p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
If someone is unemployed or on benefits then even though they're not working or paying NI, they still get NI credits anyway. You can be unemployed your entire life and still get a pension when you retire, because the state will have registered your NI credits for you anyway still.
You only don't get NI credits if you've opted out of NI, not if you're not working. Eliminate the ability to opt out of NI and the problem goes away.
NI has always been a tax, always will be a tax, and it being called "insurance" is just marketing spin - it is by law and international treaties a tax, nothing else.
Lucky for us we have Brain of Britain on board, all is clear now. Show me the international treaty where it states UK NI is a tax smartypants.
There are a large number of situations where you can qualify for National Insurance Credits if you are not paying National Insurance Contributions. These enable an individual to obtain qualifying years for state pension purposes even if they are not working.
Bloody hell, who let *that* fuckwit off his leash? (apols to Malc for informal copyright violation).
The national broadcaster of the former colonial power, a power which has engaged in 20-30 years of military adventurism in the immediate region, and colonial wars going back a century, replaces their Opening Ceremony with a series of posturing moral lectures (according to the Times).
(Not being a football type, I did not know this - astonishingly self-righteous decision.)
Then in a follow-up to *that* not-at-all-casually-racist performance, Lineker declares another western country to be astonishingly racist.
The completely (ahem) self-aware uber rich lefty bubble is alive and well.
p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
If someone is unemployed or on benefits then even though they're not working or paying NI, they still get NI credits anyway. You can be unemployed your entire life and still get a pension when you retire, because the state will have registered your NI credits for you anyway still.
You only don't get NI credits if you've opted out of NI, not if you're not working. Eliminate the ability to opt out of NI and the problem goes away.
NI has always been a tax, always will be a tax, and it being called "insurance" is just marketing spin - it is by law and international treaties a tax, nothing else.
Lucky for us we have Brain of Britain on board, all is clear now. Show me the international treaty where it states UK NI is a tax smartypants.
As one example under the terms of the US/UK Income Tax Treaty any necessary (not voluntary) NI contributions under PAYE are classed as a tax and recognised as a tax by both HMRC and the IRS. Voluntary contributions are not.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
Our FPTP voting system doesn't really encourage that, unfortunately...
Bloody hell, I knew it would be cold in the UK in December, but wasn’t expecting it to be quite this cold!! I guess seeing family makes up for it, but I can see why I prefer somewhere hotter!
Minus 6 here.
Brrrr - Those 40C days of summer are looking good now, aren't they?
(on topic: I have no big argument with the market atm on Lab majority)
We're having our roof replaced at the moment. 40 degrees would probably be better than -7. Though having said that, it would almost certainly be too hot for the guys up there to work. It's certainly not too cold for them to work. Tough as teak, they are.
But in general, I rather prefer the cold, fresh sting of -7 to the end-of-times feel of 40 degrees. Days like today - would that it wasn't the run up to Christmas and life is furiously busy - make me want to get my boots on and get out in the frozen fields. Great days to be alive, if not great days to be in an uninsulated house with gas prices astronomical.
Too cold is better than too hot - you can always put more clothes on.
Too hot is better than too cold - there's more fun to be had with your clothes off.
You a naturist, Bart?
ETA: A young relative has just started sex ed at school. The other day she said to me: "Uncle S, you know that thing you do with Aunty S sometimes?" Me, after thoughtful pause: "Argue?"
Isn't it more of a collaborative activity ?
Aye, takes two, does an argument.
It can be less gratifying but its certainly possible to do it by yourself, even in an empty room. Argue that is.
Bloody hell, I knew it would be cold in the UK in December, but wasn’t expecting it to be quite this cold!! I guess seeing family makes up for it, but I can see why I prefer somewhere hotter!
Minus 6 here.
Brrrr - Those 40C days of summer are looking good now, aren't they?
(on topic: I have no big argument with the market atm on Lab majority)
We're having our roof replaced at the moment. 40 degrees would probably be better than -7. Though having said that, it would almost certainly be too hot for the guys up there to work. It's certainly not too cold for them to work. Tough as teak, they are.
But in general, I rather prefer the cold, fresh sting of -7 to the end-of-times feel of 40 degrees. Days like today - would that it wasn't the run up to Christmas and life is furiously busy - make me want to get my boots on and get out in the frozen fields. Great days to be alive, if not great days to be in an uninsulated house with gas prices astronomical.
Yes. Trouble is, Winter Wonderland looks great through a window but when you get up close and personal with it your extremities get cold.
I think winter wonderland is generally better if you are actually out in it. I may go to Delamere Forest this weekend and walk around Blakemere. This is super in midwinter, with the ground frozen, the lake frozen, and the low sun reflecting off it. And the cold on your skin makes you feel alive. But part of the pleasure of it is knowing you can go back to somewhere warm and inside afterwards to warm up. Makes you glad you're not a medieval peasant or a Russian conscript.
p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
If someone is unemployed or on benefits then even though they're not working or paying NI, they still get NI credits anyway. You can be unemployed your entire life and still get a pension when you retire, because the state will have registered your NI credits for you anyway still.
You only don't get NI credits if you've opted out of NI, not if you're not working. Eliminate the ability to opt out of NI and the problem goes away.
NI has always been a tax, always will be a tax, and it being called "insurance" is just marketing spin - it is by law and international treaties a tax, nothing else.
Lucky for us we have Brain of Britain on board, all is clear now. Show me the international treaty where it states UK NI is a tax smartypants.
As one example under the terms of the US/UK Income Tax Treaty any necessary (not voluntary) NI contributions under PAYE are classed as a tax and recognised as a tax by both HMRC and the IRS. Voluntary contributions are not.
So weak as water reply. That is nothing.
No, King Turnip, "nothing" is your argument that NI is not a tax because of a name.
HMRC and the IRS under the international treaties they are bound by law to operate within both recognise and treat non-voluntary PAYE NICs as a tax. HMRC and the IRS don't dick around when it comes to taxation, they both take it pretty damn seriously, more serious than your flippant and foolish logic that a tax by any other name is not a tax.
HMRC and the IRS and the legally-binding International Treaties they operate under treating compulsory NIC as a tax is infinitely stronger than yeahbutlookatthenameipaytaxes whinges you have.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Some good news for Labour: it looks like the Boundary Commission is going to create two new safe Labour seats in London — Stratford & Bow, and Lambeth Central.
Hardly good news - big majorities piled up in seats they'd win any way has to make it harder elsewhere. A 'win' ios to create seats with moderate majorities surely.
( Which incidentally seems to contain a rebuke for OGH from the President himself: ...The president has vented to allies about how often his age is mentioned in the press — “You think I don’t know how fucking old I am?” he said to one earlier this year... )
Still very happy with my short Trump position, but I'm beginning to wonder whether Biden's current nomination odds, currently around 1.55 on Betfair Exchange, might also be worth a similar trade.
Yes, when I picture the WH24 ballot it's not hard for me to see neither name on it. And it's to some extent correlated. If there's no Trump there's less of a need for the Trump-slayer, one Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.
Answer: The sum of 1 + i and -1 is 0. To prove this, we can use the fact that the sum of a complex number and its conjugate is always a real number. The conjugate of a complex number a + bi is a - bi, and the sum of a complex number and its conjugate is always equal to 2a. For example, if we let a + bi be a complex number, we have (a + bi) + (a - bi) = (a + a) + (b + (-b))i = 2a. Using this property, we can find that 1 + i + (-1) = (1 + i) + (1 - (-1)i) = (1 + 1) + (1 + (-1))i = 2 + 0i = 0.
Bloody hell, I knew it would be cold in the UK in December, but wasn’t expecting it to be quite this cold!! I guess seeing family makes up for it, but I can see why I prefer somewhere hotter!
Minus 6 here.
Brrrr - Those 40C days of summer are looking good now, aren't they?
(on topic: I have no big argument with the market atm on Lab majority)
We're having our roof replaced at the moment. 40 degrees would probably be better than -7. Though having said that, it would almost certainly be too hot for the guys up there to work. It's certainly not too cold for them to work. Tough as teak, they are.
But in general, I rather prefer the cold, fresh sting of -7 to the end-of-times feel of 40 degrees. Days like today - would that it wasn't the run up to Christmas and life is furiously busy - make me want to get my boots on and get out in the frozen fields. Great days to be alive, if not great days to be in an uninsulated house with gas prices astronomical.
Yes. Trouble is, Winter Wonderland looks great through a window but when you get up close and personal with it your extremities get cold.
I think winter wonderland is generally better if you are actually out in it. I may go to Delamere Forest this weekend and walk around Blakemere. This is super in midwinter, with the ground frozen, the lake frozen, and the low sun reflecting off it. And the cold on your skin makes you feel alive. But part of the pleasure of it is knowing you can go back to somewhere warm and inside afterwards to warm up. Makes you glad you're not a medieval peasant or a Russian conscript.
All very well, cookie, but let's see if you feel the same when you're 62.
6 local by-elections tomorrow: Con defences in Amber Valley, Pendle, and Test Valley; Lab defences in Ipswich and Wigan; Ind defence in South Kesteven (except they are not defending).
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Interesting the "Keep the Tories out" thing. When I was a lot more in favour of the Tories than I have been in recent years, I have been motivated by "Keep Labour Out" motive. That has largely been driven by their anti-rural anti-private enterprise position. I like Starmer and I fear him less than his mad predecessor, but I am still fearful of what very much appears to be the Public Sector Party. If it looks quite likely that there might be a large Labour Majority I might well be returning to the Tory fold for the first time in 3 GEs.
( Which incidentally seems to contain a rebuke for OGH from the President himself: ...The president has vented to allies about how often his age is mentioned in the press — “You think I don’t know how fucking old I am?” he said to one earlier this year... )
Still very happy with my short Trump position, but I'm beginning to wonder whether Biden's current nomination odds, currently around 1.55 on Betfair Exchange, might also be worth a similar trade.
Yes, when I picture the WH24 ballot it's not hard for me to see neither name on it. And it's to some extent correlated. If there's no Trump there's less of a need for the Trump-slayer, one Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.
There current odds do reflect my sense that Biden is far more likely as his party's nominee than is Trump, but so strongly odds on is perhaps too short ?
Had a small dabble in the market, but nothing much.
The complicating factor is the the political conditions in 2024 will quite likely (IMO) be favourable for the Democrats, and the precedents of Eisenhower and Reagan suggest that the US electorate is quite happy to consider giving a second term to a President whose best years are clearly behind him.
Bloody hell, I knew it would be cold in the UK in December, but wasn’t expecting it to be quite this cold!! I guess seeing family makes up for it, but I can see why I prefer somewhere hotter!
Minus 6 here.
Brrrr - Those 40C days of summer are looking good now, aren't they?
