I lived in Sheffield for a bit. One of the reasons I loved it - and this was back in the 90s when the city centre was, frankly, a bit run down - was that from my house in the west of Sheffield I could walk to the Peak District. Derby doesn't quite have that, but it's pretty close. Manchester doesn't quite have that either, but the bits of Peak District it is close to are more dramatic. So, you know - swings and roundabouts. I don't want to be denigrating Nottingham, which was a nice city to live in in a lot of ways - just that if all else were equal I'd be choosing Derby. That said, Manchester is even better. It's not just close to home, it is home.
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Suburban Leicester and suburban north-west London aren't much different to each other.
Yes, they are, because one of them is part of the greatest city in the world, and commands rapid access to all its treasures. And the other is Leicester.
Well I take your point. Give me a choice between a house in Oadby or a house in Pinner and I'd probably choose the latter. I can see the argument for Leicester though. Most importantly - and I don't know who it was who claimed suburban Leicester as his personal nirvana (Foxy?) - but if that's where home is, there is something very powerful about that which overrides any objective criteria. You know where you're at home. It'll be a view which suddenly reveals itself or a road sign you pass which may say something neutral like 'Cheshire' but in your head says something like 'welcome home' while a brass band plays something upbeat and sentimental in the background. So if for you your terroir is Leciestershire, then absolutely I can see why Oadby would be your nirvana.
But there is also a more prosaic reason why Oadby might beat Pinner: which is that you can live in a pretty spacious and comfortable house in Oadby for the price of a small flat in Pinner. In reality, that's what the choice is: would you rather have a small flat in Pinner or a large house in Oadby; or a house in Pinner or a mansion in Oadby? Or equivalently sized houses in each but not have to work any more in Oadby? On that basis, suburban Leicester is starting to look a lot more attractive.
So glad you use that word terroir. It is something I believe in very strongly when I think of England and more specifically of those parts of England I have chosen to live. That combination of geography, climate, soil, tradition, myth and natural environment which all combine to make a place so much more than just a place to live.
Another dreary thread of people claiming that a wealth tax is impossible, forgetting that they exist in those bastions of socialism, Switzerland and the USA.
There isn't a Federal US wealth tax, Switzerland also has a maximum income tax rate of just 11.5%
Good news right...of course not says Mrs Glass always empty....
I suspect current wave will peak next week - helped greatly by school term finishing & nicer weather. but still a few million more people infected, 1000s more admissions and 10,000s more long covid cases to show for it. But what level will the plateau be at? & when's next one?
Not a lot in the news about long covid and I'm not totally sure why. Its clearly real, but will be different for different people. Those with serious organ damage may well never recover fully, but I'm not convinced that they are the majority. I think for most people the a long covid of symptoms lasting a few months will probably fully resolve, as happened to a colleagues wife who was surprised to still be struggling for 5 weeks, but then was back to normal. I'd like to see serious analysis of the problem (not self reporting) to get a fuller understanding. I'd also like to know if having 99% of adults with antibodies reduces the incidence of long covid, as I would expect.
There was a major empirical study (not based on self-reporting) in children that appears to back you up. I'm not aware of any such studies in adults, though.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
So you expect a person whose only income is a state pension to pay a capital gains tax on the increasing value of their home?
On sale, yes. Not unrealised gains. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to pay tax on unearned income especially if you expect them to pay an effective tax rate on earned income of 50% or more. You could set a minimum threshold of £100k or something if you were feeling generous. It's not going to happen anyway, the right of people to earn ludicrous amounts of money from the appreciation of their house is one of the great British fundamental rights that any politician meddled with at their peril.
Yep I can see that and it seems reasonable. The only issue is that successive governments have so gutted the pension system that many are looking at the house as their pension. I am personally fortunate in that my hope is that they take me out of here in a box and bury me in the back garden. I see my house as a place to live not an investment. But for many that is not a choice. Any government making such a fundamental change to the system would be destroying the retirement plans of hundreds of thousands pf people.
I think I have a very good question to start up a threadette.
One month in, Russia stalled and now in reverse, losses so great and symbolic now it’s putting survival of Putin regime into question, how do we now see this war ending? What is the likely Endgame?
Is this the peak moment for Ukraine to beat Russia up in negotiations, or can their position get stronger still in the coming weeks?
Does it have to end in negotiated ceasefire and Ukraine concessions? Could Russia have to slink away like from Afghanistan in military defeat?
