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.
But the Dems could not do that for abortion rights despite having 49 years to do so.
Abortion Rights were codified by the settled law of the land in a Supreme Court judgment.
And if the Supreme Court does not affirm a constitutional right to something then no Federal law can enshrine that either if a state legislature and governor decide to not allow it
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.
You are the one with no clue, with your fantastical notion that all that matters is the name.
Student loan is murkier than the clear cut National Insurance, but it is to all intents and purposes a capped graduate tax. Its levied by HMRC and collected via PAYE based on income, just like any other income tax.
The following I wrote when I quit the Tories after NI was hiked, the hike was reversed so the numbers need adjusting but you'll see its quite clearly close to 50% for a Basic Rate taxpayer.
Following the announced tax rises, if an Employer has a budget of £100 to increase a Basic Rate Employee’s salary, then that will break down as:
Employer’s NI £13.08
Income Tax £17.38
Employee NI £11.52
(Student Loan if applicable £7.82)
Total Tax £41.98 (or £49.20 in deductions)
Net Wages £58.02 (or £50.20)
A young person today who works hard, goes to University and gets a Basic Rate job will be facing a Real Marginal Tax Rate of 49.8%.
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.
Sorry to disappoint - but IMO a more egalitarian education system is a worthwhile and important goal. When looking at ways to improve the country it's right up there for me. Strong and sincere view.
Speaking of disappointment, the facile smearing of this view as "chip on shoulder" does you no favours. Insinuations of "chip on shoulder!" and "class war!" are standard MO in lieu of reasoned argument for defenders of privilege.
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.
You are the one with no clue, with your fantastical notion that all that matters is the name.
Student loan is murkier than the clear cut National Insurance, but it is to all intents and purposes a capped graduate tax. Its levied by HMRC and collected via PAYE based on income, just like any other income tax.
The following I wrote when I quit the Tories after NI was hiked, the hike was reversed so the numbers need adjusting but you'll see its quite clearly close to 50% for a Basic Rate taxpayer.
Following the announced tax rises, if an Employer has a budget of £100 to increase a Basic Rate Employee’s salary, then that will break down as:
Employer’s NI £13.08
Income Tax £17.38
Employee NI £11.52
(Student Loan if applicable £7.82)
Total Tax £41.98 (or £49.20 in deductions)
Net Wages £58.02 (or £50.20)
A young person today who works hard, goes to University and gets a Basic Rate job will be facing a Real Marginal Tax Rate of 49.8%.
Student loans are not a tax. Once you have repaid your loan, you stop paying. And students who have moved overseas still have to re-pay.
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.
Hmm. What is it you buy in Sainsburys labelled walnuts?
Re; the EU corruption scandal ; corrupt or not, what a beautiful MEP Eva Kaili is. One of those quite shocking beauties who pop up in Greece every now and then.
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.
You are the one with no clue, with your fantastical notion that all that matters is the name.
Student loan is murkier than the clear cut National Insurance, but it is to all intents and purposes a capped graduate tax. Its levied by HMRC and collected via PAYE based on income, just like any other income tax.
The following I wrote when I quit the Tories after NI was hiked, the hike was reversed so the numbers need adjusting but you'll see its quite clearly close to 50% for a Basic Rate taxpayer.
Following the announced tax rises, if an Employer has a budget of £100 to increase a Basic Rate Employee’s salary, then that will break down as:
Employer’s NI £13.08
Income Tax £17.38
Employee NI £11.52
(Student Loan if applicable £7.82)
Total Tax £41.98 (or £49.20 in deductions)
Net Wages £58.02 (or £50.20)
A young person today who works hard, goes to University and gets a Basic Rate job will be facing a Real Marginal Tax Rate of 49.8%.
Student loans are not a tax. Once you have repaid your loan, you stop paying. And students who have moved overseas still have to re-pay.
The last being the reason that a Graduate Tax that wasn't created.
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.
Subsidising private schools makes state schools better? I look forward to seeing your workings here.
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.
You are the one with no clue, with your fantastical notion that all that matters is the name.
Student loan is murkier than the clear cut National Insurance, but it is to all intents and purposes a capped graduate tax. Its levied by HMRC and collected via PAYE based on income, just like any other income tax.