(on topic: I have no big argument with the market atm on Lab majority)
We're having our roof replaced at the moment. 40 degrees would probably be better than -7. Though having said that, it would almost certainly be too hot for the guys up there to work. It's certainly not too cold for them to work. Tough as teak, they are.
But in general, I rather prefer the cold, fresh sting of -7 to the end-of-times feel of 40 degrees. Days like today - would that it wasn't the run up to Christmas and life is furiously busy - make me want to get my boots on and get out in the frozen fields. Great days to be alive, if not great days to be in an uninsulated house with gas prices astronomical.
Yes. Trouble is, Winter Wonderland looks great through a window but when you get up close and personal with it your extremities get cold.
I think winter wonderland is generally better if you are actually out in it. I may go to Delamere Forest this weekend and walk around Blakemere. This is super in midwinter, with the ground frozen, the lake frozen, and the low sun reflecting off it. And the cold on your skin makes you feel alive. But part of the pleasure of it is knowing you can go back to somewhere warm and inside afterwards to warm up. Makes you glad you're not a medieval peasant or a Russian conscript.
All very well, cookie, but let's see if you feel the same when you're 62.
Bless you for making me feel like a young man. A feeling I enjoy more and more rarely these days.
p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
PB pensions stooshie. Great. Where to start ?
1 - NI is indeed a tax, in return for which we accrue the rights to a pension paid by the State. There is a smidge in both positions, but the truth is that you get a pension as a result of those tax payments.
2 - "Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now."
Sorry - nope. "National Living Wage" (=full Minimum Wage) is £9.50 per hour, which is ~£18k on a normal work year.
25k is 35-40% higher than minimum wage.
3 - Debating basic state pension seems to be to be a bit silly, as it is so low and we spend so little (and declining proportions) of money on it that there is little to be gained. I pointed out a few days ago that the % of GDP spent on pensioners is well down over the last few years anyway.
Higher income pensioners already pay their marginal tax rate on increases, so that is already taxed at an appropriately higher rate.
"Rich, grasping, thieving, boomer State Pensioners" is a self-serving myth. If they are rich, it is not due to the State Pension.
If we want to punish pensioners, then the focus needs to be on private and defined benefit schemes for people who are wealthier. This is an area where the UK puts far more resources than theoretically comparable countries.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Bloody hell, I knew it would be cold in the UK in December, but wasn’t expecting it to be quite this cold!! I guess seeing family makes up for it, but I can see why I prefer somewhere hotter!
Minus 6 here.
Brrrr - Those 40C days of summer are looking good now, aren't they?
(on topic: I have no big argument with the market atm on Lab majority)
We're having our roof replaced at the moment. 40 degrees would probably be better than -7. Though having said that, it would almost certainly be too hot for the guys up there to work. It's certainly not too cold for them to work. Tough as teak, they are.
But in general, I rather prefer the cold, fresh sting of -7 to the end-of-times feel of 40 degrees. Days like today - would that it wasn't the run up to Christmas and life is furiously busy - make me want to get my boots on and get out in the frozen fields. Great days to be alive, if not great days to be in an uninsulated house with gas prices astronomical.
Too cold is better than too hot - you can always put more clothes on.
Could you perhaps explain this concept to the Good Lady Wife - who thinks the only way to beat too cold is to turn up the thermostat?
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
So your big idea, the one thing that enthuses you and motivates you to vote Labour is the thought of sticking it to those who want to send their children to private school.
Nothing about health or social care, the main body of education, housing, employment, foreign policy, pensions.
It is to end private school tax breaks.
There speaks a person with a ginormous chip on their shoulder.
Disappointed tbh, though better, grander, more visionary from you.
Answer: The sum of 1 + i and -1 is 0. To prove this, we can use the fact that the sum of a complex number and its conjugate is always a real number. The conjugate of a complex number a + bi is a - bi, and the sum of a complex number and its conjugate is always equal to 2a. For example, if we let a + bi be a complex number, we have (a + bi) + (a - bi) = (a + a) + (b + (-b))i = 2a. Using this property, we can find that 1 + i + (-1) = (1 + i) + (1 - (-1)i) = (1 + 1) + (1 + (-1))i = 2 + 0i = 0.
Does its explanation make any sense, or is it complete nonsense?
Answer: The sum of 1 + i and -1 is 0. To prove this, we can use the fact that the sum of a complex number and its conjugate is always a real number. The conjugate of a complex number a + bi is a - bi, and the sum of a complex number and its conjugate is always equal to 2a. For example, if we let a + bi be a complex number, we have (a + bi) + (a - bi) = (a + a) + (b + (-b))i = 2a. Using this property, we can find that 1 + i + (-1) = (1 + i) + (1 - (-1)i) = (1 + 1) + (1 + (-1))i = 2 + 0i = 0.
p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
PB pensions stooshie. Great. Where to start ?
1 - NI is indeed a tax, in return for which we accrue the rights to a pension paid by the State. There is a smidge in both positions, but the truth is that you get a pension as a result of those tax payments.
2 - "Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now."
Sorry - nope. "National Living Wage" (=full Minimum Wage) is £9.50 per hour, which is ~£18k on a normal work year.
25k is 35-40% higher than minimum wage.
3 - Debating basic state pension seems to be to be a bit silly, as it is so low and we spend so little (and declining proportions) of money on it that there is little to be gained. I pointed out a few days ago that the % of GDP spent on pensioners is well down over the last few years anyway.
Higher income pensioners already pay their marginal tax rate on increases, so that is already taxed at an appropriately higher rate.
"Rich, grasping, thieving, boomer State Pensioners" is a self-serving myth. If they are rich, it is not due to the State Pension.
If we want to punish pensioners, then the focus needs to be on private and defined benefit schemes for people who are wealthier. This is an area where the UK puts far more resources than theoretically comparable countries.
BiB: Their marginal tax rate being significantly lower than what a working individuals tax rate is, since as you agreed yourself, NI is indeed a tax.
The state pension isn't that objectionable, what is objectionable is the fact that pensioners even wealthy pensioners are not paying the same tax rates as everyone else.
At present we significantly discriminate by age on what tax rate someone pays. If you're a young graduate on a low income you can be paying roughly a 50% tax rate on your earnings. If you're a pensioner on the exact same income you might only be paying 20% on the same earnings.
This isn't equitable and is what needs to be addressed, not tinkering with state pension levels.
Everyone on the same income should be paying the same tax rate on that income, that is fair and reasonable.
A rare point of disagreement between us , kinabalu , as I think the charitable status policy is one of few policies that could cause me to the vote elsewhere, as a longtime Labour voter and someone with a couple of personal contacts of the soft-left, non-Corbynite and non-Blairite wing of the party. I think it's the worst sort of gesture politics that will make public schools more exclusive, and acts as counterproductive, focus-grouped messaging in place of real radical policies, like taking several top private schools and making them autonomous entities within the state sector.
On the other hand, I have in fact voted Lib Dem, Green, and Natural Law Party on occasions, so I'm hardly the hardest of the hardcore Labour, despite knowing a couple of academic-minded people who advised the leadership a few years back , and also others in a couple of social charities with connections to the party and co-operative movement.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
So your big idea, the one thing that enthuses you and motivates you to vote Labour is the thought of sticking it to those who want to send their children to private school.
Nothing about health or social care, the main body of education, housing, employment, foreign policy, pensions.
It is to end private school tax breaks.
There speaks a person with a ginormous chip on their shoulder.
Disappointed tbh, though better, grander, more visionary from you.
And the effect of satisfying that chip will be to make state education worse.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
A rare point of disagreement between us , kinabalu , as I think the charitable status policy is one of few policies that could cause me to the vote elsewhere, as a longtime Labour voter and someone with a couple of personal contacts of the soft-left, non-Corbynite and non-Blairite wing of the party. I think it's the worst sort of gesture politics that will make public schools more exclusive, and acts as counterproductive, focus-grouped messaging in place of real radical policies, like taking several top private schools and making them autonomous entities within the state sector.
On the other hand, I have in fact voted Lib Dem, Green, and Natural Law Party on occasions, so I'm hardly the hardest of the hardcore Labour, despite knowing a couple of academic-minded people who advised the leadership a few years back , and also others in a couple of social charities with connections to the party and co-operative movement.
Blimey, Natural Law Party - haven't heard of them for a long old while. I remember being baffled by their party election broadcast in 1997 (I think?).
p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
If someone is unemployed or on benefits then even though they're not working or paying NI, they still get NI credits anyway. You can be unemployed your entire life and still get a pension when you retire, because the state will have registered your NI credits for you anyway still.
You only don't get NI credits if you've opted out of NI, not if you're not working. Eliminate the ability to opt out of NI and the problem goes away.
NI has always been a tax, always will be a tax, and it being called "insurance" is just marketing spin - it is by law and international treaties a tax, nothing else.
Lucky for us we have Brain of Britain on board, all is clear now. Show me the international treaty where it states UK NI is a tax smartypants.
As one example under the terms of the US/UK Income Tax Treaty any necessary (not voluntary) NI contributions under PAYE are classed as a tax and recognised as a tax by both HMRC and the IRS. Voluntary contributions are not.
So weak as water reply. That is nothing.
No, King Turnip, "nothing" is your argument that NI is not a tax because of a name.
HMRC and the IRS under the international treaties they are bound by law to operate within both recognise and treat non-voluntary PAYE NICs as a tax. HMRC and the IRS don't dick around when it comes to taxation, they both take it pretty damn seriously, more serious than your flippant and foolish logic that a tax by any other name is not a tax.
HMRC and the IRS and the legally-binding International Treaties they operate under treating compulsory NIC as a tax is infinitely stronger than yeahbutlookatthenameipaytaxes whinges you have.
LOL , Now UK HMRC isssues International Treaties to itself. We are gtting laughs today, just shows Tories are good for one thing.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Imagine if they hadn't had them through lockdown though?
Allison Pearson is 62 - so approx PB demographic. Her expertise on the subject of teenagers is probably as limited as is ours.
I am 61 and still have a teenage son. I am not completely sure about generalising on that basis. However, never being one to resist a challenge:
Smart phones are like alcohol. Over use can clearly have deleterious effects but for the vast majority they are a great addition adding to both the quality and sociability of life.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Thanks.
I don’t – personally – see the benefit in the former: more a threat to my youngest daughter in getting a place at a good state school. I don’t see it being revenue-positive for the UK. I wouldn't (again, personally) see that as a reason to cast a positive vote.