Iain Martin @iainmartin1 · 4h Seen some Budgets and statements blow up straight after launch. Osborne (first out traps praising yesterday) blundered several times. Brown pre-social media got several days before the deceptions were found. The next day monstering of Sunak's Spring Statement is... something else
Another dreary thread of people claiming that a wealth tax is impossible, forgetting that they exist in those bastions of socialism, Switzerland and the USA.
There isn't a Federal US wealth tax, Switzerland also has a maximum income tax rate of just 11.5%
Thanks for confirming my point. US also has generally lower income taxes.
That’s one of the benefits of wealth (or property) taxes. They allow for lower income taxes.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
I'm afraid so. But the basic rate of income tax has become something almost mystical. It can never be raised. And if necessary you raise other taxes so you can cut it. See how Sunak yesterday chose that as his preferred 'mark of the man'. Just 1p off, and not an action but a 'sort of' promise for later, and yet in his mind the most important thing he said.
My idealised tax system would look something like this: income tax and CGT 25% over 15k, 50% over 75k; land taxed at less than 1% including primary residence; 10% capital gains tax on gains over £75k on primary residence; 50% IHT on estates over £750k; 10 to 15% VAT; 10 to 15% corporation tax; NI and council tax abolished; all thresholds and brackets uprated with CPI by law.
So you would be expecting most people in London to be paying an average of almost £9000 a year if they own their own house even when they have little or no income at all?
Average house price in London is £500k (median will be less than that) and so a land tax of <1% would be <£5k. You could apply a minimum income threshold if you wanted to protect the proverbial little old lady. Abolition of council tax worth about half that in any case. Most home owners in London of course have plenty of income.
A wealth tax is difficult to implement and will cause all sorts of headaches. Simpler to have an effective inheritance tax if you want to go down a similar route - but there is big opposition to that in the electorate.
Any wealth tax must include pension funds, ISAs and all property including primary residence otherwise it is totally immoral and will distort the economy horribly.
I don't think so. There are plenty of models. Tm me the key is lowish tiered rates and wide application.
The Swiss model seems a good one, described here with a few dodges
That was interesting, thanks. I'm sympathetic to the idea of a wealth tax but I strongly believe that pension funds and primary residences should be included. It they are not then private sector will once again be shafted by the public sector. Why should a senior Civil Servant with a big pension and huge nominal pension fund and a house in London escape whilst a business person in the North with same level of wealth but with a good proportion in stocks and shares bought when they sold their business be caught? We also don't want to artificially limit the way that people save and accumulate wealth.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
There's a strong argument for reforms of the tax base. A large increase in the overall tax take is more problematic, given it's already around historic highs as a percentage of national income.
Another dreary thread of people claiming that a wealth tax is impossible, forgetting that they exist in those bastions of socialism, Switzerland and the USA.
There isn't a Federal US wealth tax, Switzerland also has a maximum income tax rate of just 11.5%
That’s a bit disingenuous claiming the max income tax rate in Switzerland is 11.5%. That’s the federal rate and then you have your cantonal and communal on top. In Geneva I was paying 33% income tax iirc.
Then on top you have your health insurance, religious tax (seriously) on top of a multitude of other taxes and charges.
Good news right...of course not says Mrs Glass always empty....
I suspect current wave will peak next week - helped greatly by school term finishing & nicer weather. but still a few million more people infected, 1000s more admissions and 10,000s more long covid cases to show for it. But what level will the plateau be at? & when's next one?
Not a lot in the news about long covid and I'm not totally sure why. Its clearly real, but will be different for different people. Those with serious organ damage may well never recover fully, but I'm not convinced that they are the majority. I think for most people the a long covid of symptoms lasting a few months will probably fully resolve, as happened to a colleagues wife who was surprised to still be struggling for 5 weeks, but then was back to normal. I'd like to see serious analysis of the problem (not self reporting) to get a fuller understanding. I'd also like to know if having 99% of adults with antibodies reduces the incidence of long covid, as I would expect.
Her definition, and others of her ilk, has always been rather disingenuous. They talk about any negative self-reported symptoms after I think 3 months (I might be wrong on the time frame), but that can be literally anything from total organ failure to still suffering fatigue / some shortness of breath, which for really bad flu is not uncommon e.g. I suffered pneumonia 3 years ago, it took me 6 months to really get back to full fitness.