The following I wrote when I quit the Tories after NI was hiked, the hike was reversed so the numbers need adjusting but you'll see its quite clearly close to 50% for a Basic Rate taxpayer.
Following the announced tax rises, if an Employer has a budget of £100 to increase a Basic Rate Employee’s salary, then that will break down as:
Employer’s NI £13.08
Income Tax £17.38
Employee NI £11.52
(Student Loan if applicable £7.82)
Total Tax £41.98 (or £49.20 in deductions)
Net Wages £58.02 (or £50.20)
A young person today who works hard, goes to University and gets a Basic Rate job will be facing a Real Marginal Tax Rate of 49.8%.
Student loans are not a tax. Once you have repaid your loan, you stop paying. And students who have moved overseas still have to re-pay.
They're effectively a capped graduate tax, which is why they're levied based upon income.
Many overseas still need to pay taxes. Especially Americans abroad, so the fact its levied on those abroad doesn't cease it effectively being a tax.
Though even if you exclude Student Loans, a basic rate working taxpayer has more than double the tax liability from their salary budget than someone not facing NI does.
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.
Every change proposed to places like the top private schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities that those institutions don't want is criticised (by them and their supporters) as certain to make them MORE exclusively for the rich if it were implemented. I've seen this so many times.
In other words, what do the left know, given that they didn't attend those places? (Obviously some people on the left actually did, but that's still the general attitude.)
A good rule of thumb is if these institutions don't want something, do it.
The "that would make us more exclusive" line is a sneer and a threat. It's basically saying "we can survive anything you can throw at us, and make it the worse for you too, if we want". Well let's see about that, shall we?
F*** their pretentions to speak for the common good. I pay the government to do that, which is capable of being thrown out by the electorate nowadays. F*** institutions founded by royal charter in the Middle Ages or shortly thereafter. Don't listen to anything they say to defend their privileges, wealth, "traditions", and how great they are.
And no it's not gesture politics, WhisperingOracle. It would be if it were surface only, for sure. There's a solution to that.
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.
Subsidising private schools makes state schools better? I look forward to seeing your workings here.
We need more private schools not less. More free schools, education vouchers, more scholarships and bursaries and more grammar schools and faith schools in the state sector too.
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.
But the Dems could not do that for abortion rights despite having 49 years to do so.
Abortion Rights were codified by the settled law of the land in a Supreme Court judgment.
And if the Supreme Court does not affirm a constitutional right to something then no Federal law can enshrine that either if a state legislature and governor decide to not allow it
You are, as usual, missing the point.
The Supreme Court has already affirmed the constitutional right. This vote removes any cover they might have had for a Dobbs style manoeuvre, where the right wing nutters on the bench overturn the Court's own previous decisions.
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.
Sorry to disappoint - but IMO a more egalitarian education system is a worthwhile and important goal. When looking at ways to improve the country it's right up there for me. Strong and sincere view.
Speaking of disappointment, the facile smearing of this view as "chip on shoulder" does you no favours. Insinuations of "chip on shoulder!" and "class war!" are standard MO in lieu of reasoned argument for defenders of privilege.
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.
Sorry to disappoint - but IMO a more egalitarian education system is a worthwhile and important goal. When looking at ways to improve the country it's right up there for me. Strong and sincere view.
Speaking of disappointment, the facile smearing of this view as "chip on shoulder" does you no favours. Insinuations of "chip on shoulder!" and "class war!" are standard MO in lieu of reasoned argument for defenders of privilege.
If you want to improve state education, tell me how you will train more teachers to fill the gaps in the schools.
This is by far the biggest problem facing the state school system at the moment.
Since we were discussing student loans, an idea. Over a period of five years, a teacher will get all their student loans paid off by the state. Load it heavily to the last couple of years - years 4 and 5 pay off 50% of the loan.
Yes, they may quit after five years. But people tend to be fairly "sticky" in their jobs - after 5 years many will stay on.
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.
Every change proposed to places like the top private schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities that those institutions don't want is criticised (by them and their supporters) as certain to make them MORE exclusively for the rich if it were implemented. I've seen this so many times.
