My God that's awful. An object lesson for anyone who takes freedom for granted. And an object lesson for anyone casually throwing around the word 'fascism'.
Now view it from a female perspective. Women are routinely abused the world over for the crime of being born female. The middle east is a cesspit of misogyny.
In this case state enforced misogyny, and state sanctioned murder to perpetuate it.
I fantasize about women ... leading a movement in Iran that explodes and topples the Theocracy.
This kind of analysis presupposes that Putin/Russia will only launch an offensive -
- with trained troops - in sufficient numbers - with sufficient equipment - with logistics to match
The evidence so far is that Russia/Putin will do all kinds of things that won't work.
The reasons are complex. Part of it is people lying up the chain of command, to keep their heads*. Part is people with no knowledge at the top mashing their thumbs into maps and declaring "hit this". Part is political desperation. If Kherson falls, big trouble. So must do Something. This is Something. Therefore.....
*Window safety really.
We made all sorts of over-ambitious and sometimes politically-directed offensives in ww2.
Can we assume, for the purpose of argument, that the present government staggers on until the spring. Managing somehow to avoid any further car crashes! By April gas and electricity prices have dropped… further assumption… and the government claims credit for same. Is it not likely that they will get that credit with the voters? Or has too much damage already been done?
OKC , you cannot polish a turd
But you can roll it in glitter!
(Still stinks though, either way)
You can actually polish a turd. Liquid nitrogen to freeze it first etc etc. Done by some nerds at MIT, IIRC.
Indeed. I seem to remember an article (Ars?) suggesting that you can also sharpen frozen turds into (bad) knives. Not convinced by the hygiene of that!
Can we assume, for the purpose of argument, that the present government staggers on until the spring. Managing somehow to avoid any further car crashes! By April gas and electricity prices have dropped… further assumption… and the government claims credit for same. Is it not likely that they will get that credit with the voters? Or has too much damage already been done?
OKC , you cannot polish a turd
But you can roll it in glitter!
(Still stinks though, either way)
You can actually polish a turd. Liquid nitrogen to freeze it first etc etc. Done by some nerds at MIT, IIRC.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
We aren't treating people fairly, we have an age-discriminatory income tax. If you're a pensioner you pay one rate, if you're middle aged you pay a higher rate, and if you're young you pay an even higher rate.
We should abolish the age discrimination in our tax system. Have a tax rate for income that is applied to all income equitably.
Where are the younger paying more?
Some youngsters are paying more because they went to university but it's not all youngsters as many don't go to university.
As for pensioners see my point above and below - the fix was in place to resolve how to get pensioners paying more. But it was removed because Truss and co are grade A muppets.
My God that's awful. An object lesson for anyone who takes freedom for granted. And an object lesson for anyone casually throwing around the word 'fascism'.
Now view it from a female perspective. Women are routinely abused the world over for the crime of being born female. The middle east is a cesspit of misogyny.
In this case state enforced misogyny, and state sanctioned murder to perpetuate it.
I fantasize about women ... leading a movement in Iran that explodes and topples the Theocracy.
Anyone remember the bit where a UN official was banging on about how life was worse for women in Britain, compared to anywhere else in the world? Apparently all those adverts with women not covered up were humiliating to women.....
Genuine question: has she sustained a head injury? She seems to have a bruise above her left eye. At first glance I thought it was a shading from the light, but it's not.
Certainly looks like a bruise. Seems to be square, though. Unusual.
I think it's just bad makeup that hasn't been blended properly. When she furrows her brow it looks normal and there's no sign of a plaster or swelling.
That's pretty amateurish makeup in that case given it would have been applied by a professional TV makeup artist?
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
Once you lose power you are normally out for a decade or more unless the Government can't deliver on the economy as in 1970, 1974 or 1979.
Thats true of Labour but in the modern era it has only ever applied to the Tories from 1997 to 2010, the sole occasion they were out for 10 years plus
Because Blair and Brown ran the economy well.
If Starmer and Reeves run the economy well like New Labour pre 2008 Labour will also likely be in power for over a decade, if not then the Tories have a chance again
Yes thars very possible, im just saying its in no way 'usually' the case the Tories are out for over a decade. Its happened once in 200 years (twice if you discount them being part of the Lloyd George coalition)
The Tories were also out of power from 1906 to 1918 ie they lost all general elections during that time only coming in to a wartime coalition as you say under Liberal Lloyd George.
The Tories were also the smaller party from 1832 to 1841 ie nearly a decade and were in opposition from 1846 to 1874 for all but 4 years.
Only when Labour runs a Socialist government do the Tories normally come back before a decade for any length of time
Genuine question: has she sustained a head injury? She seems to have a bruise above her left eye. At first glance I thought it was a shading from the light, but it's not.
Certainly looks like a bruise. Seems to be square, though. Unusual.
I think it's just bad makeup that hasn't been blended properly. When she furrows her brow it looks normal and there's no sign of a plaster or swelling.
The long stretch of interview with a smooth forehead and then a long stretch furrowed caught my eye.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
Nice theory, but in reality both parties have too much to gain by making the other one do it and then complaining about it. And we reward it with our voting behaviour.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
The problem there is once again
1) £70bn that the Government gets in Employer NI. 2) the fact NI is taxed on a periodic basis (weekly / monthly) and income tax on an annual basis.
And you probably want 2 left as it is for various reasons, some useful, other just because you can.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
Employer NI can be kept separate. The other issues are all solvable, over a period, if there is the will.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
The problem there is once again
1) £70bn that the Government gets in Employer NI. 2) the fact NI is taxed on a periodic basis (weekly / monthly) and income tax on an annual basis.
And you probably want 2 left as it is for various reasons, some useful, other just because you can.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
Badly - and probably not covering the killer part of it - which isn't so much IR35 but expenses.
Sorry to sound flippant but if there's a hotel bill surely the client just pays it directly to make life easier for everyone ?
If only that was possible - most large firms aren't set up in the UK to directly pay travel expenses - instead they want it to be expensed and claimed back.
Remember my tale about next week where 3 bank employees are coming North because the bank can't organise a hotel and train ticket for me so it's easier to get them to travel (at greater cost) themselves.
Now partly that's an issue of hybrid working but the simple fact is that if this was a contract I had to travel to I would need to find £1000 a week out of post tax income (£300 train fare, £600 London hotels, £100 food) and when shifted to pre-tax income that's £2000.
Does seem a bit unfair, these sorts of expenses are just paid directly if you're an employee of a firm. I think the problem is if the rules were changed people would claim the tax back on a regular train fare to somewhere they're working at for say 6 months as a contractor. Which clearly isn't the situation for your bank work.
Oh I know why the rules were changed - I sat in a HMRC meeting in London as they went through the changes with various connected parties and knew what they were doing and the end point they were aiming for.