That isn't to dismiss that particularly pre-vaccination there was definitely some very negative effect of COVID and there seems to be some evidence that it lead to re-admissions, even deaths, with organ damage.
What we really need is some concrete definition / parameters and data on that i.e. I don't think suffering fatigue at 12 weeks is in itself meaning that person is going to be suffering a life time of "long COVID". However, we do need to know if even with vaccines are people suffering the really serious effects like organ damage.
I think if the really serious "long covid" was as widespread as the likes of Pagel try to make out, we would be seeing it show up with hospital overload, massive rise in people claiming disability benefits, etc.
Excellent post. The lack of empirical studies on this is extraordinary. I posted one upthread –– but it only relates to children (where Long Covid is rare, but of course children are much less susceptible to covid overall, so it might not tell us much about the situation with adults).
As for Princess Pagel, she is supposed to be a scientist/mathematician –– yet she is very keen on anecdotes when they suit her narrative.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
So you expect a person whose only income is a state pension to pay a capital gains tax on the increasing value of their home?
On sale, yes. Not unrealised gains. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to pay tax on unearned income especially if you expect them to pay an effective tax rate on earned income of 50% or more. You could set a minimum threshold of £100k or something if you were feeling generous. It's not going to happen anyway, the right of people to earn ludicrous amounts of money from the appreciation of their house is one of the great British fundamental rights that any politician meddled with at their peril.
It used to happen - I think primary homes were exempted from CGT in the mid-60s.
They still are.
Indeed, so before that people paid CGT on property gains on their primary residence. Since then they have not.
That indicates it isn't impossible, though doubtless it would be politically difficult.
oic. Apologies for that.
On the contrary I don't disagree with the concept. Not sure how it would work though. We bought our house in west wales for £50000 twenty years ago. It is now worth about £130000. How much of that profit would be liable to CGT? Would inflation be taken into account? We don't intend moving now, so would the cgt turn into IHT?
All meaningless this far out anyway and the Tories are in deep deep trouble on the economy and the cost of living crisis.
Not meaningless at all, if it shows Partygate was just fluff and blown away so easily.
And Tory and Boris poll gain from last week as revealed by this poll likely to be cemented further with Boris looking so smart and Primeministerial at the big summits today.
It looks like Boris and Biden will score a big victory over Germany, getting EU to phase out all Russian Oil and Coal.
Partygate was fluff for me, and there was quite a lot of artificial offence over it in the political classes, hacks, and talking heads on TV.
However for some people there is genuine anger and that cannot be dismissed.
When that bellend from the Mirror gets angry about it on GMB I ignore him, when a person gets upset because they couldn’t attend a loved ones funeral that’s different.
Wollaton, west Nottingham – Matlock Bath, Peak District 47 mins Breadsall, north Derby - Matlock Bath, Peak District 31 mins
Hardly a critical difference is it?
Fair point. But from Beeston it always seemed such a slog to get to somewhere which should be pretty close. An hour was not typical but not uncommon while you pass unedifying little towns like Codnor and Ripley. You get better journey time reliability from Breadsall.
I'd also say the nice bits of Derbyshire start at about Little Eaton. So Breadsall - Little Eaton: about 2 minutes. Beeston - Little Eaton: about half an hour.
I lived in Sheffield for a bit. One of the reasons I loved it - and this was back in the 90s when the city centre was, frankly, a bit run down - was that from my house in the west of Sheffield I could walk to the Peak District. Derby doesn't quite have that, but it's pretty close. Manchester doesn't quite have that either, but the bits of Peak District it is close to are more dramatic. So, you know - swings and roundabouts. I don't want to be denigrating Nottingham, which was a nice city to live in in a lot of ways - just that if all else were equal I'd be choosing Derby. That said, Manchester is even better. It's not just close to home, it is home.
Yes, the access to the Peak from the western districts of Sheffield is quite fantastic. It's a much underrated city for that reason but has always suffered, as you imply, from a rather uninspiring city centre.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 42m And that's it. At 11.48 the Speaker announced the Dissolution and Calling of Parliaments Act has received the royal assent. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act is dead
Brother in Law's just texted me. Not a happy bunny. Petrol station near his house in Notts put petrol up 6p this morning, wiping out Sunak's short-lived cut.
The government is like a rabbit in the headlights. It seems incapable of recognising what's coming. Bonkers. It's going to be brutal. And it's going to hit everyone, including a lot of the Tory pensioner base. And they don't seem to care.