The latter I could, personally, see as a reason for casting a positive vote. I’m not sure what investment you have in mind? In terms of green, I’d note that for all we have not yet gone down the tidal route, to the chagrin of many on here, the UK has been astonishingly successful (as has, to be fair, much of the world) at growing its green energy capacity over the past 20 years. But I’d be keen on more. More broadly on infrastructure, I’d also vote for investment in rail infrastructure – again, this is something there is a cross-party consensus on the need for, though I wouldn’t argue the Conservative government of the last ten years have exactly pressed ahead with great enthusiasm. Clearly this has to be funded, and would imply higher taxes. But I would be prepared to support that for investment in infrastructure in a way I'd be more wary of for revenue expenditure.
Like everyone else I have no idea what the result of the next GE will be, but I share Mike Smithson's doubts about a 50% chance of a Labour majority.
Assuming this means 325/326 seats Labour have to gain, net, about 125 seats.
Look at the target list, eliminate the SNP ones on the assumption they won't change, assume some bumpiness in UNS and you have to look as far as the 150th (approx) winnable seat (using current boundaries as a proxy for if they have changed).
Then ask: Can they win those?
Eg Bromley and Chislehurst Basingstoke Hexham.
Yes. But not a 50% chance
There's a non trivial chance that Labour do gain seats in Scotland, though.
The last five polls all have Labour above 30%, with the SNP retreating to the low to mid 40s. On Electoral calculus, that gives Labour five gains north of the border and it wouldn't take much for them to end up with a 7-10.
@Gabriel_Pogrund I understand Mohamed Mansour — Egyptian billionaire businessman and former minister under Hosni Mubarak — to be announced as a senior treasurer of the Tory Party. Donors told at reception at National Army Museum on Mon. Wider shakeup of CCHQ treasury be unveiled in due course
The issue of party donors who have had a substantial engagement in the politics of other countries is a real problem. The potential to influence our foreign policy is obvious.
The subject of Israel has long been a major source of political revenue in the US of course. Though there it must be remembered that the policy has substantial grassroots support.
p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
PB pensions stooshie. Great. Where to start ?
1 - NI is indeed a tax, in return for which we accrue the rights to a pension paid by the State. There is a smidge in both positions, but the truth is that you get a pension as a result of those tax payments.
2 - "Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now."
Sorry - nope. "National Living Wage" (=full Minimum Wage) is £9.50 per hour, which is ~£18k on a normal work year.
25k is 35-40% higher than minimum wage.
3 - Debating basic state pension seems to be to be a bit silly, as it is so low and we spend so little (and declining proportions) of money on it that there is little to be gained. I pointed out a few days ago that the % of GDP spent on pensioners is well down over the last few years anyway.
Higher income pensioners already pay their marginal tax rate on increases, so that is already taxed at an appropriately higher rate.
"Rich, grasping, thieving, boomer State Pensioners" is a self-serving myth. If they are rich, it is not due to the State Pension.
If we want to punish pensioners, then the focus needs to be on private and defined benefit schemes for people who are wealthier. This is an area where the UK puts far more resources than theoretically comparable countries.
BiB: Their marginal tax rate being significantly lower than what a working individuals tax rate is, since as you agreed yourself, NI is indeed a tax.
The state pension isn't that objectionable, what is objectionable is the fact that pensioners even wealthy pensioners are not paying the same tax rates as everyone else.
At present we significantly discriminate by age on what tax rate someone pays. If you're a young graduate on a low income you can be paying roughly a 50% tax rate on your earnings. If you're a pensioner on the exact same income you might only be paying 20% on the same earnings.
This isn't equitable and is what needs to be addressed, not tinkering with state pension levels.
Everyone on the same income should be paying the same tax rate on that income, that is fair and reasonable.
Interesting reply - thanks. I'm not sure that a tax paid to accumulate pension rights should continue to be paid when it is not continuing to accumulate pension rights.
I don't think I accept that 50% rate - does not that number include student loan repayments, which are also not a tax?
If we split out NI, then we need an alterative way of determining state pension entitlement. Do you have suggestions?
Throwing out ideas, I wonder about having a lower tax-free threshold for 'pensioners', set equal to the State Pension, with a higher tax free threshold (set equal to minimum wage?) for people below pensions age, would work. The weakness of such a neat sounding principle is that it might not survive contact with obfuscation-loving politicians.
Anything is throwing the whole pack of cards in the air.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
It's a bit of overkill to ban smartphones. What would help a lot would be to ban online advertising, and to ban loot box style purchases in computer games.
It's the fact that facebook et al are funded by advertising which means that their incentive is to make the platform as addictive as possible, which leads to pushing negative engagement and clickbait. Ban advertising and they have to find a different business model with more positive incentives.
A rare point of disagreement between us , kinabalu , as I think the charitable status policy is one of few policies that could cause me to the vote elsewhere, as a longtime Labour voter and someone with a couple of personal contacts of the soft-left, non-Corbynite and non-Blairite wing of the party. I think it's the worst sort of gesture politics that will make public schools more exclusive, and acts as counterproductive, focus-grouped messaging in place of real radical policies, like taking several top private schools and making them autonomous entities within the state sector.
On the other hand, I have in fact voted Lib Dem, Green, and Natural Law Party on occasions, so I'm hardly the hardest of the hardcore Labour, despite knowing a couple of academic-minded people who advised the leadership a few years back , and also others in a couple of social charities with connections to the party and co-operative movement.
Blimey, Natural Law Party - haven't heard of them for a long old while. I remember being baffled by their party election broadcast in 1997 (I think?).
Natural Law with their yogic flying - appealing to the floating voter.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
I think a lot are, but there are many that are not. Certainly compared to my time in NZ we are streets ahead, but different climates require different levels of insulation generally.
Some good news for Labour: it looks like the Boundary Commission is going to create two new safe Labour seats in London — Stratford & Bow, and Lambeth Central.
Hardly good news - big majorities piled up in seats they'd win any way has to make it harder elsewhere. A 'win' ios to create seats with moderate majorities surely.
But that also applies to the Conservatives now - when I lived in Worcestershire in 1983 and 1987 (bigger HoC majorities than now) the Tories were polling 55% locally. In 2019 they polled about 65%.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
You misheard - since 2010 we have indeed recruited an army of lost blaggers four times over to the government benches
Like everyone else I have no idea what the result of the next GE will be, but I share Mike Smithson's doubts about a 50% chance of a Labour majority.
Assuming this means 325/326 seats Labour have to gain, net, about 125 seats.
Look at the target list, eliminate the SNP ones on the assumption they won't change, assume some bumpiness in UNS and you have to look as far as the 150th (approx) winnable seat (using current boundaries as a proxy for if they have changed).
Then ask: Can they win those?
Eg Bromley and Chislehurst Basingstoke Hexham.
Yes. But not a 50% chance
Boundary changes could make it even more difficult: seats with even larger majorities than Basingstoke may be needed for a majority.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
Like everyone else I have no idea what the result of the next GE will be, but I share Mike Smithson's doubts about a 50% chance of a Labour majority.
Assuming this means 325/326 seats Labour have to gain, net, about 125 seats.
Look at the target list, eliminate the SNP ones on the assumption they won't change, assume some bumpiness in UNS and you have to look as far as the 150th (approx) winnable seat (using current boundaries as a proxy for if they have changed).
Then ask: Can they win those?
Eg Bromley and Chislehurst Basingstoke Hexham.
Yes. But not a 50% chance
There's a non trivial chance that Labour do gain seats in Scotland, though.
The last five polls all have Labour above 30%, with the SNP retreating to the low to mid 40s. On Electoral calculus, that gives Labour five gains north of the border and it wouldn't take much for them to end up with a 7-10.
Still a very long way from the dizzy heights of 2005/2010.
I would be amazed if we won an overall majority. Delighted, but amazed.
A rare point of disagreement between us , kinabalu , as I think the charitable status policy is one of few policies that could cause me to the vote elsewhere, as a longtime Labour voter and someone with a couple of personal contacts of the soft-left, non-Corbynite and non-Blairite wing of the party. I think it's the worst sort of gesture politics that will make public schools more exclusive, and acts as counterproductive, focus-grouped messaging in place of real radical policies, like taking several top private schools and making them autonomous entities within the state sector.
On the other hand, I have in fact voted Lib Dem, Green, and Natural Law Party on occasions, so I'm hardly the hardest of the hardcore Labour, despite knowing a couple of academic-minded people who advised the leadership a few years back , and also others in a couple of social charities with connections to the party and co-operative movement.
Blimey, Natural Law Party - haven't heard of them for a long old while. I remember being baffled by their party election broadcast in 1997 (I think?).
Yogic Flying ! They believed this would raise the cosmic level, and were all basically a well-intentioned bunch of bearded chaps ( and ladies ) as far as I remember them. Also a good antidote to the tedious, reflexive and prevailing modern trend to scoff at such things, I think.
p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
If someone is unemployed or on benefits then even though they're not working or paying NI, they still get NI credits anyway. You can be unemployed your entire life and still get a pension when you retire, because the state will have registered your NI credits for you anyway still.
You only don't get NI credits if you've opted out of NI, not if you're not working. Eliminate the ability to opt out of NI and the problem goes away.
NI has always been a tax, always will be a tax, and it being called "insurance" is just marketing spin - it is by law and international treaties a tax, nothing else.
Lucky for us we have Brain of Britain on board, all is clear now. Show me the international treaty where it states UK NI is a tax smartypants.
As one example under the terms of the US/UK Income Tax Treaty any necessary (not voluntary) NI contributions under PAYE are classed as a tax and recognised as a tax by both HMRC and the IRS. Voluntary contributions are not.
So weak as water reply. That is nothing.
No, King Turnip, "nothing" is your argument that NI is not a tax because of a name.
HMRC and the IRS under the international treaties they are bound by law to operate within both recognise and treat non-voluntary PAYE NICs as a tax. HMRC and the IRS don't dick around when it comes to taxation, they both take it pretty damn seriously, more serious than your flippant and foolish logic that a tax by any other name is not a tax.
HMRC and the IRS and the legally-binding International Treaties they operate under treating compulsory NIC as a tax is infinitely stronger than yeahbutlookatthenameipaytaxes whinges you have.
LOL , Now UK HMRC isssues International Treaties to itself. We are gtting laughs today, just shows Tories are good for one thing.
No, HMRC doesn't issue treaties to itself you imbecile, the UK Parliament has passed the treaties and laws that HMRC operates under, while the US Congress has passed the treaties and laws that the IRS operates under.
HMRC didn't just choose out of its own volition to treat compulsory NICs as taxation any more than the IRS did. They do so, under the law, because it is a tax passed by Parliament as recognised in both our domestic and our international obligations.