However, the end point wasn't revealed for another 6 months (so was kept out of scope while the expenses law was being changed) because that wouldn't give HMRC what they wanted. It did however create the mess we are currently in where skilled workers now have little incentive but doing the minimum amount of work.
This kind of analysis presupposes that Putin/Russia will only launch an offensive -
- with trained troops - in sufficient numbers - with sufficient equipment - with logistics to match
The evidence so far is that Russia/Putin will do all kinds of things that won't work.
The reasons are complex. Part of it is people lying up the chain of command, to keep their heads*. Part is people with no knowledge at the top mashing their thumbs into maps and declaring "hit this". Part is political desperation. If Kherson falls, big trouble. So must do Something. This is Something. Therefore.....
*Window safety really.
We made all sorts of over-ambitious and sometimes politically-directed offensives in ww2.
WePeople have made all sorts of over-ambitious and sometimes politically-directed offensives in ww2 throughout history.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
Completely wrong.
If there were any prospect of Braverman and a victory on a programme like that, HY would sign up in a shot....
Fortunately, there isn't. Their choice is to move back toward the sensible centre and try and salvage something, or stick with the loopy PM and loony policy, and don't.
It was more of a forewarning to him, a rabbit hole to avoid.
Lose the election and bat-sh*t crazy will be back on the table, and attractive to White Van Men and London Cabbies, who like HY's thought process. "Here, I had that HYUFD in the back of my cab".
Even Braverman as Yougov showed today is much more popular than Truss
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
Once you lose power you are normally out for a decade or more unless the Government can't deliver on the economy as in 1970, 1974 or 1979.
Thats true of Labour but in the modern era it has only ever applied to the Tories from 1997 to 2010, the sole occasion they were out for 10 years plus
Because Blair and Brown ran the economy well.
If Starmer and Reeves run the economy well like New Labour pre 2008 Labour will also likely be in power for over a decade, if not then the Tories have a chance again
Yes thars very possible, im just saying its in no way 'usually' the case the Tories are out for over a decade. Its happened once in 200 years (twice if you discount them being part of the Lloyd George coalition)
The Tories were also out of power from 1906 to 1918 ie they lost all general elections during that time only coming in to a wartime coalition as you say under Liberal Lloyd George).
The Tories were also the smaller party from 1832 to 1841 ie nearly a decade and were in opposition from 1846 to 1874 for all but 4 years
So what are your political beliefs?
You supported the Conservative Party when it wanted to stay in the EU and you supported it when it wanted to leave.
You supported the Conservative Party when it introduced swingeing tax cuts and you are supporting it when that policy had been completely reversed.
Is there any (politically acceptable) position the Conservative Party could take that you would disagree with and, as it seems like the answer to this is no, my question is why.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
We aren't treating people fairly, we have an age-discriminatory income tax. If you're a pensioner you pay one rate, if you're middle aged you pay a higher rate, and if you're young you pay an even higher rate.
We should abolish the age discrimination in our tax system. Have a tax rate for income that is applied to all income equitably.
Where are the younger paying more?
Some youngsters are paying more because they went to university but it's not all youngsters as many don't go to university.
As for pensioners see my point above and below - the fix was in place to resolve how to get pensioners paying more. But it was removed because Truss and co are grade A muppets.
Are you claiming that Pension Incomes would have been liable to the Health and Social Care levy? Because that is not as far as I know correct, only anyone working past retirement age and claiming an earned income would have been liable to it, pensions etc would still have evaded that income tax.
NI, "Student Loans" (age-discriminatory graduate tax) etc should all be abolished and have a single, uniform rate of Income Tax. The entire pension income as well as other incomes such as from property etc should pay their fair share of tax.
We can debate what the fair rate of tax should be, but to discriminate between people based upon either their age or their employment status or method of earning income is not appropriate.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
The problem there is once again
1) £70bn that the Government gets in Employer NI. 2) the fact NI is taxed on a periodic basis (weekly / monthly) and income tax on an annual basis.
And you probably want 2 left as it is for various reasons, some useful, other just because you can.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
Income tax is monthly for most of the population.
Not in its assessment. PAYE is effectively advance payments on the final annual bill
Work only six months of a tax year on £20k a year and you get your PAYE IT refunded, but not the NI
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
Once you lose power you are normally out for a decade or more unless the Government can't deliver on the economy as in 1970, 1974 or 1979.
Thats true of Labour but in the modern era it has only ever applied to the Tories from 1997 to 2010, the sole occasion they were out for 10 years plus
Because Blair and Brown ran the economy well.
If Starmer and Reeves run the economy well like New Labour pre 2008 Labour will also likely be in power for over a decade, if not then the Tories have a chance again
Yes thars very possible, im just saying its in no way 'usually' the case the Tories are out for over a decade. Its happened once in 200 years (twice if you discount them being part of the Lloyd George coalition)
The Tories were also out of power from 1906 to 1918 ie they lost all general elections during that time only coming in to a wartime coalition as you say under Liberal Lloyd George).
The Tories were also the smaller party from 1832 to 1841 ie nearly a decade and were in opposition from 1846 to 1874 for all but 4 years
So what are your political beliefs?
You supported the Conservative Party when it wanted to stay in the EU and you supported it when it wanted to leave.
You supported the Conservative Party when it introduced swingeing tax cuts and you are supporting it when that policy had been completely reversed.
Is there any (politically acceptable) position the Conservative Party could take that you would disagree with and, as it seems like the answer to this is no, my question is why.
Republicanism.
Otherwise while the longterm aim is lower tax you also have to balance the budget
I see down thread that abbreviating Chief Operating Officer to COO is racist now because - err - it's - err - scratches head - a bit like coon without the last letter.
Please can mods consider rank stupidity a valid reason for banning a poster?
If one were being scrupulously fair, the combination of the ellipsis after COO together with "stop giggling', while innocent, was a bit unfortunate.
But it's hardly something to performatively flounce over.
My reading of the "stop giggling" was that Scott was obviously referring to the absurdity of Zahawi as COO.
Absolutely. But that implies a knowledge of politics which might be beyond your average troll.
I'm personally pleased that Truss was so strongly in favour of sending refugees on a one way ticket to Rwanda. Otherwise I'd be feeling really sorry for her. She must be feeling terrible. This might teach her empathy
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
Completely wrong.
If there were any prospect of Braverman and a victory on a programme like that, HY would sign up in a shot....
Fortunately, there isn't. Their choice is to move back toward the sensible centre and try and salvage something, or stick with the loopy PM and loony policy, and don't.
It was more of a forewarning to him, a rabbit hole to avoid.
Lose the election and bat-sh*t crazy will be back on the table, and attractive to White Van Men and London Cabbies, who like HY's thought process. "Here, I had that HYUFD in the back of my cab".
Even Braverman as Yougov showed today is much more popular than Truss
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
The problem there is once again
1) £70bn that the Government gets in Employer NI. 2) the fact NI is taxed on a periodic basis (weekly / monthly) and income tax on an annual basis.