I suspect they know what is coming.
The issue is there is very little they can do about it.
This was always the risk with QE (which in defence of the BoE they recognised and pulled back as early as they could).
Fundamentally there is very little/no money. We’ve overspent for a generation. Most of government borrowing in recent years has been from the BoE. And printing money in an inflationary environment fuels the problem.
Basically we had weak structural position + crisis spending for 2 years + external shock and massive energy price shock.
It’s awful. It’s going to be awful. And there is fuck all the government can do to make it better
I wonder whether Rishi should have been upfront and not tried to pretend he can do something he can’t.
The wealth is going to have to be re-extracted from wealthy homeowners. Sorry tories.
Yes, but that’s not something that can be done in a few weeks. Major structural change takes thought and planning.
Surely everything can be solved by a windfall tax punishing oil and gas companies for recovering from the pandemic? That's what Reeves said yesterday.
Reeves is an amateur compared to Ed Davey.
His interview with Mishal Hussein this morning was good.
He wants a windfall tax on oil and gas companies.
MH says that’s fine, you take a lump now, what happens when they leave the UK to avoid this risk in future as we will lose their tax returns.
ED says they won’t leave because the North Sea is their biggest business…..
MH pointed out to him that the Lib Dems want to stop oil and gas production in the North Sea to which ED says “oh there are decades left of that - not if you stop it Ed and lose the revenue.
ED asked about investment by oil and gas companies in new technology says that we shouldn’t be relying on them and there is billions waiting to be invested by other companies in clean energy (not sure what’s stopping them but there you go).
Apparently the oil companies are bad because they “pushed up the bidding” on sea floor auction for wind turbines (so the exchequer benefits?) which surely shows the oil cos are trying to invest in green energy.
The underlying problem is that work and business are already heavily taxed.
Which means that to raise money you can either tax consumption - difficult when prices are rising and when voters like consuming.
Or you can tax wealth, in particular property wealth.
Something which would certainly hit Ed Davey's Kingston & Surbiton hard.
Plenty of support for a wealth tax so long as it remains a theoretical proposition. This is my sense of things.
The golden rule of taxes is that 95% are in favour of any tax they don't think will apply to them. The reality is that if we want good public services we need a higher basic rate of income tax and to tax things like capital gains on homes. Good luck anyone who proposes that though, so instead we get stealth taxes and gimmicky taxes on assorted bogeymen, combined with a decaying public sector. Yay!
So you expect a person whose only income is a state pension to pay a capital gains tax on the increasing value of their home?
On sale, yes. Not unrealised gains. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to pay tax on unearned income especially if you expect them to pay an effective tax rate on earned income of 50% or more. You could set a minimum threshold of £100k or something if you were feeling generous. It's not going to happen anyway, the right of people to earn ludicrous amounts of money from the appreciation of their house is one of the great British fundamental rights that any politician meddled with at their peril.
It used to happen - I think primary homes were exempted from CGT in the mid-60s.
They still are.
Indeed, so before that people paid CGT on property gains on their primary residence. Since then they have not.
That indicates it isn't impossible, though doubtless it would be politically difficult.
oic. Apologies for that.
On the contrary I don't disagree with the concept. Not sure how it would work though. We bought our house in west wales for £50000 twenty years ago. It is now worth about £130000. How much of that profit would be liable to CGT? Would inflation be taken into account? We don't intend moving now, so would the cgt turn into IHT?
Bring back tapering. God alone knows why they got rid of it.
More seriously, I generally think that income taxes are too high and wealth taxes of course too low. Lest I be accused of selfishness, my income in the UK is currently v low, versus my asset holdings anyway.
Caught up with the overnight thread, which seemed to morph from my merely comparing the cities of Nottingham and Derby (and the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) into open season from various PB Bumpkins to pile in on London and cities in general.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
Suburban Leicester and suburban north-west London aren't much different to each other.
Yes, they are, because one of them is part of the greatest city in the world, and commands rapid access to all its treasures. And the other is Leicester.
Well I take your point. Give me a choice between a house in Oadby or a house in Pinner and I'd probably choose the latter. I can see the argument for Leicester though. Most importantly - and I don't know who it was who claimed suburban Leicester as his personal nirvana (Foxy?) - but if that's where home is, there is something very powerful about that which overrides any objective criteria. You know where you're at home. It'll be a view which suddenly reveals itself or a road sign you pass which may say something neutral like 'Cheshire' but in your head says something like 'welcome home' while a brass band plays something upbeat and sentimental in the background. So if for you your terroir is Leciestershire, then absolutely I can see why Oadby would be your nirvana.