But forget the law, forget HMRC, forget Parliament, forget the IRS or Congress or anyone else that has been involved in passing these statutes and treaties. You can ignore them all because of . . . a name. Your opinion is so ridiculous its not even good for a laugh.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Answer: The sum of 1 + i and -1 is 0. To prove this, we can use the fact that the sum of a complex number and its conjugate is always a real number. The conjugate of a complex number a + bi is a - bi, and the sum of a complex number and its conjugate is always equal to 2a. For example, if we let a + bi be a complex number, we have (a + bi) + (a - bi) = (a + a) + (b + (-b))i = 2a. Using this property, we can find that 1 + i + (-1) = (1 + i) + (1 - (-1)i) = (1 + 1) + (1 + (-1))i = 2 + 0i = 0.
Does its explanation make any sense, or is it complete nonsense?
It's misunderstood the question. All the stuff in the answer up to "Using this property..." is fine, but it is the sort of example that demonstrates that it is in no way an AI, simply a pattern-matching algorithm with a large database. And in this case it has matched to the wrong pattern.
What would be interesting to see is how it responds to its mistake being pointed out.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Imagine if they hadn't had them through lockdown though?
Allison Pearson is 62 - so approx PB demographic. Her expertise on the subject of teenagers is probably as limited as is ours.
I am 61 and still have a teenage son. I am not completely sure about generalising on that basis. However, never being one to resist a challenge:
Smart phones are like alcohol. Over use can clearly have deleterious effects but for the vast majority they are a great addition adding to both the quality and sociability of life.
They join the long list of items/activities which plainly do damage and where no solution lies in any of: forbidding, banning, allowing, compelling, discouraging, age discriminating, taxing, shouting, legislating, doing something or doing nothing.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Imagine if they hadn't had them through lockdown though?
Allison Pearson is 62 - so approx PB demographic. Her expertise on the subject of teenagers is probably as limited as is ours.
I am 61 and still have a teenage son. I am not completely sure about generalising on that basis. However, never being one to resist a challenge:
Smart phones are like alcohol. Over use can clearly have deleterious effects but for the vast majority they are a great addition adding to both the quality and sociability of life.
They join the long list of items/activities which plainly do damage and where no solution lies in any of: forbidding, banning, allowing, compelling, discouraging, age discriminating, taxing, shouting, legislating, doing something or doing nothing.
I vaguely recall being told not to watch too much TV when I were a lad. Now of course families watching TV together is seen as a wholesome, healthy activity, whereas smaller screens...
p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
PB pensions stooshie. Great. Where to start ?
1 - NI is indeed a tax, in return for which we accrue the rights to a pension paid by the State. There is a smidge in both positions, but the truth is that you get a pension as a result of those tax payments.
2 - "Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now."
Sorry - nope. "National Living Wage" (=full Minimum Wage) is £9.50 per hour, which is ~£18k on a normal work year.
25k is 35-40% higher than minimum wage.
3 - Debating basic state pension seems to be to be a bit silly, as it is so low and we spend so little (and declining proportions) of money on it that there is little to be gained. I pointed out a few days ago that the % of GDP spent on pensioners is well down over the last few years anyway.
Higher income pensioners already pay their marginal tax rate on increases, so that is already taxed at an appropriately higher rate.
"Rich, grasping, thieving, boomer State Pensioners" is a self-serving myth. If they are rich, it is not due to the State Pension.
If we want to punish pensioners, then the focus needs to be on private and defined benefit schemes for people who are wealthier. This is an area where the UK puts far more resources than theoretically comparable countries.
BiB: Their marginal tax rate being significantly lower than what a working individuals tax rate is, since as you agreed yourself, NI is indeed a tax.
The state pension isn't that objectionable, what is objectionable is the fact that pensioners even wealthy pensioners are not paying the same tax rates as everyone else.
At present we significantly discriminate by age on what tax rate someone pays. If you're a young graduate on a low income you can be paying roughly a 50% tax rate on your earnings. If you're a pensioner on the exact same income you might only be paying 20% on the same earnings.
This isn't equitable and is what needs to be addressed, not tinkering with state pension levels.
Everyone on the same income should be paying the same tax rate on that income, that is fair and reasonable.
Interesting reply - thanks. I'm not sure that a tax paid to accumulate pension rights should continue to be paid when it is not continuing to accumulate pension rights.
I don't think I accept that 50% rate - does not that number include student loan repayments, which are also not a tax?
If we split out NI, then we need an alterative way of determining state pension entitlement. Do you have suggestions?
Throwing out ideas, I wonder about having a lower tax-free threshold for 'pensioners', set equal to the State Pension, with a higher tax free threshold (set equal to minimum wage?) for people below pensions age, would work. The weakness of such a neat sounding principle is that it might not survive contact with obfuscation-loving politicians.
Anything is throwing the whole pack of cards in the air.
NICs are not a tax paid to accumulate pension rights though, that is a myth. Even the unemployed on benefits get "NI Contribution Credits" for pension rights, pensions are entirely tangential to NI.
NI is a tax to fund societies obligations, it is a tax that goes to the general pot same as any other tax.
As for pension entitlement, I would along with merging NI into income tax move the NI contribution element of pensions (which are a bit of a joke anyway if you know anything about them) to income tax instead. Instead of asking if you've got 30 years of NI Contributions, asking if you have 30 years of Income Tax Contributions - probably with a voluntary Income Tax Contribution option to replace the voluntary NIC option for those living abroad.
As it stands you can get a pension without ever having actually paid a penny in NI Contributions anyway, the threshold for actually paying NI is roughly double the threshold for "contributions" and anyone on benefits who is under the threshold for contributions is still registered as having contributed anyway, so what real difference does it make?
PS though its murkier than NI, "Student Loan repayments" absolutely ought to be considered a capped graduate income tax too.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Imagine if they hadn't had them through lockdown though?
Allison Pearson is 62 - so approx PB demographic. Her expertise on the subject of teenagers is probably as limited as is ours.
I am 61 and still have a teenage son. I am not completely sure about generalising on that basis. However, never being one to resist a challenge:
Smart phones are like alcohol. Over use can clearly have deleterious effects but for the vast majority they are a great addition adding to both the quality and sociability of life.
From my perspective, I would be very happy had smartphones never happened. I got a phone with internet capability some time in the late noughties with the sole rationalisation that I would be able to keep up with the cricket when I was out and about. I'd still say that's the only real benefit. Sure, I can, in an idle moment in the queue for a sandwich, occupy my restless mind with a quick trawl through the internet, but am I happier or better off as a result? I'd argue not. If I actually need to use the internet, 95% of the time it is fine to wait until the next time I can sit at a computer, rather than distractedly try to do two things at once. And I'm amazed at the amount people pay to be 'always on' - I use pretty much the bare minimum of data and phone and contract together cost me £12 per month. I do like always having a camera with me though.
p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
If someone is unemployed or on benefits then even though they're not working or paying NI, they still get NI credits anyway. You can be unemployed your entire life and still get a pension when you retire, because the state will have registered your NI credits for you anyway still.
You only don't get NI credits if you've opted out of NI, not if you're not working. Eliminate the ability to opt out of NI and the problem goes away.
NI has always been a tax, always will be a tax, and it being called "insurance" is just marketing spin - it is by law and international treaties a tax, nothing else.
This is smacking of blaming the victims, ie the whole population of the UK, for being stupid, except those who are intelligent and clever like some, but evidfently not all, the denizens of PB.
If you were to come to me and offer to sell me a "new Land Rover Discovery 4WD", and I accepted and paid up, I wouldn't be impressed if it turned out to be one of those radio control motorised models from the hobby shop and you claimed that it was unreasonable of me to expect a Landy on the tecnhical grounds that you weren't a registered JLR dealer.
And AIUI compulsory medical insurance works on the same principle in many states. Those who can't afford it get credits.
On smartphones, you can’t put a genie back in the bottle. Technology will keep marching on and kids are going to want to own and use it.
I think tighter social media and app regulation is the way forwards, but it’s not a straightforward area and requires sensitivity. A royal commission would be a good idea.
Like everyone else I have no idea what the result of the next GE will be, but I share Mike Smithson's doubts about a 50% chance of a Labour majority.
Assuming this means 325/326 seats Labour have to gain, net, about 125 seats.
Look at the target list, eliminate the SNP ones on the assumption they won't change, assume some bumpiness in UNS and you have to look as far as the 150th (approx) winnable seat (using current boundaries as a proxy for if they have changed).
Then ask: Can they win those?
Eg Bromley and Chislehurst Basingstoke Hexham.
Yes. But not a 50% chance
There's a non trivial chance that Labour do gain seats in Scotland, though.
The last five polls all have Labour above 30%, with the SNP retreating to the low to mid 40s. On Electoral calculus, that gives Labour five gains north of the border and it wouldn't take much for them to end up with a 7-10.
Still going to be well short of the 40 odd that Gordon Brown had.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Imagine if they hadn't had them through lockdown though?
Allison Pearson is 62 - so approx PB demographic. Her expertise on the subject of teenagers is probably as limited as is ours.
I am 61 and still have a teenage son. I am not completely sure about generalising on that basis. However, never being one to resist a challenge:
Smart phones are like alcohol. Over use can clearly have deleterious effects but for the vast majority they are a great addition adding to both the quality and sociability of life.
They join the long list of items/activities which plainly do damage and where no solution lies in any of: forbidding, banning, allowing, compelling, discouraging, age discriminating, taxing, shouting, legislating, doing something or doing nothing.
I vaguely recall being told not to watch too much TV when I were a lad. Now of course families watching TV together is seen as a wholesome, healthy activity, whereas smaller screens...
Still hoping to one day meet someone with square eyes (or indeed anyone who's face did 'stay like that' when the wind changed).
My parents (who were fairly cultured by South Yorkshire standards) used to think I read too much and should have been out running about with my mates fishing for bullheads or finding porn under bushes. O tempora, o mores.
p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
If someone is unemployed or on benefits then even though they're not working or paying NI, they still get NI credits anyway. You can be unemployed your entire life and still get a pension when you retire, because the state will have registered your NI credits for you anyway still.
You only don't get NI credits if you've opted out of NI, not if you're not working. Eliminate the ability to opt out of NI and the problem goes away.
NI has always been a tax, always will be a tax, and it being called "insurance" is just marketing spin - it is by law and international treaties a tax, nothing else.
Lucky for us we have Brain of Britain on board, all is clear now. Show me the international treaty where it states UK NI is a tax smartypants.
As one example under the terms of the US/UK Income Tax Treaty any necessary (not voluntary) NI contributions under PAYE are classed as a tax and recognised as a tax by both HMRC and the IRS. Voluntary contributions are not.
So weak as water reply. That is nothing.
No, King Turnip, "nothing" is your argument that NI is not a tax because of a name.
HMRC and the IRS under the international treaties they are bound by law to operate within both recognise and treat non-voluntary PAYE NICs as a tax. HMRC and the IRS don't dick around when it comes to taxation, they both take it pretty damn seriously, more serious than your flippant and foolish logic that a tax by any other name is not a tax.