And you probably want 2 left as it is for various reasons, some useful, other just because you can.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
Income tax is monthly for most of the population.
Not in its assessment. PAYE is effectively advance payments on the final annual bill
Work only six months of a tax year on £20k a year and you get your PAYE IT refunded, but not the NI
Blimey. Whoever invented national insurance was making sure Gov'ts could never ever junk it !
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
The problem there is once again
1) £70bn that the Government gets in Employer NI. 2) the fact NI is taxed on a periodic basis (weekly / monthly) and income tax on an annual basis.
And you probably want 2 left as it is for various reasons, some useful, other just because you can.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
Income tax is monthly for most of the population.
Nope income tax is estimated and collected monthly via PAYE but that's for convenience - the calculation is too complex to list here but it's based 1) on the amount paid so far this year (that's why P60's are issued), 2) the time left in the tax year, 3) the amount you are paid that week 4) an assumption that the pay this period will be identical in future periods.
To demonstrate that suppose I work April to August and have a stroke in September. I could in October go back and claim an income tax refund for over paid income tax due to my change in circumstances (it's a real example I had to help with last week). i think the tax refund due is £18,000 or so.
Does the west simply not have any self propelled anti-aircraft weapons ?
Tons of them. Just not in Ukraine.
There has been a de-emphasis on gun systems. This is because in gun vs missile duels, the chap with the gun tends to lose. This ended up with some fairly extreme gun systems being designed and built.
Voters it seems just despise pure libertarian leaders.
You can't extrapolate anything from Braverman's numbers. No one knows who she is. Her 'favourability' ratings are lower than Truss
Amongst Conservative 2019 voters Braverman has a 24% favourable rating to just 20% for Truss and they are the voters who might actually vote Conservative.
71% of even 2019 Conservative voters have an unfavourable view of Truss now
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
We aren't treating people fairly, we have an age-discriminatory income tax. If you're a pensioner you pay one rate, if you're middle aged you pay a higher rate, and if you're young you pay an even higher rate.
We should abolish the age discrimination in our tax system. Have a tax rate for income that is applied to all income equitably.
Where are the younger paying more?
Some youngsters are paying more because they went to university but it's not all youngsters as many don't go to university.
As for pensioners see my point above and below - the fix was in place to resolve how to get pensioners paying more. But it was removed because Truss and co are grade A muppets.
Are you claiming that Pension Incomes would have been liable to the Health and Social Care levy? Because that is not as far as I know correct, only anyone working past retirement age and claiming an earned income would have been liable to it, pensions etc would still have evaded that income tax.
NI, "Student Loans" (age-discriminatory graduate tax) etc should all be abolished and have a single, uniform rate of Income Tax. The entire pension income as well as other incomes such as from property etc should pay their fair share of tax.
We can debate what the fair rate of tax should be, but to discriminate between people based upon either their age or their employment status or method of earning income is not appropriate.
As you clearly don't check things before posting (unlike others round here)
Who is likely to be affected Employers, employees and the self-employed who are liable to pay National Insurance contributions and individuals that would be liable to pay National Insurance contributions were it not for pension age restrictions. Individuals who only pay Class 2 and Class 3 National Insurance contributions will not be affected.
The reason I know this is because some software I wrote had to override the NI age exclusion check..
Some speculation that this is connected to whatever Penny was hinting at yesterday. I have a theory but i'm not posting it for fear of sounding too wingnutty (like that usually matters to me)
Ben Wallace has hastily cancelled an early afternoon appearance before the Commons defence committee for an urgent trip to Washington DC, prompting speculation as to the purpose of the visit.
James Heappey... suggested that Wallace would be having “the sort of conversations” that had to take place face to face.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
In the past at least, there was an explicit trade-off for many potential workers between the security, work-life balance and pension of the public sector versus the higher salary, bonus and career opportunities/mobility in the private sector. And don't forget that, while the way you describe public sector pensions suggests you're thinking of some hypothetical top manager, most public sector pensions are pretty small, paid to front-line and relatively junior workers such as nurses, postmen, admin staff, council employees, teachers, etc. - and the size of the burden is because there are millions of such people rather than because they're all getting tens of £thousands.
My wife was a teacher for 23 years and she finished her career as a deputy head. Her monthly pension is around £700.
Seems extraordinarily generous to me, given that’s the equivalent or working from 21 and retiring at only 44. £700 a month is equivalent to a pot of around £400k if that’s an index linked pension.
That's a 47x valuation? Seems a bit high. Even if we accept that, a 400k pension at 65 = £182k at 44 with a 4% real terms growth rate.
No -you are missing a few things.
The retiree would have had a tax free lump sum at the start of the retirement, there is a spouse's pension entitlement on death of the retiree, your example involves market risk whereas the DB scheme to the member does not, and 4% real return (I wish). You need to compare like with like and look at annuity comparisons with index linking and spouse's pension and include the lump sum: £400k equiv is probably about right.
If you are a member of a DB scheme for the whole of your working life, and hold a middle-management position only, you are likely to retire on a pension entitlement equivalent to £1m in the outside world.
You are right that these comparisons are complicated.
This website today says 100k buys you £4800 + 3% escalation + 50% joint life. So would maybe only be 200-250k to recreate the pension mentioned originally. https://www.sharingpensions.co.uk/annuity_rates.htm
Does the west simply not have any self propelled anti-aircraft weapons ?
Tons of them. Just not in Ukraine.
There has been a de-emphasis on gun systems. This is because in gun vs missile duels, the chap with the gun tends to lose. This ended up with some fairly extreme gun systems being designed and built.
Nope income tax is estimated and collected monthly via PAYE but that's for convenience - the calculation is too complex to list here but it's based 1) on the amount paid so far this year (that's why P60's are issued), 2) the time left in the tax year, 3) the amount you are paid that week 4) an assumption that the pay this period will be identical in future periods.
To demonstrate that suppose I work April to August and have a stroke in September. I could in October go back and claim an income tax refund for over paid income tax due to my change in circumstances (it's a real example I had to help with last week). i think the tax refund due is £18,000 or so.
"4) an assumption that the pay this period will be identical in future periods. "
That's not the case for people on a standard tax code.
It can appear the case, as a result of the cumulative nature of PAYE, but it isn't - unless your tax code changes, because of e.g. a second job or income >£100,000.
My God that's awful. An object lesson for anyone who takes freedom for granted. And an object lesson for anyone casually throwing around the word 'fascism'.
Now view it from a female perspective. Women are routinely abused the world over for the crime of being born female. The middle east is a cesspit of misogyny.
In this case state enforced misogyny, and state sanctioned murder to perpetuate it.
I fantasize about women ... leading a movement in Iran that explodes and topples the Theocracy.