In other words, what do the left know, given that they didn't attend those places? (Obviously some people on the left actually did, but that's still the general attitude.)
A good rule of thumb is if these institutions don't want something, do it.
The "that would make us more exclusive" line is a sneer and a threat.
F*** their pretentions to speak for the common good. I pay the government to do that, which is capable of being thrown out by the electorate nowadays. F*** institutions founded by royal charter in the Middle Ages or shortly thereafter. Don't listen to anything they say to defend their privileges, wealth, "traditions", and how great they are.
They are great, foreign parents pay good money to send their children to top British private boarding schools and Oxbridge.
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.
Subsidising private schools makes state schools better? I look forward to seeing your workings here.
By reducing the demand on the state sector. In effect, by paying people a bit not to use state schools* - that 'bit' being less than the state would pay to educate them within the state sector. Do the numbers add up? Dunno. But nothing wrong with the principle. And I suspect that the net result of making private education more expensive will be to increase the pressure on the state sector without increasing the funding by enough to compensate.
*though I'm really not sure this is 'paying people' - I don't see any reason in principle why non-profit-making educational establishments should be taxable.
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.
But the Dems could not do that for abortion rights despite having 49 years to do so.
Abortion Rights were codified by the settled law of the land in a Supreme Court judgment.
And if the Supreme Court does not affirm a constitutional right to something then no Federal law can enshrine that either if a state legislature and governor decide to not allow it
You are, as usual, missing the point.
The Supreme Court has already affirmed the constitutional right. This vote removes any cover they might have had for a Dobbs style manoeuvre, where the right wing nutters on the bench overturn the Court's own previous decisions.
It doesn't, if a case comes before the SC on Same Sex marriage they can still interpret no Federal constitutional right to it and throw out the new Federal law as unconstitutional
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.
Every change proposed to places like the top private schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities that those institutions don't want is criticised (by them and their supporters) as certain to make them MORE exclusively for the rich if it were implemented. I've seen this so many times.
In other words, what do the left know, given that they didn't attend those places? (Obviously some people on the left actually did, but that's still the general attitude.)
A good rule of thumb is if these institutions don't want something, do it.
The "that would make us more exclusive" line is a sneer and a threat.
F*** their pretentions to speak for the common good. I pay the government to do that, which is capable of being thrown out by the electorate nowadays. F*** institutions founded by royal charter in the Middle Ages or shortly thereafter. Don't listen to anything they say to defend their privileges, wealth, "traditions", and how great they are.
They are great, foreign parents pay good money to send their children to top British private boarding schools and Oxbridge.
Not a bog standard comprehensive or ex poly
"The target of educating UK children is met by not educating UK children." Run that past us again, will you? (apart from it being good to mix, obvs, but that's not what you mean.)
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.
Subsidising private schools makes state schools better? I look forward to seeing your workings here.
By reducing the demand on the state sector. In effect, by paying people a bit not to use state schools* - that 'bit' being less than the state would pay to educate them within the state sector. Do the numbers add up? Dunno. But nothing wrong with the principle. And I suspect that the net result of making private education more expensive will be to increase the pressure on the state sector without increasing the funding by enough to compensate.
*though I'm really not sure this is 'paying people' - I don't see any reason in principle why non-profit-making educational establishments should be taxable.
Especially outstanding state schools given private school parents wouldn't touch any state school that was not outstanding rated with a bargepole even if they couldn't afford the fees anymore or get a bursary.
Thus forcing more pupils in outstanding ranked state schools to lesser ranked state schools
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.
Every change proposed to places like the top private schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities that those institutions don't want is criticised (by them and their supporters) as certain to make them MORE exclusively for the rich if it were implemented. I've seen this so many times.
In other words, what do the left know, given that they didn't attend those places? (Obviously some people on the left actually did, but that's still the general attitude.)
A good rule of thumb is if these institutions don't want something, do it.
The "that would make us more exclusive" line is a sneer and a threat. It's basically saying "we can survive anything you can throw at us, and make it the worse for you too, if we want". Well let's see about that, shall we?
F*** their pretentions to speak for the common good. I pay the government to do that, which is capable of being thrown out by the electorate nowadays. F*** institutions founded by royal charter in the Middle Ages or shortly thereafter. Don't listen to anything they say to defend their privileges, wealth, "traditions", and how great they are.