HMRC and the IRS and the legally-binding International Treaties they operate under treating compulsory NIC as a tax is infinitely stronger than yeahbutlookatthenameipaytaxes whinges you have.
LOL , Now UK HMRC isssues International Treaties to itself. We are gtting laughs today, just shows Tories are good for one thing.
No, HMRC doesn't issue treaties to itself you imbecile, the UK Parliament has passed the treaties and laws that HMRC operates under, while the US Congress has passed the treaties and laws that the IRS operates under.
HMRC didn't just choose out of its own volition to treat compulsory NICs as taxation any more than the IRS did. They do so, under the law, because it is a tax passed by Parliament as recognised in both our domestic and our international obligations.
But forget the law, forget HMRC, forget Parliament, forget the IRS or Congress or anyone else that has been involved in passing these statutes and treaties. You can ignore them all because of . . . a name. Your opinion is so ridiculous its not even good for a laugh.
Wait till he finds out that a peanut isn't actually a nut.
It won't make any difference even if the SNP win every single MSP seat at Holyrood after the Supreme Court ruling unless the UK government and Westminster decide to give them indyref2.
Only possibility of that a Starmer led government, only probability of that SNP balance of power in a hung parliament
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
So, *no*, according to this data, British homes are not well insulated.
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
So, *no*, according to this data, British homes are not well insulated.
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
British homes are expensive enough as it is without needing good insulation.
I've always found the housing debate in the UK a little odd. We bemoan houses for being expensive but I wouldn't be so bothered if our houses were getting better and better. Doesn't appear that they are.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
So, *no*, according to this data, British homes are not well insulated.
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
This strikes me as a bit rum. Not least because we know that houses in Spain and other parts of hot Europe are not designed to keep heat in but to keep heat out. How has this been assessed? I would also expect moisture would be significant.
I'm not saying British houses are well insulated - but I am slightly suspicious about how the data in this map can possibly be known.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Imagine if they hadn't had them through lockdown though?
Allison Pearson is 62 - so approx PB demographic. Her expertise on the subject of teenagers is probably as limited as is ours.
I am 61 and still have a teenage son. I am not completely sure about generalising on that basis. However, never being one to resist a challenge:
Smart phones are like alcohol. Over use can clearly have deleterious effects but for the vast majority they are a great addition adding to both the quality and sociability of life.
They join the long list of items/activities which plainly do damage and where no solution lies in any of: forbidding, banning, allowing, compelling, discouraging, age discriminating, taxing, shouting, legislating, doing something or doing nothing.
Or, more importantly, the even longer list of things that columnists can write about when they are stuck.
It’s a year since we were guessing the highest daily figure for Covid jabs - a competition duly won by @Northern_Al Annoyingly, Iain Dale pocketed my £25 and never delivered the prize despite persistent nagging on my part. So never trust a Tory (though he will deny the label) and thank you to the winner for having been so gracious in not receiving the prize - it being a book by a “Tory” helped I think.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
So, *no*, according to this data, British homes are not well insulated.
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
This strikes me as a bit rum. Not least because we know that houses in Spain and other parts of hot Europe are not designed to keep heat in but to keep heat out. How has this been assessed? I would also expect moisture would be significant.
I'm not saying British houses are well insulated - but I am slightly suspicious about how the data in this map can possibly be known.
There's also the question about what the map doesn't show, such as what was the data like 20 years ago, and what about all the countries with no data shown (or not even on the map)?
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
So, *no*, according to this data, British homes are not well insulated.
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
When I lived in Germany most detached and semi detached houses had concrete ceilings making the roof space additional rooms but also, undoubtedly, giving significant insultation to the floors below. A bit of lagging in the roof space is very unlikely to match that.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
That looks like an over simplification of the issue. You would surely have to adjust the loss for things like cloud cover, wind speeds, and humidity, as well as taking account of where people live in terms of distance to the coast, altitude and the like. i.e. There's more to home heat loss than the air temperature alone.
Genuine question this: what criminal offence(s) do you think she - or all the other companies with contracts who failed to deliver goods or goods of suitable quality during the Covid pandemic - may have committed?
The failure to have any sort of effective procurement processes or some way of recovering monies paid from those failing to deliver is an utter disgrace. There is or should be plenty of scope for litigation but I have yet to see what specific criminal offences are being alleged.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
So, *no*, according to this data, British homes are not well insulated.
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
This strikes me as a bit rum. Not least because we know that houses in Spain and other parts of hot Europe are not designed to keep heat in but to keep heat out. How has this been assessed? I would also expect moisture would be significant.
I'm not saying British houses are well insulated - but I am slightly suspicious about how the data in this map can possibly be known.
Its apples and oranges though. This data I wouldn't trust to throw a stick at, it seems its "source" is an individual firms own undisclosed "internal" client data, that hardly sounds scientific.
But also houses do vary tremendously based on age. A third of UK houses were built pre-WWII and won't have been built to modern insulation standards, new homes on the other hand should have been.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Imagine if they hadn't had them through lockdown though?
Allison Pearson is 62 - so approx PB demographic. Her expertise on the subject of teenagers is probably as limited as is ours.
I am 61 and still have a teenage son. I am not completely sure about generalising on that basis. However, never being one to resist a challenge:
Smart phones are like alcohol. Over use can clearly have deleterious effects but for the vast majority they are a great addition adding to both the quality and sociability of life.
They join the long list of items/activities which plainly do damage and where no solution lies in any of: forbidding, banning, allowing, compelling, discouraging, age discriminating, taxing, shouting, legislating, doing something or doing nothing.
Without wanting to sound like a Marxist.....
So much of modern commerce seems to depend on making people dependent/addicted to a product. It's not an accident that fixed odds betting terminals are addictive, that is the idea. The term limbic capitalism has even come into use. I saw a psychology professor pointing out that whereas it was once a subject designed for helping people its increasingly become about manipulation. What's the solution? I don't know but the first step is usually accepting you have a problem.
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Imagine if they hadn't had them through lockdown though?
Allison Pearson is 62 - so approx PB demographic. Her expertise on the subject of teenagers is probably as limited as is ours.
I am 61 and still have a teenage son. I am not completely sure about generalising on that basis. However, never being one to resist a challenge:
Smart phones are like alcohol. Over use can clearly have deleterious effects but for the vast majority they are a great addition adding to both the quality and sociability of life.
They join the long list of items/activities which plainly do damage and where no solution lies in any of: forbidding, banning, allowing, compelling, discouraging, age discriminating, taxing, shouting, legislating, doing something or doing nothing.
I vaguely recall being told not to watch too much TV when I were a lad. Now of course families watching TV together is seen as a wholesome, healthy activity, whereas smaller screens...
Still hoping to one day meet someone with square eyes (or indeed anyone who's face did 'stay like that' when the wind changed).
My parents (who were fairly cultured by South Yorkshire standards) used to think I read too much and should have been out running about with my mates fishing for bullheads or finding porn under bushes. O tempora, o mores.
As someone who is vehemently anti smart phones for teenagers (and who has direct albeit anecdotal evidence of their impact on teenagers as a teacher) Ghebredav and Topping you both make decent points.
It’s genuinely hard to know where the trade off is between the obvious benefits and increasingly obvious drawbacks of this tech for teenagers.
But we feel very strongly as a society about limiting other addictive behaviour to those considered adults. It seems logical to do the same with smartphones for the simple reason that currently we are reinforcing addictive pathways in the brain for a generation of smelly teens.
@Gabriel_Pogrund I understand Mohamed Mansour — Egyptian billionaire businessman and former minister under Hosni Mubarak — to be announced as a senior treasurer of the Tory Party. Donors told at reception at National Army Museum on Mon. Wider shakeup of CCHQ treasury be unveiled in due course
The issue of party donors who have had a substantial engagement in the politics of other countries is a real problem. The potential to influence our foreign policy is obvious.
The subject of Israel has long been a major source of political revenue in the US of course. Though there it must be remembered that the policy has substantial grassroots support.
Though in terms of political donations into the US, the sheer weight of Saudi money has been rather more significant recently.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
So, *no*, according to this data, British homes are not well insulated.
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
This strikes me as a bit rum. Not least because we know that houses in Spain and other parts of hot Europe are not designed to keep heat in but to keep heat out. How has this been assessed? I would also expect moisture would be significant.
I'm not saying British houses are well insulated - but I am slightly suspicious about how the data in this map can possibly be known.
Keeping heat in and keeping it out aren't that different fundamentally. Remember all the heatwave advice about keeping windows closed.
Britain's problem is that it's generally pretty temperate, which cuts the in/out temperature difference. And we've had relatively cheap abundant local energy. And our housing stock is pretty shoddy.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
So, *no*, according to this data, British homes are not well insulated.
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
I live in a 4 year old new build. The insulation is pretty good. However, this is let down by several things:
- All the windows have vents that can be opened and closed at the top. Even when closed though you can feel drafts come through them. Vents not needed as all the windows have a setting where they can be closed slightly ajar. - Doors not fitted very well. In small spots you can see a gap where cold air can get in
We had a British Gas engineer come to give our boiler a service last week when we took out a service contract with them. He basically said that the housebuilders had, like many others, taken the cheap option and just used "roll out" plastic pipes to supply the hot water to the radiators.
These pipes were not big enough and have a tendency to get clogged up. You can't do an acid wash to clear it because the joints aren't strong enough to take it. You obviously can't replace the pipes without major works because they are behind all the walls in all the rooms.
When asked why they didn't put in proper plumbing to begin with it is because it is cheaper and no one notices in the first few years whilst in new build warranty. After that the housebuilders don't care. Our boiler works fine but with clogged up pipes the radiators aren't generating enough heat. There is a massive inefficiency here and nothing can be done about it!
Many housebuilders are doing this. There ought to be regulations to insist upon pipework to a certain standard. It is disgraceful what they have been allowed to get away with.
On smartphones, you can’t put a genie back in the bottle. Technology will keep marching on and kids are going to want to own and use it.
I think tighter social media and app regulation is the way forwards, but it’s not a straightforward area and requires sensitivity. A royal commission would be a good idea.
By the time it reports, we'll probably be on to brain implants.
One of the local rivers has frozen over. Really is quite chilly. And the Met Office has extended it's sub-zero temperature warning here until Friday afternoon. Yay....
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
So, *no*, according to this data, British homes are not well insulated.
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
I find this a slightly suspect piece of data - how often do homes in Spain experience 0 deg C?
Whatever - it is patchy. Lots of homes are well insulated, some are not.
@Gabriel_Pogrund I understand Mohamed Mansour — Egyptian billionaire businessman and former minister under Hosni Mubarak — to be announced as a senior treasurer of the Tory Party. Donors told at reception at National Army Museum on Mon. Wider shakeup of CCHQ treasury be unveiled in due course
The issue of party donors who have had a substantial engagement in the politics of other countries is a real problem. The potential to influence our foreign policy is obvious.