Anyone remember the bit where a UN official was banging on about how life was worse for women in Britain, compared to anywhere else in the world? Apparently all those adverts with women not covered up were humiliating to women.....
Ok - but women being horribly oppressed in Iran doesn't make their objectification here a great thing.
Can we assume, for the purpose of argument, that the present government staggers on until the spring. Managing somehow to avoid any further car crashes! By April gas and electricity prices have dropped… further assumption… and the government claims credit for same. Is it not likely that they will get that credit with the voters? Or has too much damage already been done?
OKC , you cannot polish a turd
But you can roll it in glitter!
(Still stinks though, either way)
You can actually polish a turd. Liquid nitrogen to freeze it first etc etc. Done by some nerds at MIT, IIRC.
Candidates for the ig Nobel prize?
I thought they tried similar on mythbusters and that didn't work? Certainly after warming up.
Voters it seems just despise pure libertarian leaders.
You can't extrapolate anything from Braverman's numbers. No one knows who she is. Her 'favourability' ratings are lower than Truss
Amongst Conservative 2019 voters Braverman has a 24% favourable rating to just 20% for Truss and they are the voters who might actually vote Conservative.
71% of even 2019 Conservative voters have an unfavourable view of Truss now
This is the sort of everyday hate and oppression that will be made permanent if Russia is allowed to keep its illegal annexations.
The concept of tolerance is a modern one. And one where the Western world has moved away from the much of the rest of the world to the point of a Singularity. Some other cultures simply do not understand us. Or want to.
To Sire Thomas Moore, a society that tolerated other than The True Faith, gay people etc etc was not merely bizarre/inconceivable. It was actively evil. And required purging with fire. And he was the liberal philosopher of his time...
Ben Wallace has hastily cancelled an early afternoon appearance before the Commons defence committee for an urgent trip to Washington DC, prompting speculation as to the purpose of the visit.
James Heappey... suggested that Wallace would be having “the sort of conversations” that had to take place face to face.
What’s the common view as to what this is? The Belarus issue?
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
Once you lose power you are normally out for a decade or more unless the Government can't deliver on the economy as in 1970, 1974 or 1979.
Thats true of Labour but in the modern era it has only ever applied to the Tories from 1997 to 2010, the sole occasion they were out for 10 years plus
Because Blair and Brown ran the economy well.
If Starmer and Reeves run the economy well like New Labour pre 2008 Labour will also likely be in power for over a decade, if not then the Tories have a chance again
Yes thars very possible, im just saying its in no way 'usually' the case the Tories are out for over a decade. Its happened once in 200 years (twice if you discount them being part of the Lloyd George coalition)
The Tories were also out of power from 1906 to 1918 ie they lost all general elections during that time only coming in to a wartime coalition as you say under Liberal Lloyd George).
The Tories were also the smaller party from 1832 to 1841 ie nearly a decade and were in opposition from 1846 to 1874 for all but 4 years
So what are your political beliefs?
You supported the Conservative Party when it wanted to stay in the EU and you supported it when it wanted to leave.
You supported the Conservative Party when it introduced swingeing tax cuts and you are supporting it when that policy had been completely reversed.
Is there any (politically acceptable) position the Conservative Party could take that you would disagree with and, as it seems like the answer to this is no, my question is why.
Republicanism.
Otherwise while the longterm aim is lower tax you also have to balance the budget
Hmm. I mean thank you for your answer but it does diminish your credibility somewhat when you can support a party so vigorously as it adopts two diametrically opposite positions.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
The problem there is once again
1) £70bn that the Government gets in Employer NI. 2) the fact NI is taxed on a periodic basis (weekly / monthly) and income tax on an annual basis.
And you probably want 2 left as it is for various reasons, some useful, other just because you can.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
I have already dealt with the Employer NI issue. You have a headcount tax on every employee and IR35 equivalent contractor paid by the end user company. This really isn't a barrier to the very sensible idea of simplifying the system by merging the two taxes.
My God that's awful. An object lesson for anyone who takes freedom for granted. And an object lesson for anyone casually throwing around the word 'fascism'.
Now view it from a female perspective. Women are routinely abused the world over for the crime of being born female. The middle east is a cesspit of misogyny.
In this case state enforced misogyny, and state sanctioned murder to perpetuate it.
I fantasize about women ... leading a movement in Iran that explodes and topples the Theocracy.
Anyone remember the bit where a UN official was banging on about how life was worse for women in Britain, compared to anywhere else in the world? Apparently all those adverts with women not covered up were humiliating to women.....
Ok - but women being horribly oppressed in Iran doesn't make their objectification here a great thing.
No, but she was claiming, rather clearly, that treating women in the er... covered up style was how societies should be.
To her, lingerie ads were worse than recreational sexual assault on women, as part of a system of state control of women.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
I keep reading on Twitter (yeah, I know) that Wallace’s private life is stopping him from running. The mind boggles at what a slab of glabrous Scotch mutton might be getting up to that would frighten the horses..
Can we assume, for the purpose of argument, that the present government staggers on until the spring. Managing somehow to avoid any further car crashes! By April gas and electricity prices have dropped… further assumption… and the government claims credit for same. Is it not likely that they will get that credit with the voters? Or has too much damage already been done?
OKC , you cannot polish a turd
But you can roll it in glitter!
(Still stinks though, either way)
You can actually polish a turd. Liquid nitrogen to freeze it first etc etc. Done by some nerds at MIT, IIRC.
Indeed. I seem to remember an article (Ars?) suggesting that you can also sharpen frozen turds into (bad) knives. Not convinced by the hygiene of that!
Might be quite strong, if you guzzle a lot of asparagus first. (I happened to do this the day before taking a bowel screening sample and was quite taken aback how fibrous the result was.)
Who is likely to be affected Employers, employees and the self-employed who are liable to pay National Insurance contributions and individuals that would be liable to pay National Insurance contributions were it not for pension age restrictions. Individuals who only pay Class 2 and Class 3 National Insurance contributions will not be affected.
The reason I know this is because some software I wrote had to override the NI age exclusion check..
Barty is correct. The levy only applies to earned income, not pensions.
Nope income tax is estimated and collected monthly via PAYE but that's for convenience - the calculation is too complex to list here but it's based 1) on the amount paid so far this year (that's why P60's are issued), 2) the time left in the tax year, 3) the amount you are paid that week 4) an assumption that the pay this period will be identical in future periods.
To demonstrate that suppose I work April to August and have a stroke in September. I could in October go back and claim an income tax refund for over paid income tax due to my change in circumstances (it's a real example I had to help with last week). i think the tax refund due is £18,000 or so.
"4) an assumption that the pay this period will be identical in future periods. "
That's not the case for people on a standard tax code.
It can appear the case, as a result of the cumulative nature of PAYE, but it isn't - unless your tax code changes, because of e.g. a second job or income >£100,000.