But there is also a more prosaic reason why Oadby might beat Pinner: which is that you can live in a pretty spacious and comfortable house in Oadby for the price of a small flat in Pinner. In reality, that's what the choice is: would you rather have a small flat in Pinner or a large house in Oadby; or a house in Pinner or a mansion in Oadby? Or equivalently sized houses in each but not have to work any more in Oadby? On that basis, suburban Leicester is starting to look a lot more attractive.
You could probably buy a Scottish castle for a similar price as a house in Pinner. But that's not really what the discussion was about!
It's not really a realistic discussion unless you include some element of cost though. It's not a choice you can reasonably make. Let's say you have £750,000 to spend on somewhere to live, and could reasonably base your life anywhere - albeit that you'd probably earn more in London. Would you spend it on a small house in Pinner, a large house in Oadby or a mansion in Wick? I'd go for Oadby. I expect you'd go for Pinner. I'm sure some contrarians would go for Wick. All are fair choices. Personally, with a free choice of anywhere, no ties and a budget of £750,000, I'd go for Windermere. Occasionally, as a fun mental exercise, I rank different bits of the UK. The North West of England and most of Yorkshire tend to always come out top - for a mix of reasons: quality of landscape, quality of cities, but probably most importantly of all an unquantifiable emotional reaction of how I feel about the place. When Topsham in Devon was discussed a few months back I did end up thinking that would be a rather lovely place to live too.
Wollaton, west Nottingham – Matlock Bath, Peak District 47 mins Breadsall, north Derby - Matlock Bath, Peak District 31 mins
Hardly a critical difference is it?
Fair point. But from Beeston it always seemed such a slog to get to somewhere which should be pretty close. An hour was not typical but not uncommon while you pass unedifying little towns like Codnor and Ripley. You get better journey time reliability from Breadsall.
I'd also say the nice bits of Derbyshire start at about Little Eaton. So Breadsall - Little Eaton: about 2 minutes. Beeston - Little Eaton: about half an hour.
I lived in Sheffield for a bit. One of the reasons I loved it - and this was back in the 90s when the city centre was, frankly, a bit run down - was that from my house in the west of Sheffield I could walk to the Peak District. Derby doesn't quite have that, but it's pretty close. Manchester doesn't quite have that either, but the bits of Peak District it is close to are more dramatic. So, you know - swings and roundabouts. I don't want to be denigrating Nottingham, which was a nice city to live in in a lot of ways - just that if all else were equal I'd be choosing Derby. That said, Manchester is even better. It's not just close to home, it is home.
Yes, the access to the Peak from the western districts of Sheffield is quite fantastic. It's a much underrated city for that reason but has always suffered, as you imply, from a rather uninspiring city centre.
Much improved since I lived there though. Have you visited Sheffield City Centre in the last 15 years or so? A city transformed.
Comments
However Starmer could still become PM in a hung parliament if he gets SNP and LD support
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=36&LAB=36&LIB=12&Reform=3&Green=6&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=18.3&SCOTLAB=20.2&SCOTLIB=6.6&SCOTReform=0.9&SCOTGreen=3&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=48&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
So most should DITCH cash ISAs for accounts that pay more. I did a Twitter poll on Monday, and found 85% of the 9,000 who said they had cash ISAs don't pay tax on savings. So why keep them? I know for years many had it drilled into them (often by me) that cash ISAs were nicer - but now people need deprogramming. Most should simply focus on the highest interest rates which come from normal savings. Though there are a few niche reasons some who don't pay savings tax may want to keep cash ISAs...
- If you're close to paying tax on savings. If you're near the limit, as interest rates are likely to rise, keeping money in cash ISAs now can protect you from future tax.
- You can withdraw from fixed cash ISAs (unlike normal fixes). Though there are big interest penalties for doing so.
"While cash ISAs aren't much cop for most, other ISAs can be. If you're a first-time buyer, check out the Lifetime ISA's 25% boost worth up to £1,000/year on your first home. If you're looking to invest, a stocks and shares ISA is a really good way to start."
I wonder whether the actual numbers showed them slightly ahead.