The subject of Israel has long been a major source of political revenue in the US of course. Though there it must be remembered that the policy has substantial grassroots support.
Though in terms of political donations into the US, the sheer weight of Saudi money has been rather more significant recently.
p.s. The Triple Lock is a ridiculous farce and unaffordable. An honest political response would be to peg back pensions more in line with the kind of belt tightening that everyone else, especially the working population, is having to endure.
Will they have the honesty and guts to do it? Will they heck.
The state pension has increased in line with inflation but so has other state benefits and the minimum wage.
State pensioners without a private or final salary pension have an income below the minimum wage let alone the average worker
The problem here is that the state pension, minimum wage, other benefits rise with inflation okay, sounds good.. But public sector workers? No. They get a real terms pay cut. As they have had for most of the last 12 years. This is to the point where many public sector jobs with significant amounts of responsibility, in some cases involving years of education and professional qualifications, that were once respectable jobs are pared back to being paid not much above the minimum wage because they have been frozen for 12 years. Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now.
I've made the point a few times that the fundamental problem here, the fundamental injustice is the disparity between how different groups are being treated. If it is the case that there is no money and we need to fix the public finances, then freeze everything.
I think that having pensions across the board rise with inflation when wages are not was wrong. I am more sympathetic to benefit recipients because they already live very close to or even below the breadline and cannot afford to absorb a reduction in real income.
We need to start means testing pensions to some degree. Those who do not have pensions in addition are on very low incomes but those who have pensions, specifically defined benefit pensions (who are nearly all ex public sector now) are not.
But this is of course politically impossible. People think that they have paid for their pensions: they are entitled. And they vote. Boy do they vote.
David, people on benefits get way more than pension money and when they drop off and get put on pension credits they get access to all sorts of money. The pensions are not the issue, they are peanuts and less than half the minimum wage. Anyone suggesting that that is generous ( under £10K per annum ) and should be cut is not right in the head.
The basic state pension is currently £7,376.20 a year, before the inflation increase. I agree it is not a lot. But there are many pensioners to whom this is just sweetie money on top of their personal pensions. Good luck to them too, they have usually paid for these pensions directly or indirectly. But they should not get additional tax reliefs that those who are earning similar sums don't get. That is unconscionable.
What extra allowance are you referring to David? I'm not aware of any additional tax relief.
The old age allowance was abolished in 2016 but you can still claim married couples allowance if one of you was born before 1935: https://www.gov.uk/married-couples-allowance. There are also tax reliefs in respect of maintenance paid once you reach retirement age. It is no longer as generous as I thought it was to be honest. Not paying NI is probably the biggest tax differential.
The problem with regarding NI as a a tax - which it is, of course, in one, real, sense - is that it is explicitly treated as a payment in return for which one gets the state pension. So it is also not a tax but an insurance payment. Certainly as it is marketed and deemanded and as the SP paperwork treats it. So, once the need for the insurance payment vanishes, so too does the justification for paying it. If I grow old and give up drivbing and sell my car, I don't have to keep paying the road fund licence fee. How is the ordinary person in the street to think otherwise?
I'm reminded of this by going through my paperwork recently to try and make sense of the effusions of DWP (which does not impress me as a functional and joined-up government dept, but that is another matter).
BTW, and this is not specific to Malcolm, one point that does not seem to be made much on PB is that the payments for self-employed are vastly smaller than those for PAYE employment *on the same income*. I hadn't fully realised this till the chap on the other end noticed I'd been earning relatively small amounts of freelance income - nobody in HMRC had pointed out this was NIable and credit-able (another symptom of the lack of joined up gmt btw).
The idea that NI is a payment in return for which one gets the state pension is total nonsense, long has been, if not always has been. Its a tax, only a tax, and not an insurance payment.
PB pensions stooshie. Great. Where to start ?
1 - NI is indeed a tax, in return for which we accrue the rights to a pension paid by the State. There is a smidge in both positions, but the truth is that you get a pension as a result of those tax payments.
2 - "Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now."
Sorry - nope. "National Living Wage" (=full Minimum Wage) is £9.50 per hour, which is ~£18k on a normal work year.
25k is 35-40% higher than minimum wage.
3 - Debating basic state pension seems to be to be a bit silly, as it is so low and we spend so little (and declining proportions) of money on it that there is little to be gained. I pointed out a few days ago that the % of GDP spent on pensioners is well down over the last few years anyway.
Higher income pensioners already pay their marginal tax rate on increases, so that is already taxed at an appropriately higher rate.
"Rich, grasping, thieving, boomer State Pensioners" is a self-serving myth. If they are rich, it is not due to the State Pension.
If we want to punish pensioners, then the focus needs to be on private and defined benefit schemes for people who are wealthier. This is an area where the UK puts far more resources than theoretically comparable countries.
BiB: Their marginal tax rate being significantly lower than what a working individuals tax rate is, since as you agreed yourself, NI is indeed a tax.
The state pension isn't that objectionable, what is objectionable is the fact that pensioners even wealthy pensioners are not paying the same tax rates as everyone else.
At present we significantly discriminate by age on what tax rate someone pays. If you're a young graduate on a low income you can be paying roughly a 50% tax rate on your earnings. If you're a pensioner on the exact same income you might only be paying 20% on the same earnings.
This isn't equitable and is what needs to be addressed, not tinkering with state pension levels.
Everyone on the same income should be paying the same tax rate on that income, that is fair and reasonable.
Vivid imagination but no clue, explain this 30% tax difference, even if you are including your ludicrous NI assumption. Next you will be in another fantasy land that student fees are a tax , give us another laugh from your Tax for Dummies guidebook.
I think this makes it virtually impossible for the ghouls on the Supreme Court to do a Dobbs on these rights, particularly given the substantial bipartisan vote for the legislation.
I think this makes it virtually impossible for the ghouls on the Supreme Court to do a Dobbs on these rights, particularly given the substantial bipartisan vote for the legislation.
Genuine question this: what criminal offence(s) do you think she - or all the other companies with contracts who failed to deliver goods or goods of suitable quality during the Covid pandemic - may have committed?
The failure to have any sort of effective procurement processes or some way of recovering monies paid from those failing to deliver is an utter disgrace. There is or should be plenty of scope for litigation but I have yet to see what specific criminal offences are being alleged.
You might make a case for misconduct in a public office, but agreed that criminal proceedings would be more than a little problematic on what's currently known.
The entire procurement procedure was some mixture of gross incompetence and corruption, though.
@Gabriel_Pogrund I understand Mohamed Mansour — Egyptian billionaire businessman and former minister under Hosni Mubarak — to be announced as a senior treasurer of the Tory Party. Donors told at reception at National Army Museum on Mon. Wider shakeup of CCHQ treasury be unveiled in due course
The issue of party donors who have had a substantial engagement in the politics of other countries is a real problem. The potential to influence our foreign policy is obvious.
The subject of Israel has long been a major source of political revenue in the US of course. Though there it must be remembered that the policy has substantial grassroots support.
Though in terms of political donations into the US, the sheer weight of Saudi money has been rather more significant recently.
I wasn't aware of that.
Mainly into Trump family interests, so probably not recorded as donations.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
So, *no*, according to this data, British homes are not well insulated.
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
When I lived in Germany most detached and semi detached houses had concrete ceilings making the roof space additional rooms but also, undoubtedly, giving significant insultation to the floors below. A bit of lagging in the roof space is very unlikely to match that.
A concrete slab, by itself, is a terrible insulator. A properly lagged and boarded loft would do much better.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
You misheard - since 2010 we have indeed recruited an army of lost blaggers four times over to the government benches
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Imagine if they hadn't had them through lockdown though?
Allison Pearson is 62 - so approx PB demographic. Her expertise on the subject of teenagers is probably as limited as is ours.
I am 61 and still have a teenage son. I am not completely sure about generalising on that basis. However, never being one to resist a challenge:
Smart phones are like alcohol. Over use can clearly have deleterious effects but for the vast majority they are a great addition adding to both the quality and sociability of life.
They join the long list of items/activities which plainly do damage and where no solution lies in any of: forbidding, banning, allowing, compelling, discouraging, age discriminating, taxing, shouting, legislating, doing something or doing nothing.
I vaguely recall being told not to watch too much TV when I were a lad. Now of course families watching TV together is seen as a wholesome, healthy activity, whereas smaller screens...
Still hoping to one day meet someone with square eyes (or indeed anyone who's face did 'stay like that' when the wind changed).
My parents (who were fairly cultured by South Yorkshire standards) used to think I read too much and should have been out running about with my mates fishing for bullheads or finding porn under bushes. O tempora, o mores.
As someone who is vehemently anti smart phones for teenagers (and who has direct albeit anecdotal evidence of their impact on teenagers as a teacher) Ghebredav and Topping you both make decent points.
It’s genuinely hard to know where the trade off is between the obvious benefits and increasingly obvious drawbacks of this tech for teenagers.
But we feel very strongly as a society about limiting other addictive behaviour to those considered adults. It seems logical to do the same with smartphones for the simple reason that currently we are reinforcing addictive pathways in the brain for a generation of smelly teens.
Are they banned in your school? I'm generally quite relaxed about youngsters having smartphones, but it's fairly clear to me that they shouldn't be allowed in school, any more than you'd be allowed to whip out a Game Boy in the classroom back in ye oldene dayes.
(Spurious insight here from my partner being a secondary teacher.)
Like everyone else I have no idea what the result of the next GE will be, but I share Mike Smithson's doubts about a 50% chance of a Labour majority.
Assuming this means 325/326 seats Labour have to gain, net, about 125 seats.
Look at the target list, eliminate the SNP ones on the assumption they won't change, assume some bumpiness in UNS and you have to look as far as the 150th (approx) winnable seat (using current boundaries as a proxy for if they have changed).
Then ask: Can they win those?
Eg Bromley and Chislehurst Basingstoke Hexham.
Yes. But not a 50% chance
There's a non trivial chance that Labour do gain seats in Scotland, though.
The last five polls all have Labour above 30%, with the SNP retreating to the low to mid 40s. On Electoral calculus, that gives Labour five gains north of the border and it wouldn't take much for them to end up with a 7-10.
Still going to be well short of the 40 odd that Gordon Brown had.
The point is that Labour probably doesn't need to find the 125th most winnable seat in England and Wales (i.e. Hexham and a 11.5% swing needeed), but rather the 115th (Macclesfield, 9.9%).
Of course, that doesn't make OGH or @algarkirk wrong - it *will* be difficult to get to 326 seats for Labour. But it's perfectly possible they get 8% of the incremental seats they need North of the Border.