Remember I usually deal with well paid people who are paid inconsistently. PAYE works really well if you are paid ££x,000 every week / month - it's painful if your income shifts round but is usually fixed provided you are paid at some point in March.
Minister admits entire Cabinet failed to spot the mini-Budget would be a car crash. "It would be completely disingenuous to claim that on that morning when the Cabinet was presented with the mini-Budget that there was anybody sat around the table who said that it was a bad idea." https://twitter.com/TimesRadio/status/1582278064297242626
Either the didn't realise, in which case sack them, or they didn't speak up, in which case sack them. What's the point of any of these idiots being in parliament never mind the cabinet?
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Who is likely to be affected Employers, employees and the self-employed who are liable to pay National Insurance contributions and individuals that would be liable to pay National Insurance contributions were it not for pension age restrictions. Individuals who only pay Class 2 and Class 3 National Insurance contributions will not be affected.
The reason I know this is because some software I wrote had to override the NI age exclusion check..
Barty is correct. The levy only applies to earned income, not pensions.
not quite - if it impacts earned income it's still a change from how things work prior to April 2023.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
My instinct is to think that adding more tax line items is needless complexity, unless the longer term aim is to change the NHS funding model altogether.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
The problem there is once again
1) £70bn that the Government gets in Employer NI. 2) the fact NI is taxed on a periodic basis (weekly / monthly) and income tax on an annual basis.
And you probably want 2 left as it is for various reasons, some useful, other just because you can.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
I have already dealt with the Employer NI issue. You have a headcount tax on every employee and IR35 equivalent contractor paid by the end user company. This really isn't a barrier to the very sensible idea of simplifying the system by merging the two taxes.
Could you do the following:
1) Abolish employers NI 2) Ramp up the minimum wage to the amount the employers save by 1) 3) Abolish/cut back working tax credits due to the increased minimum wage
Voters it seems just despise pure libertarian leaders.
You can't extrapolate anything from Braverman's numbers. No one knows who she is. Her 'favourability' ratings are lower than Truss
Amongst Conservative 2019 voters Braverman has a 24% favourable rating to just 20% for Truss and they are the voters who might actually vote Conservative.
71% of even 2019 Conservative voters have an unfavourable view of Truss now
Trying to make a case for Braverman who is just 4% ahead of the hapless Truss who is now persona non grata in her position as PM
You need to accept your right wing views are being marginalised just as Corbynites were
I have already said I would back Sunak now to save the furniture as I voted for Sunak over the ERG backed Truss in the summer anyway, so stop sprouting rubbish.
My point was merely even Braverman is more popular than Truss now with 2019 Conservative voters
PMQs is consistently overrated for importance but tomorrow’s is crucial for betting purposes imo. What most Conservatives would probably prefer is for the arrangement of Hunt in charge with Truss as puppet PM to hold until they build a consensus of who should replace her and how it should be managed. The big caveat to such an outcome has little to do with backroom political machinations – it's more a personal matter.
Can she, having been utterly and publicly humiliated, manage to function well enough to handle the visible aspects of being PM?
We might get the answer at PMQs. If she’s as wooden and zoned out as in recent days I think that’s it and she’ll be gone in days or weeks. But if she can somehow summon up a performance – doesn't have to be good, just needs to be something you can watch without feeling complicit in cruelty to helpless creatures – then I think she can survive in post until next year.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
I keep reading on Twitter (yeah, I know) that Wallace’s private life is stopping him from running. The mind boggles at what a slab of glabrous Scotch mutton might be getting up to that would frighten the horses..
Ben Wallace has hastily cancelled an early afternoon appearance before the Commons defence committee for an urgent trip to Washington DC, prompting speculation as to the purpose of the visit.
James Heappey... suggested that Wallace would be having “the sort of conversations” that had to take place face to face.
What’s the common view as to what this is? The Belarus issue?
One of the notable things about this conflict is that Western governments have been fairly open about what they know and about what they will, or won't, do in response.
A face to face conversation implies something where you want to make extra effort to keep the discussion secret and/or you have to make absolutely sure that the two people having the discussion fully understand each other. So that seems quite significant.
Bearing in mind also that Wallace was in Brussels for the regulate NATO meeting just last week, with all the other NATO defence ministers, and it suggests a sudden and severe development.
In short, I fear that Leon might be right about something.
Or, it could be for the purpose of a dressing down for RAF pilots training the Chinese.
As time goes on, the number of people who can define Brexit is probably shrinking. I would be surprised by this point if a meaningful number of people think Brexit = Tory government.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
Who is likely to be affected Employers, employees and the self-employed who are liable to pay National Insurance contributions and individuals that would be liable to pay National Insurance contributions were it not for pension age restrictions. Individuals who only pay Class 2 and Class 3 National Insurance contributions will not be affected.
The reason I know this is because some software I wrote had to override the NI age exclusion check..
Barty is correct. The levy only applies to earned income, not pensions.
not quite - if it impacts earned income it's still a change from how things work prior to April 2023.
Not remotely good enough. The issue is the way earned incomes and unearned ones are not taxed consistently.
You clearly misread my post, as I was correct in what I said. Fudging it so that anyone earning an income past retirement age pays tax doesn't address the issue that pensions aren't taxed in the same way as earned incomes are.
All income should face the same rate of income tax, regardless of source. We can debate whether we want that tax rate to be higher or lower, but we should not discriminate and make those who are working for their living pay more.
Are you claiming that Pension Incomes would have been liable to the Health and Social Care levy? Because that is not as far as I know correct, only anyone working past retirement age and claiming an earned income would have been liable to it, pensions etc would still have evaded that income tax.
Saying that those working past retirement age pay the tax doesn't mean I was wrong to say that only those working past retirement age pay the tax, you've instead confirmed I was correct!
Ben Wallace has hastily cancelled an early afternoon appearance before the Commons defence committee for an urgent trip to Washington DC, prompting speculation as to the purpose of the visit.
James Heappey... suggested that Wallace would be having “the sort of conversations” that had to take place face to face.
What’s the common view as to what this is? The Belarus issue?
Pointless to speculate, but if you are called to that kind of meeting then it is probably best to go. I wouldn't link this to the performance of Truss yesterday despite Mordaunt's hints. The reason is that Trusses weirdness is better explained by her dire political position.
Who is likely to be affected Employers, employees and the self-employed who are liable to pay National Insurance contributions and individuals that would be liable to pay National Insurance contributions were it not for pension age restrictions. Individuals who only pay Class 2 and Class 3 National Insurance contributions will not be affected.
The reason I know this is because some software I wrote had to override the NI age exclusion check..
Barty is correct. The levy only applies to earned income, not pensions.
not quite - if it impacts earned income it's still a change from how things work prior to April 2023.
Indeed so, but a small change only. Neither pension income nor earned income is subject to employee's NI for people over retirement age. The latter in particular has always struck me as absolutely barmy. For a government scrabbling around for money, I'd have thought this one was a no-brainer, even if it would cost me personally quite a lot.