@michaelujacobs
·
3h
I noted yesterday how the biggest announcement in the #SpringStatement2022 was the one Sunak didn’t make, his decision to uprate benefits and pensions by only 3.1%, not by the current inflation rate of 7%+. This makes the lowest income households c£500 poorer. Here’s the chart.
https://twitter.com/michaelujacobs/status/1506905380609212418
Even Trump administration deemed them too risky for US government infrastructure.
All meaningless this far out anyway and the Tories are in deep deep trouble on the economy and the cost of living crisis.
use £20K a year in ISA allowance- stock and shares one
Use the £2,000 dividend allowance (equates to about £50k worth of shares generally)
use the £1000 or £500 interest allowance if you can - Peer to peer lending ,junk bonds etc
Use the £1,000 micro self employment allowance if you can - bill up to £1,000 a year without needing to declare it
Use the £1,000 rent allowance a year - airbnb etc
If have to invest outside various tax wrappers then choose shares that have low dividend yield but high capital growth -REITS , etc
A vote which is not a Conservative vote in 2024 is therefore likely a vote to allow an indyref2
I saw another report that both of the other two ships seen sailing out of port were damaged too, but obviously not taken out of action. But you have to wonder about what this incident has done to the moral and fighting spirit of the Russian navy, particularly those cooped up in the landing ships with all that ordnance.
I was a little early (pre-Paterson & pre-partygate), but basically right.
I mean, I was with you all on some of the arguments – I too love a bit of countryside, am an avid hiker and mountain biker and live very near the rural edge of London. I too admire Hampshire, and the gorgeous Peak District, and the Lakes, and the handsome city of Nottingham. Agreed.
But when one PBer claimed his nirvana was "suburban Leicester", well ... the threadette lost all sense of reality at that stage. I mean, the point of satire is that it has to be at least vaguely plausible.
It would have a quantity of equipment and equipment on board.
Two other landing ships nearby were damaged, with a small no of casualties. Both Ropucha class. Can be seen hirrying away in vids below.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1506918398789365760
It’s one of the best energy saving measures out there, yet not included. Why, Sunak?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10647275/Englands-Covid-wall-immunity-revealed.html
Good news right...of course not says Mrs Glass always empty....
I suspect current wave will peak next week - helped greatly by school term finishing & nicer weather. but still a few million more people infected, 1000s more admissions and 10,000s more long covid cases to show for it. But what level will the plateau be at? & when's next one?
https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1506961424941293568?s=20&t=k2zqXA2iIFMOUHsiPrFjvw
And Tory and Boris poll gain from last week as revealed by this poll likely to be cemented further with Boris looking so smart and Primeministerial at the big summits today.
It looks like Boris and Biden will score a big victory over Germany, getting EU to phase out all Russian Oil and Coal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g5ZVwDqLRg
I can see the argument for Leicester though. Most importantly - and I don't know who it was who claimed suburban Leicester as his personal nirvana (Foxy?) - but if that's where home is, there is something very powerful about that which overrides any objective criteria. You know where you're at home. It'll be a view which suddenly reveals itself or a road sign you pass which may say something neutral like 'Cheshire' but in your head says something like 'welcome home' while a brass band plays something upbeat and sentimental in the background. So if for you your terroir is Leciestershire, then absolutely I can see why Oadby would be your nirvana.
But there is also a more prosaic reason why Oadby might beat Pinner: which is that you can live in a pretty spacious and comfortable house in Oadby for the price of a small flat in Pinner. In reality, that's what the choice is: would you rather have a small flat in Pinner or a large house in Oadby; or a house in Pinner or a mansion in Oadby? Or equivalently sized houses in each but not have to work any more in Oadby? On that basis, suburban Leicester is starting to look a lot more attractive.
One month in, Russia stalled and now in reverse, losses so great and symbolic now it’s putting survival of Putin regime into question, how do we now see this war ending? What is the likely Endgame?
Picking up on your point earlier...
Wollaton, west Nottingham – Matlock Bath, Peak District 47 mins
Breadsall, north Derby - Matlock Bath, Peak District 31 mins
Hardly a critical difference is it?
This poll was conducted over the weekend, what was the stand out political moment of the weekend in responders minds as canvassed?
“"And it's an absolutely incredible fact - and it's true - at a time when Russia is being led by a president who is capable of bullying and threats who's plainly capable of making dangerous and irrational decisions, we have a Labour Party whose shadow cabinet is stuffed with people who only recently voted to abolish the UK's independent nuclear deterrent. That's right. Eight of them.