On topic - the single biggest reason to vote Tory is to keep Labour out. (The reverse is also true). I'd argue that there is less reason for potential Tory voters to want to keep Labour out than any time since 2001. Indeed, for my tastes, there is less reason to want to keep Labour out than any time since long before I could vote. That's not to say I'm suddenly all enthusiastic about Labour. I'm still wary of their hard-left core; still suspicious of their constant clamour for more and harder lockdowns during covid, still alarmed by their wokery. But this no longer feels like the core of their offer. I would have crawled over broken glass to cast a vote to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power. (In fact, I will tell you the lengths I went to keep Corbyn out of power: I voted for a party led by Boris Johnson.) I probably won't vote Labour, but am I motivated enough to vote to keep them out? Probably not.
I therefore don't see don't knows returning to the Tory fold in the way they have in previous elections.
My theory - which I trot out periodically - is that the size of the Tory vote at general elections is highly correlated with the scariness of the Labour Party.
This is a bit cynical. How about voting for positive reasons?
This is what I'll be seeking to do. Tories Out is strong in my breast but there will be some good stuff in the Labour manifesto for me to be enthused about. Plus I'm starting to rate Starmer quite high on the general out of 10 apolitical PMness scale. He's a 7 and climbing. This is excellent after what we've had in recent years.
Honest question: what do you expect to be there to enthuse you?
Well there's ending private school tax breaks. That's there now and, for me, very important. I'd have been sorely disappointed if they'd flunked that.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
Hmmm.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Are British homes well insulated?
They must be by now. After all, we have recruited "an army of loft laggers" at least four times over.
Probably better than they used to be, not as good as they could be;
So, *no*, according to this data, British homes are not well insulated.
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
I live in a 4 year old new build. The insulation is pretty good. However, this is let down by several things:
- All the windows have vents that can be opened and closed at the top. Even when closed though you can feel drafts come through them. Vents not needed as all the windows have a setting where they can be closed slightly ajar. - Doors not fitted very well. In small spots you can see a gap where cold air can get in
We had a British Gas engineer come to give our boiler a service last week when we took out a service contract with them. He basically said that the housebuilders had, like many others, taken the cheap option and just used "roll out" plastic pipes to supply the hot water to the radiators.
These pipes were not big enough and have a tendency to get clogged up. You can't do an acid wash to clear it because the joints aren't strong enough to take it. You obviously can't replace the pipes without major works because they are behind all the walls in all the rooms.
When asked why they didn't put in proper plumbing to begin with it is because it is cheaper and no one notices in the first few years whilst in new build warranty. After that the housebuilders don't care. Our boiler works fine but with clogged up pipes the radiators aren't generating enough heat. There is a massive inefficiency here and nothing can be done about it!
Many housebuilders are doing this. There ought to be regulations to insist upon pipework to a certain standard. It is disgraceful what they have been allowed to get away with.
This is the problem with "let the population surge via immigration and then try to build houses fast enough to keep up". It ends up with the housing being cheap crap.
Like everyone else I have no idea what the result of the next GE will be, but I share Mike Smithson's doubts about a 50% chance of a Labour majority.
Assuming this means 325/326 seats Labour have to gain, net, about 125 seats.
Look at the target list, eliminate the SNP ones on the assumption they won't change, assume some bumpiness in UNS and you have to look as far as the 150th (approx) winnable seat (using current boundaries as a proxy for if they have changed).
Then ask: Can they win those?
Eg Bromley and Chislehurst Basingstoke Hexham.
Yes. But not a 50% chance
There's a non trivial chance that Labour do gain seats in Scotland, though.
The last five polls all have Labour above 30%, with the SNP retreating to the low to mid 40s. On Electoral calculus, that gives Labour five gains north of the border and it wouldn't take much for them to end up with a 7-10.
Still going to be well short of the 40 odd that Gordon Brown had.
The point is that Labour probably doesn't need to find the 125th most winnable seat in England and Wales (i.e. Hexham and a 11.5% swing needeed), but rather the 115th (Macclesfield, 9.9%).
Of course, that doesn't make OGH or @algarkirk wrong - it *will* be difficult to get to 326 seats for Labour. But it's perfectly possible they get 8% of the incremental seats they need North of the Border.
As a question - do we have a swingometer analysis for Labour in Scotland? That is, how rapidly do their seat numbers change as their numbers go up and down, given probable foe movements to/from/between other parties?
"Highly addictive smartphones are destroying teenagers – we need to ban them now It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives Allison Pearson" (£)
Imagine if they hadn't had them through lockdown though?
Allison Pearson is 62 - so approx PB demographic. Her expertise on the subject of teenagers is probably as limited as is ours.
I am 61 and still have a teenage son. I am not completely sure about generalising on that basis. However, never being one to resist a challenge:
Smart phones are like alcohol. Over use can clearly have deleterious effects but for the vast majority they are a great addition adding to both the quality and sociability of life.
They join the long list of items/activities which plainly do damage and where no solution lies in any of: forbidding, banning, allowing, compelling, discouraging, age discriminating, taxing, shouting, legislating, doing something or doing nothing.
I vaguely recall being told not to watch too much TV when I were a lad. Now of course families watching TV together is seen as a wholesome, healthy activity, whereas smaller screens...
Still hoping to one day meet someone with square eyes (or indeed anyone who's face did 'stay like that' when the wind changed).
My parents (who were fairly cultured by South Yorkshire standards) used to think I read too much and should have been out running about with my mates fishing for bullheads or finding porn under bushes. O tempora, o mores.
As someone who is vehemently anti smart phones for teenagers (and who has direct albeit anecdotal evidence of their impact on teenagers as a teacher) Ghebredav and Topping you both make decent points.
It’s genuinely hard to know where the trade off is between the obvious benefits and increasingly obvious drawbacks of this tech for teenagers.
But we feel very strongly as a society about limiting other addictive behaviour to those considered adults. It seems logical to do the same with smartphones for the simple reason that currently we are reinforcing addictive pathways in the brain for a generation of smelly teens.
Are they banned in your school? I'm generally quite relaxed about youngsters having smartphones, but it's fairly clear to me that they shouldn't be allowed in school, any more than you'd be allowed to whip out a Game Boy in the classroom back in ye oldene dayes.
(Spurious insight here from my partner being a secondary teacher.)
Yes, except if we use them for specific purposes. Interestingly, we got a surprisingly positive response from students when we did it, I think some were relieved.
But it does feel a bit like putting a damp plaster on a broken leg.
Yesterday they were saying millions. I don't have a Google account. Perhaps that's something to do with it. Has the beginning of the switch finally succeeded the bait?
Edit: sorry - couldn't work out how to linkify the entire search URLs here. To reproduce, the actual terms need to be typed manually.
Comments
Bloody hell, who let *that* fuckwit off his leash? (apols to Malc for informal copyright violation).
The national broadcaster of the former colonial power, a power which has engaged in 20-30 years of military adventurism in the immediate region, and colonial wars going back a century, replaces their Opening Ceremony with a series of posturing moral lectures (according to the Times).
(Not being a football type, I did not know this - astonishingly self-righteous decision.)
Then in a follow-up to *that* not-at-all-casually-racist performance, Lineker declares another western country to be astonishingly racist.
The completely (ahem) self-aware uber rich lefty bubble is alive and well.
But part of the pleasure of it is knowing you can go back to somewhere warm and inside afterwards to warm up. Makes you glad you're not a medieval peasant or a Russian conscript.
HMRC and the IRS under the international treaties they are bound by law to operate within both recognise and treat non-voluntary PAYE NICs as a tax. HMRC and the IRS don't dick around when it comes to taxation, they both take it pretty damn seriously, more serious than your flippant and foolish logic that a tax by any other name is not a tax.
HMRC and the IRS and the legally-binding International Treaties they operate under treating compulsory NIC as a tax is infinitely stronger than yeahbutlookatthenameipaytaxes whinges you have.
https://www.racingpost.com/news/members/insight/folkestone-plan-finally-nears-fruition-but-racecourse-remains-a-painful-memory/591448 (£££)
Question: What is 1 + i + (-1)?
Answer: The sum of 1 + i and -1 is 0. To prove this, we can use the fact that the sum of a complex number and its conjugate is always a real number. The conjugate of a complex number a + bi is a - bi, and the sum of a complex number and its conjugate is always equal to 2a. For example, if we let a + bi be a complex number, we have (a + bi) + (a - bi) = (a + a) + (b + (-b))i = 2a. Using this property, we can find that 1 + i + (-1) = (1 + i) + (1 - (-1)i) = (1 + 1) + (1 + (-1))i = 2 + 0i = 0.
Had a small dabble in the market, but nothing much.
The complicating factor is the the political conditions in 2024 will quite likely (IMO) be favourable for the Democrats, and the precedents of Eisenhower and Reagan suggest that the US electorate is quite happy to consider giving a second term to a President whose best years are clearly behind him.
1 - NI is indeed a tax, in return for which we accrue the rights to a pension paid by the State. There is a smidge in both positions, but the truth is that you get a pension as a result of those tax payments.
2 - "Lots of 'frontline' workers are getting £25k. That's pretty much the minimum wage now."
Sorry - nope. "National Living Wage" (=full Minimum Wage) is £9.50 per hour, which is ~£18k on a normal work year.
25k is 35-40% higher than minimum wage.
3 - Debating basic state pension seems to be to be a bit silly, as it is so low and we spend so little (and declining proportions) of money on it that there is little to be gained. I pointed out a few days ago that the % of GDP spent on pensioners is well down over the last few years anyway.
Higher income pensioners already pay their marginal tax rate on increases, so that is already taxed at an appropriately higher rate.
"Rich, grasping, thieving, boomer State Pensioners" is a self-serving myth. If they are rich, it is not due to the State Pension.
If we want to punish pensioners, then the focus needs to be on private and defined benefit schemes for people who are wealthier. This is an area where the UK puts far more resources than theoretically comparable countries.
Another? I'll be looking for state direction of investment into green and infrastructure. In size. (as we used to say on the trading floor to indicate we weren't messing around)
It becomes clearer by the day that the damn things make kids sadder, lonelier and more inclined to end their precious young lives
Allison Pearson" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/12/13/highly-addictive-smartphones-destroying-teenagers-need-ban/
Nothing about health or social care, the main body of education, housing, employment, foreign policy, pensions.
It is to end private school tax breaks.
There speaks a person with a ginormous chip on their shoulder.
Disappointed tbh, though better, grander, more visionary from you.
https://www.racingpost.com/news/latest/we-asked-an-ai-to-write-horseracing-articles-and-the-results-were-fascinating/591933 (not £££)
The state pension isn't that objectionable, what is objectionable is the fact that pensioners even wealthy pensioners are not paying the same tax rates as everyone else.