Some speculation that this is connected to whatever Penny was hinting at yesterday. I have a theory but i'm not posting it for fear of sounding too wingnutty (like that usually matters to me)
So the 35% who still think Brexit is right is significantly higher than the Tories are polling now.
Ask voters do you now want to rejoin the EU and the Eurozone and restore full free movement of EU migrants to the UK and you would get a different answer
This is the sort of everyday hate and oppression that will be made permanent if Russia is allowed to keep its illegal annexations.
The concept of tolerance is a modern one. And one where the Western world has moved away from the much of the rest of the world to the point of a Singularity. Some other cultures simply do not understand us. Or want to.
To Sire Thomas Moore, a society that tolerated other than The True Faith, gay people etc etc was not merely bizarre/inconceivable. It was actively evil. And required purging with fire. And he was the liberal philosopher of his time...
And yet a mostly modern Enlightenment culture has been adopted by nations from Argentina to Japan. Russian culture is barbarism.
PMQs is consistently overrated for importance but tomorrow’s is crucial for betting purposes imo. What most Conservatives would probably prefer is for the arrangement of Hunt in charge with Truss as puppet PM to hold until they build a consensus of who should replace her and how it should be managed. The big caveat to such an outcome has little to do with backroom political machinations – it's more a personal matter.
Can she, having been utterly and publicly humiliated, manage to function well enough to handle the visible aspects of being PM?
We might get the answer at PMQs. If she’s as wooden and zoned out as in recent days I think that’s it and she’ll be gone in days or weeks. But if she can somehow summon up a performance – doesn't have to be good, just needs to be something you can watch without feeling complicit in cruelty to helpless creatures – then I think she can survive in post until next year.
Is there anything in the nature of PMQs that requires the PM to actually answer the questions? It seems to me that she could just go there and keep parroting a set of slogans in answer to every question from the opposition , ie 'we are taking the hard decisions due to Putins War' and get through it all unnoticed.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
The problem there is once again
1) £70bn that the Government gets in Employer NI. 2) the fact NI is taxed on a periodic basis (weekly / monthly) and income tax on an annual basis.
And you probably want 2 left as it is for various reasons, some useful, other just because you can.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
I have already dealt with the Employer NI issue. You have a headcount tax on every employee and IR35 equivalent contractor paid by the end user company. This really isn't a barrier to the very sensible idea of simplifying the system by merging the two taxes.
You would have games under that approach as say TAQA / Wood group argued who managed whom.
I would suggest you leave it as a responsibility of the Fee payer with rules identical to Agency Reporting Regulations and the tax based on the figure reported there.
That would then let workers use a limited company / paye as appropriate based on some simple criteria because the only criteria left is retaining money to ensure you are paid on a rainy day when a contract isn't available.
Does the west simply not have any self propelled anti-aircraft weapons ?
Tons of them. Just not in Ukraine.
There has been a de-emphasis on gun systems. This is because in gun vs missile duels, the chap with the gun tends to lose. This ended up with some fairly extreme gun systems being designed and built.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
Change in registration policy? You mean individuals having to register for themselves rather than a "head of the family" registering everyone together? Arguments for and against, but surely not Putinistic.
Changes in ID requirements: Already addressed in mu post, purely bringing GB in line with NI. Again, arguments for and against, but definitely not Putinistic.
Changes in funding rules? I don't know what this refers to, do you have a link?
Undercutting of the independent (sic) overseers of elections - if the Electoral Commission hadn't shown themselves to be so unfit for purpose over the last few years then they wouldn't need to change. Having an electoral commission stuffed with Lib Dems was fine only as long as the axis of UK elections was purely Labour v Tory, but that has changed in the ladt few years.
Unilateral changes of electoral systems? Is this referring to abolishing the utterly pointless SV system for metro mayors?
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
Where does this bizarre jealousy of life in the public sector come from? Get jobs in the public sector if you think it’s so great! Many public sector workers have very difficult jobs in the context of underfunded services, with lousy pay, and constant political interference. The problems of the UK today are not because we mollycoddle public servants!
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
So the 35% who still think Brexit is right is significantly higher than the Tories are polling now.
Ask voters do you now want to rejoin the EU and the Eurozone and restore full free movement of EU migrants to the UK and you would get a different answer
The second part of that line unfortunately loses its powers when the Tories are letting in all sorts of unskilled migrants. Theresa May, for all her faults, was the only PM that genuinely got the problem and made real progress to address it. It caused a spike in pay at the bottom end of the income spectrum, that the Powers That Be want everyone to ignore/forget.
Some speculation that this is connected to whatever Penny was hinting at yesterday. I have a theory but i'm not posting it for fear of sounding too wingnutty (like that usually matters to me)
So the 35% who still think Brexit is right is significantly higher than the Tories are polling now.
Ask voters do you now want to rejoin the EU and the Eurozone and restore full free movement of EU migrants to the UK and you would get a different answer
We rarely are on the same page these days but this constant argument over Brexit is tedious and with Starmer being anti re-joining then the best those unreconciled remainers can hope for is closer cooperation with the EU probably through Macon's efforts to have closer ties with those non EU countries that were at his meeting 2 weeks ago
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote.
It was Tony Blair that introduced the concept of voter ID into this country. Its been operating for twenty years now.
As time goes on, the number of people who can define Brexit is probably shrinking. I would be surprised by this point if a meaningful number of people think Brexit = Tory government.
This is the sort of everyday hate and oppression that will be made permanent if Russia is allowed to keep its illegal annexations.
The concept of tolerance is a modern one. And one where the Western world has moved away from the much of the rest of the world to the point of a Singularity. Some other cultures simply do not understand us. Or want to.
To Sire Thomas Moore, a society that tolerated other than The True Faith, gay people etc etc was not merely bizarre/inconceivable. It was actively evil. And required purging with fire. And he was the liberal philosopher of his time...
And yet a mostly modern Enlightenment culture has been adopted by nations from Argentina to Japan. Russian culture is barbarism.
It depends.
I was told the following by a South Korean. Due to the long history of American troops in South Korea, there are a fair number of half American half Korean kids. A number have African American soldiers for parents. They have to be excused from national service/treated differently. Because the death/injury rate of such individuals, from "hazing" by their fellow conscripts was getting OTT.
Interesting that you're so keen on posting polls - at least those ones that look bad for the Tories or Brexit - and yet you post a poll that shows that, by definition, "most people" don't know what they're talking about!
It's going to be Iraq 2 all over again. In 10 years you won't be able to find anyone who will admit voting for it (most statistically dead in 10 years anyway) or thought it was a good idea.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
If I am mistaken, has not the government, in one or other of its incarnations since the 2015 elections already started to 'Putinise' the electoral system?