"Do we want them in charge, my friends, at this moment? Do we want them running up the white flag? Do you see them standing up to Putin's blackmail?"
One well delivered well written front foot speech from Johnson was all it took to bury Partygate and draw the party’s level?
I'd like to see serious analysis of the problem (not self reporting) to get a fuller understanding.
I'd also like to know if having 99% of adults with antibodies reduces the incidence of long covid, as I would expect.
All this seems to have accelerated in recent years. It's fighting a losing battle I fear: rather like those of us who were brought up that H was spelled and sounded like this: aitch; and that haitch was simply wrong. I even hear haitch on the BBC now (although to be fair to them, Americans don't use it!)
That isn't to dismiss that particularly pre-vaccination there was definitely some very negative effect of COVID and there seems to be some evidence that it lead to re-admissions, even deaths, with organ damage.
What we really need is some concrete definition / parameters and data on that i.e. I don't think suffering fatigue at 12 weeks is in itself meaning that person is going to be suffering a life time of "long COVID". However, we do need to know if even with vaccines are people suffering the really serious effects like organ damage.
I think if the really serious "long covid" was as widespread as the likes of Pagel try to make out, we would be seeing it show up with hospital overload, massive rise in people claiming disability benefits, etc.
That indicates it isn't impossible, though doubtless it would be politically difficult.
I'd also say the nice bits of Derbyshire start at about Little Eaton. So Breadsall - Little Eaton: about 2 minutes. Beeston - Little Eaton: about half an hour.
I lived in Sheffield for a bit. One of the reasons I loved it - and this was back in the 90s when the city centre was, frankly, a bit run down - was that from my house in the west of Sheffield I could walk to the Peak District. Derby doesn't quite have that, but it's pretty close.
Manchester doesn't quite have that either, but the bits of Peak District it is close to are more dramatic. So, you know - swings and roundabouts.
I don't want to be denigrating Nottingham, which was a nice city to live in in a lot of ways - just that if all else were equal I'd be choosing Derby.
That said, Manchester is even better. It's not just close to home, it is home.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/long-covid-uncommon-in-children
Does it have to end in negotiated ceasefire and Ukraine concessions? Could Russia have to slink away like from Afghanistan in military defeat?
Iain Martin
@iainmartin1
·
4h
Seen some Budgets and statements blow up straight after launch. Osborne (first out traps praising yesterday) blundered several times. Brown pre-social media got several days before the deceptions were found. The next day monstering of Sunak's Spring Statement is... something else
https://twitter.com/iainmartin1/status/1506910691512487939
US also has generally lower income taxes.
That’s one of the benefits of wealth (or property) taxes. They allow for lower income taxes.
A large increase in the overall tax take is more problematic, given it's already around historic highs as a percentage of national income.
Then on top you have your health insurance, religious tax (seriously) on top of a multitude of other taxes and charges.
https://twitter.com/vik8867dn/status/1506975952814972930
As for Princess Pagel, she is supposed to be a scientist/mathematician –– yet she is very keen on anecdotes when they suit her narrative.
On the contrary I don't disagree with the concept. Not sure how it would work though. We bought our house in west wales for £50000 twenty years ago. It is now worth about £130000. How much of that profit would be liable to CGT? Would inflation be taken into account? We don't intend moving now, so would the cgt turn into IHT?
However for some people there is genuine anger and that cannot be dismissed.
When that bellend from the Mirror gets angry about it on GMB I ignore him, when a person gets upset because they couldn’t attend a loved ones funeral that’s different.
John Stevens
@johnestevens
·
38m
Rishi Sunak borrowed a Sainsburys worker's Kia Rio for his petrol station photo shoot, according to sources
https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/1506967975278034948
John Rentoul
@JohnRentoul
·
42m
And that's it. At 11.48 the Speaker announced the Dissolution and Calling of Parliaments Act has received the royal assent. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act is dead
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1506967115718397955
Leader: GardenWalker.
Shadow Chancellor: GardenWalker.
More seriously, I generally think that income taxes are too high and wealth taxes of course too low. Lest I be accused of selfishness, my income in the UK is currently v low, versus my asset holdings anyway.
When Topsham in Devon was discussed a few months back I did end up thinking that would be a rather lovely place to live too.