At present we significantly discriminate by age on what tax rate someone pays. If you're a young graduate on a low income you can be paying roughly a 50% tax rate on your earnings. If you're a pensioner on the exact same income you might only be paying 20% on the same earnings.
This isn't equitable and is what needs to be addressed, not tinkering with state pension levels.
Everyone on the same income should be paying the same tax rate on that income, that is fair and reasonable.
On the other hand, I have in fact voted Lib Dem, Green, and Natural Law Party on occasions, so I'm hardly the hardest of the hardcore Labour, despite knowing a couple of academic-minded people who advised the leadership a few years back , and also others in a couple of social charities with connections to the party and co-operative movement.
I see no prospect that messing about with Independent Schools will save any money whatsoever for the State. Even leaving aside the extra cost imposed by driving people out of the sector who can no longer afford it by missing holidays, decent cars and so on, it will still risk liquidating the support given to the state sector and students by independent schools - which itself is worth an amount not far off the alleged extra revenue.
It looks to me that his attack on independent education is a populist ideological bone that Starmer is throwing to his dogs. Childrens' education will be the collateral damage.
The Green Investment one is interesting. Will need very careful targeting. We already have a high proportion of houses insulated, for example, and almost all double glazed. And investment in green energy at scale has been in place for many years, and is policy of all parties.
He can correctly claim that the Tories have been hamstrung by ideology, but it is a minefield. One opportunity is to drive solar on housing, but even the recent growth has seen phalanxes of chancers getting into the space. A rushed Govt scheme will just tip money away, as solar panel subsidies did in 2012-14 until they were cut back.
Her expertise on the subject of teenagers is probably as limited as is ours.
Smart phones are like alcohol. Over use can clearly have deleterious effects but for the vast majority they are a great addition adding to both the quality and sociability of life.
I don’t – personally – see the benefit in the former: more a threat to my youngest daughter in getting a place at a good state school. I don’t see it being revenue-positive for the UK. I wouldn't (again, personally) see that as a reason to cast a positive vote.
The latter I could, personally, see as a reason for casting a positive vote. I’m not sure what investment you have in mind? In terms of green, I’d note that for all we have not yet gone down the tidal route, to the chagrin of many on here, the UK has been astonishingly successful (as has, to be fair, much of the world) at growing its green energy capacity over the past 20 years. But I’d be keen on more. More broadly on infrastructure, I’d also vote for investment in rail infrastructure – again, this is something there is a cross-party consensus on the need for, though I wouldn’t argue the Conservative government of the last ten years have exactly pressed ahead with great enthusiasm.
Clearly this has to be funded, and would imply higher taxes. But I would be prepared to support that for investment in infrastructure in a way I'd be more wary of for revenue expenditure.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/polls_scot.html
The last five polls all have Labour above 30%, with the SNP retreating to the low to mid 40s. On Electoral calculus, that gives Labour five gains north of the border and it wouldn't take much for them to end up with a 7-10.
The subject of Israel has long been a major source of political revenue in the US of course. Though there it must be remembered that the policy has substantial grassroots support.
I don't think I accept that 50% rate - does not that number include student loan repayments, which are also not a tax?
If we split out NI, then we need an alterative way of determining state pension entitlement. Do you have suggestions?
Throwing out ideas, I wonder about having a lower tax-free threshold for 'pensioners', set equal to the State Pension, with a higher tax free threshold (set equal to minimum wage?) for people below pensions age, would work. The weakness of such a neat sounding principle is that it might not survive contact with obfuscation-loving politicians.
Anything is throwing the whole pack of cards in the air.
It's the fact that facebook et al are funded by advertising which means that their incentive is to make the platform as addictive as possible, which leads to pushing negative engagement and clickbait. Ban advertising and they have to find a different business model with more positive incentives.
I would be amazed if we won an overall majority. Delighted, but amazed.
HMRC didn't just choose out of its own volition to treat compulsory NICs as taxation any more than the IRS did. They do so, under the law, because it is a tax passed by Parliament as recognised in both our domestic and our international obligations.
But forget the law, forget HMRC, forget Parliament, forget the IRS or Congress or anyone else that has been involved in passing these statutes and treaties. You can ignore them all because of . . . a name. Your opinion is so ridiculous its not even good for a laugh.
What would be interesting to see is how it responds to its mistake being pointed out.
NI is a tax to fund societies obligations, it is a tax that goes to the general pot same as any other tax.
As for pension entitlement, I would along with merging NI into income tax move the NI contribution element of pensions (which are a bit of a joke anyway if you know anything about them) to income tax instead. Instead of asking if you've got 30 years of NI Contributions, asking if you have 30 years of Income Tax Contributions - probably with a voluntary Income Tax Contribution option to replace the voluntary NIC option for those living abroad.
As it stands you can get a pension without ever having actually paid a penny in NI Contributions anyway, the threshold for actually paying NI is roughly double the threshold for "contributions" and anyone on benefits who is under the threshold for contributions is still registered as having contributed anyway, so what real difference does it make?
PS though its murkier than NI, "Student Loan repayments" absolutely ought to be considered a capped graduate income tax too.
I got a phone with internet capability some time in the late noughties with the sole rationalisation that I would be able to keep up with the cricket when I was out and about. I'd still say that's the only real benefit. Sure, I can, in an idle moment in the queue for a sandwich, occupy my restless mind with a quick trawl through the internet, but am I happier or better off as a result? I'd argue not. If I actually need to use the internet, 95% of the time it is fine to wait until the next time I can sit at a computer, rather than distractedly try to do two things at once. And I'm amazed at the amount people pay to be 'always on' - I use pretty much the bare minimum of data and phone and contract together cost me £12 per month.
I do like always having a camera with me though.
I accept that I am in a minority on this however!
This is smacking of blaming the victims, ie the whole population of the UK, for being stupid, except those who are intelligent and clever like some, but evidfently not all, the denizens of PB.
If you were to come to me and offer to sell me a "new Land Rover Discovery 4WD", and I accepted and paid up, I wouldn't be impressed if it turned out to be one of those radio control motorised models from the hobby shop and you claimed that it was unreasonable of me to expect a Landy on the tecnhical grounds that you weren't a registered JLR dealer.
And AIUI compulsory medical insurance works on the same principle in many states. Those who can't afford it get credits.
I think tighter social media and app regulation is the way forwards, but it’s not a straightforward area and requires sensitivity. A royal commission would be a good idea.
My parents (who were fairly cultured by South Yorkshire standards) used to think I read too much and should have been out running about with my mates fishing for bullheads or finding porn under bushes. O tempora, o mores.
Only possibility of that a Starmer led government, only probability of that SNP balance of power in a hung parliament
It seems a pretty important measure, to be honest. We should have an easily accessible metric to understand what, if anything, the loft lagger army has achieved.
I've always found the housing debate in the UK a little odd. We bemoan houses for being expensive but I wouldn't be so bothered if our houses were getting better and better. Doesn't appear that they are.
I would also expect moisture would be significant.
I'm not saying British houses are well insulated - but I am slightly suspicious about how the data in this map can possibly be known.
https://youtu.be/gjgIoVXwesQ?t=220s
The failure to have any sort of effective procurement processes or some way of recovering monies paid from those failing to deliver is an utter disgrace. There is or should be plenty of scope for litigation but I have yet to see what specific criminal offences are being alleged.
But also houses do vary tremendously based on age. A third of UK houses were built pre-WWII and won't have been built to modern insulation standards, new homes on the other hand should have been.
So much of modern commerce seems to depend on making people dependent/addicted to a product. It's not an accident that fixed odds betting terminals are addictive, that is the idea. The term limbic capitalism has even come into use. I saw a psychology professor pointing out that whereas it was once a subject designed for helping people its increasingly become about manipulation. What's the solution? I don't know but the first step is usually accepting you have a problem.
It’s genuinely hard to know where the trade off is between the obvious benefits and increasingly obvious drawbacks of this tech for teenagers.
But we feel very strongly as a society about limiting other addictive behaviour to those considered adults. It seems logical to do the same with smartphones for the simple reason that currently we are reinforcing addictive pathways in the brain for a generation of smelly teens.
Britain's problem is that it's generally pretty temperate, which cuts the in/out temperature difference. And we've had relatively cheap abundant local energy. And our housing stock is pretty shoddy.
- All the windows have vents that can be opened and closed at the top. Even when closed though you can feel drafts come through them. Vents not needed as all the windows have a setting where they can be closed slightly ajar.
- Doors not fitted very well. In small spots you can see a gap where cold air can get in
We had a British Gas engineer come to give our boiler a service last week when we took out a service contract with them. He basically said that the housebuilders had, like many others, taken the cheap option and just used "roll out" plastic pipes to supply the hot water to the radiators.
These pipes were not big enough and have a tendency to get clogged up. You can't do an acid wash to clear it because the joints aren't strong enough to take it. You obviously can't replace the pipes without major works because they are behind all the walls in all the rooms.
When asked why they didn't put in proper plumbing to begin with it is because it is cheaper and no one notices in the first few years whilst in new build warranty. After that the housebuilders don't care. Our boiler works fine but with clogged up pipes the radiators aren't generating enough heat. There is a massive inefficiency here and nothing can be done about it!
Many housebuilders are doing this. There ought to be regulations to insist upon pipework to a certain standard. It is disgraceful what they have been allowed to get away with.
Whatever - it is patchy. Lots of homes are well insulated, some are not.
The entire procurement procedure was some mixture of gross incompetence and corruption, though.
And large amounts of money on lobbying.
(Spurious insight here from my partner being a secondary teacher.)
Of course, that doesn't make OGH or @algarkirk wrong - it *will* be difficult to get to 326 seats for Labour. But it's perfectly possible they get 8% of the incremental seats they need North of the Border.
https://twitter.com/JenniferMerode/status/1602988270614622209
Also this.
EU Parliament removes VP status from Eva Kaili
Greek lawmaker kicked out after being charged in corruption scandal linked to Qatar.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-parliament-expel-vice-president-eva-kaili/
It's early days - and the investigation will no doubt be complicated by the pressing need for gas imports - but this is a massive corruption scandal.
Qatar scandal: What just happened at the European Parliament?
https://www.politico.eu/article/eva-kaili-doha-panzeri-qatargate-what-just-happened-at-the-european-parliament/
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63974978
But it does feel a bit like putting a damp plaster on a broken leg.
https://www.google.com/search?q="donald+trump"<- 286 results
https://www.google.com/search?q="elon+musk" <- 352 results
Yesterday they were saying millions. I don't have a Google account. Perhaps that's something to do with it. Has the beginning of the switch finally succeeded the bait?
Edit: sorry - couldn't work out how to linkify the entire search URLs here. To reproduce, the actual terms need to be typed manually.