You are mistaken. Unless you can provide any evidence, which doesn't include "bringing the electoral system in Great Britain in line with Northern Ireland" or "removing systemic imbalance in the constituency boundaries"?
Changes in registration policy - changes in ID requirements - changes in funding rules - undercutting of the independent overseers of elections - unilateral changes of electoral systems.
Need I go on...
I think you fail to understand the Conservative Cult. Any changes which makes it harder to vote for any other party are OK by the Cult.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
The proposed changes to bring GB in line with NI don't make it harder for legitimate voters to vote for whichever party they want. It's absurd that I need to take a passport or driving licence to collect a parcel from the sorting office yet there are no ID checks at all on voting - a far more important process.
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
It's a non issue. ID requirements are common across European democracies.
So the 35% who still think Brexit is right is significantly higher than the Tories are polling now.
Ask voters do you now want to rejoin the EU and the Eurozone and restore full free movement of EU migrants to the UK and you would get a different answer
The second part of that line unfortunately loses its powers when the Tories are letting in all sorts of unskilled migrants. Theresa May, for all her faults, was the only PM that genuinely got the problem and made real progress to address it. It caused a spike in pay at the bottom end of the income spectrum, that the Powers That Be want everyone to ignore/forget.
We could simply enforce the requirements for immigrants to be able to sustain themselves and/or find gainful employment within 1 month of arrival as other EU members do.
It was surely not beyond the wit of man to require a registered address and police it.
I want a closer relationship with Europe but not to re-join
Even though I am sure that organization would have worded its questions to get the most pro-EU responses possible, it still found that a large majority don't want to rejoin the single market and don't want preferential treatment to EU migrants.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
They should be given what they were contractually offered, but they should also be equitably taxed on that too. If they have higher remuneration then that should be taxed accordingly, just as anyone else's would be.
At present pension incomes aren't as heavily taxed as other people's incomes. They evade National Insurance and despite many being graduates they evade the graduate tax known as student loans too. A young graduate working for a living can be paying 22% more tax per pound they earn than a retired graduate on the exact same income.
We should merge all income related taxes into one and have a fair equitable tax rate applied to all incomes evenly. No dodging NI or anything else for pensioners.
You need to treat people fairly so you can't introduce a graduate tax on those who went to university when it didn't exist - and you can't do it now because
1) prior to student loans no-one has the paperwork to know who went to university 2) many people have paid off their loans and it would be utterly unfair to tax them twice.
In your desire to remove the NI increase you won't have noticed but you also removed the mechanism by which pensioners were from 6th April 2023 paying 1.25% (NI equivalent) on their taxable income. That would have allowed a future chancellor to change the split between NI and social care and increased pensioner contributions.
As someone said above, the argument for merging tax and NI and levying the latter on everyone and all income, like tax, is pretty strong. Those pensioners affected would be the better off ones, and they should be asked to pay, as should those getting income from property or investments, who currently are relatively under-taxed.
This shouldn't even be a party political issue at its most basic level. It is an issue of fairness, transparency and effectiveness in the tax system. We can have all the arguments about at what level such taxes should be set and who should pay more or less after we have sorted out a system that is actually fit for purpose.
The problem there is once again
1) £70bn that the Government gets in Employer NI. 2) the fact NI is taxed on a periodic basis (weekly / monthly) and income tax on an annual basis.
And you probably want 2 left as it is for various reasons, some useful, other just because you can.
So the ideal fix was the introduction of the social care levy followed a year or so later by ramping it up and separating NI into separate NI and NHS taxes (the former paid by people under 67, the latter paid by absolutely everyone regardless of age).
I have already dealt with the Employer NI issue. You have a headcount tax on every employee and IR35 equivalent contractor paid by the end user company. This really isn't a barrier to the very sensible idea of simplifying the system by merging the two taxes.
Could you do the following:
1) Abolish employers NI 2) Ramp up the minimum wage to the amount the employers save by 1) 3) Abolish/cut back working tax credits due to the increased minimum wage
No because there is no way you could guarantee the increased pay required would be paid to all workers. The fears are
1) many mid pay workers would be left out of such a change 2) the new scary rates of tax (base rate income tax would be 45%) would put people off additional work especially when it benefits were clawed back.
Employer NI is a complete mare to fix - but it was loved by Chancellors as it was never covered in manifestos because few people understand how pay really works.
Does the west simply not have any self propelled anti-aircraft weapons ?
Tons of them. Just not in Ukraine.
There has been a de-emphasis on gun systems. This is because in gun vs missile duels, the chap with the gun tends to lose. This ended up with some fairly extreme gun systems being designed and built.
Comments
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Some youngsters are paying more because they went to university but it's not all youngsters as many don't go to university.
As for pensioners see my point above and below - the fix was in place to resolve how to get pensioners paying more. But it was removed because Truss and co are grade A muppets.
The Tories were also the smaller party from 1832 to 1841 ie nearly a decade and were in opposition from 1846 to 1874 for all but 4 years.
Only when Labour runs a Socialist government do the Tories normally come back before a decade for any length of time
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63297239
However, the end point wasn't revealed for another 6 months (so was kept out of scope while the expenses law was being changed) because that wouldn't give HMRC what they wanted. It did however create the mess we are currently in where skilled workers now have little incentive but doing the minimum amount of work.
You supported the Conservative Party when it wanted to stay in the EU and you supported it when it wanted to leave.
You supported the Conservative Party when it introduced swingeing tax cuts and you are supporting it when that policy had been completely reversed.
Is there any (politically acceptable) position the Conservative Party could take that you would disagree with and, as it seems like the answer to this is no, my question is why.
NI, "Student Loans" (age-discriminatory graduate tax) etc should all be abolished and have a single, uniform rate of Income Tax. The entire pension income as well as other incomes such as from property etc should pay their fair share of tax.
We can debate what the fair rate of tax should be, but to discriminate between people based upon either their age or their employment status or method of earning income is not appropriate.
Work only six months of a tax year on £20k a year and you get your PAYE IT refunded, but not the NI
Otherwise while the longterm aim is lower tax you also have to balance the budget
The oath of loyalty to the monarch is bollocks. Like mercenaries through the agencies, all services can be bought and sold. For the right price.
But that implies a knowledge of politics which might be beyond your average troll.
https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1582310873128849408?t=_82EylZ3W8GuvjoMjjoXJg&s=19
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/y6wn6y/russians_attack_bully_crimean_tatar_girl/
This is the sort of everyday hate and oppression that will be made permanent if Russia is allowed to keep its illegal annexations.
FUDHY is taking all her Don’t Knows and pretending that’s a good thing.
1) on the amount paid so far this year (that's why P60's are issued),
2) the time left in the tax year,
3) the amount you are paid that week
4) an assumption that the pay this period will be identical in future periods.
To demonstrate that suppose I work April to August and have a stroke in September. I could in October go back and claim an income tax refund for over paid income tax due to my change in circumstances (it's a real example I had to help with last week). i think the tax refund due is £18,000 or so.
There has been a de-emphasis on gun systems. This is because in gun vs missile duels, the chap with the gun tends to lose. This ended up with some fairly extreme gun systems being designed and built.
Time to bring back the T249?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T249_Vigilante
71% of even 2019 Conservative voters have an unfavourable view of Truss now
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/10/18/liz-trusss-net-favourability-rating-falls-70
From https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-and-social-care-levy/health-and-social-care-levy#who-is-likely-to-be-affected
Who is likely to be affected
Employers, employees and the self-employed who are liable to pay National Insurance contributions and individuals that would be liable to pay National Insurance contributions were it not for pension age restrictions. Individuals who only pay Class 2 and Class 3 National Insurance contributions will not be affected.
The reason I know this is because some software I wrote had to override the NI age exclusion check..
I have a theory but i'm not posting it for fear of sounding too wingnutty (like that usually matters to me)
Ben Wallace has hastily cancelled an early afternoon appearance before the Commons defence committee for an urgent trip to Washington DC, prompting speculation as to the purpose of the visit.
James Heappey... suggested that Wallace would be having “the sort of conversations” that had to take place face to face.
But 400k at 65 is definitely equivalent to a much lower sum at 44 years old. You can argue about what a reasonable rate of return is, but I think 4% is a conservative figure... 6-7% is average after inflation according to this McKinsey study. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/prime-numbers/markets-will-be-markets-an-analysis-of-long-term-returns-from-the-s-and-p-500
This website today says 100k buys you £4800 + 3% escalation + 50% joint life. So would maybe only be 200-250k to recreate the pension mentioned originally.
https://www.sharingpensions.co.uk/annuity_rates.htm
Ukraine needs the capability to hit the bases the Iranian drones are being launched from.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard#Current_operators
But what they really need for the power stations is a number of something like this (or the similar Israeli system).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS#Centurion_C-RAM
That's not the case for people on a standard tax code.
It can appear the case, as a result of the cumulative nature of PAYE, but it isn't - unless your tax code changes, because of e.g. a second job or income >£100,000.
You need to accept your right wing views are being marginalised just as Corbynites were
To Sire Thomas Moore, a society that tolerated other than The True Faith, gay people etc etc was not merely bizarre/inconceivable. It was actively evil. And required purging with fire. And he was the liberal philosopher of his time...
To her, lingerie ads were worse than recreational sexual assault on women, as part of a system of state control of women.
Need I go on...
1) Abolish employers NI
2) Ramp up the minimum wage to the amount the employers save by 1)
3) Abolish/cut back working tax credits due to the increased minimum wage
My point was merely even Braverman is more popular than Truss now with 2019 Conservative voters
Can she, having been utterly and publicly humiliated, manage to function well enough to handle the visible aspects of being PM?
We might get the answer at PMQs. If she’s as wooden and zoned out as in recent days I think that’s it and she’ll be gone in days or weeks. But if she can somehow summon up a performance – doesn't have to be good, just needs to be something you can watch without feeling complicit in cruelty to helpless creatures – then I think she can survive in post until next year.
The No.10 lectern is all twisty these days....
A face to face conversation implies something where you want to make extra effort to keep the discussion secret and/or you have to make absolutely sure that the two people having the discussion fully understand each other. So that seems quite significant.
Bearing in mind also that Wallace was in Brussels for the regulate NATO meeting just last week, with all the other NATO defence ministers, and it suggests a sudden and severe development.
In short, I fear that Leon might be right about something.
Or, it could be for the purpose of a dressing down for RAF pilots training the Chinese.
Only their supporters should be allowed to vote. Apparently....
You clearly misread my post, as I was correct in what I said. Fudging it so that anyone earning an income past retirement age pays tax doesn't address the issue that pensions aren't taxed in the same way as earned incomes are.
All income should face the same rate of income tax, regardless of source. We can debate whether we want that tax rate to be higher or lower, but we should not discriminate and make those who are working for their living pay more.
Are you claiming that Pension Incomes would have been liable to the Health and Social Care levy? Because that is not as far as I know correct, only anyone working past retirement age and claiming an earned income would have been liable to it, pensions etc would still have evaded that income tax.
Saying that those working past retirement age pay the tax doesn't mean I was wrong to say that only those working past retirement age pay the tax, you've instead confirmed I was correct!
I wouldn't link this to the performance of Truss yesterday despite Mordaunt's hints. The reason is that Trusses weirdness is better explained by her dire political position.
Conservatives are despairing as Liz Truss clings to power.
“At the moment people don't know what being a Tory means," one MP told me.
Read it here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/18/conservatives-despairing-liz-truss-clings-power/
Ask voters do you now want to rejoin the EU and the Eurozone and restore full free movement of EU migrants to the UK and you would get a different answer
I would suggest you leave it as a responsibility of the Fee payer with rules identical to Agency Reporting Regulations and the tax based on the figure reported there.
That would then let workers use a limited company / paye as appropriate based on some simple criteria because the only criteria left is retaining money to ensure you are paid on a rainy day when a contract isn't available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCEzEVwOwS4
TLDR - Russian can supply missiles & drones quicker than Ukraine can supply anti-air ammunition.
Changes in ID requirements: Already addressed in mu post, purely bringing GB in line with NI. Again, arguments for and against, but definitely not Putinistic.
Changes in funding rules? I don't know what this refers to, do you have a link?
Undercutting of the independent (sic) overseers of elections - if the Electoral Commission hadn't shown themselves to be so unfit for purpose over the last few years then they wouldn't need to change. Having an electoral commission stuffed with Lib Dems was fine only as long as the axis of UK elections was purely Labour v Tory, but that has changed in the ladt few years.
Unilateral changes of electoral systems? Is this referring to abolishing the utterly pointless SV system for metro mayors?
Why should GB have a less secure voting system than NI?
1. Despite all the promises, most people don't think we've 'got Brexit done'
2. 70% now want a closer relationship with Europe
https://institute.global/policy/moving-how-british-public-views-brexit-and-what-it-wants-future-relationship-european-union
I was told the following by a South Korean. Due to the long history of American troops in South Korea, there are a fair number of half American half Korean kids. A number have African American soldiers for parents. They have to be excused from national service/treated differently. Because the death/injury rate of such individuals, from "hazing" by their fellow conscripts was getting OTT.
It was surely not beyond the wit of man to require a registered address and police it.
1) many mid pay workers would be left out of such a change
2) the new scary rates of tax (base rate income tax would be 45%) would put people off additional work especially when it benefits were clawed back.
Employer NI is a complete mare to fix - but it was loved by Chancellors as it was never covered in manifestos because few people understand how pay really works.
Get Israel to support as it will be a good learning for them on how to take out Iranian drones.