And no it's not gesture politics, WhisperingOracle. It would be if it were surface only, for sure. There's a solution to that.
Ofcourse it is. The top schools are certain to survive, because they've already turned themselves in to globally-marketed schools for the global super-rich. The only people who will disappear are the British professional middle classes from the top schools, and , ironically, probably a handful of the cheaper, less eliite and internationally-marketed schools as a whole ; typica of the counter-productive results of this sort of gesture politics.
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.
Sorry to disappoint - but IMO a more egalitarian education system is a worthwhile and important goal. When looking at ways to improve the country it's right up there for me. Strong and sincere view.
Speaking of disappointment, the facile smearing of this view as "chip on shoulder" does you no favours. Insinuations of "chip on shoulder!" and "class war!" are standard MO in lieu of reasoned argument for defenders of privilege.
The ruling class knows it's in a class war. Its whole culture is one of exclusion and shared contempt. We're talking about people schooled in some cases behind five-metre thick walls, shut off from the "townies" who live outside them, who send their own brats to such places in later life, and who look forward to their grandbrats and greatgrandbrats attending them too.
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.
Every change proposed to places like the top private schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities that those institutions don't want is criticised (by them and their supporters) as certain to make them MORE exclusively for the rich if it were implemented. I've seen this so many times.
In other words, what do the left know, given that they didn't attend those places? (Obviously some people on the left actually did, but that's still the general attitude.)
A good rule of thumb is if these institutions don't want something, do it.
The "that would make us more exclusive" line is a sneer and a threat.
F*** their pretentions to speak for the common good. I pay the government to do that, which is capable of being thrown out by the electorate nowadays. F*** institutions founded by royal charter in the Middle Ages or shortly thereafter. Don't listen to anything they say to defend their privileges, wealth, "traditions", and how great they are.
They are great, foreign parents pay good money to send their children to top British private boarding schools and Oxbridge.
Not a bog standard comprehensive or ex poly
"The target of educating UK children is met by not educating UK children." Run that past us again, will you? (apart from it being good to mix, obvs, but that's not what you mean.)
Our top educational institutions are one of our top global exports, many now have branches in the Far East too
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.
Sorry to disappoint - but IMO a more egalitarian education system is a worthwhile and important goal. When looking at ways to improve the country it's right up there for me. Strong and sincere view.
Speaking of disappointment, the facile smearing of this view as "chip on shoulder" does you no favours. Insinuations of "chip on shoulder!" and "class war!" are standard MO in lieu of reasoned argument for defenders of privilege.
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.
Sorry to disappoint - but IMO a more egalitarian education system is a worthwhile and important goal. When looking at ways to improve the country it's right up there for me. Strong and sincere view.
Speaking of disappointment, the facile smearing of this view as "chip on shoulder" does you no favours. Insinuations of "chip on shoulder!" and "class war!" are standard MO in lieu of reasoned argument for defenders of privilege.
If you want to improve state education, tell me how you will train more teachers to fill the gaps in the schools.
This is by far the biggest problem facing the state school system at the moment.
Since we were discussing student loans, an idea. Over a period of five years, a teacher will get all their student loans paid off by the state. Load it heavily to the last couple of years - years 4 and 5 pay off 50% of the loan.
Yes, they may quit after five years. But people tend to be fairly "sticky" in their jobs - after 5 years many will stay on.
Sounds good. Also extendable to other areas we might decide there are too few people going into. Education for all, but if you're doing something the country think is worthwhile, we will pay you to do it. If you want to study something frivolous like English literature, that's fine, but do it at your own (eventual) expense.
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.
You are the one with no clue, with your fantastical notion that all that matters is the name.
Student loan is murkier than the clear cut National Insurance, but it is to all intents and purposes a capped graduate tax. Its levied by HMRC and collected via PAYE based on income, just like any other income tax.
The following I wrote when I quit the Tories after NI was hiked, the hike was reversed so the numbers need adjusting but you'll see its quite clearly close to 50% for a Basic Rate taxpayer.
Following the announced tax rises, if an Employer has a budget of £100 to increase a Basic Rate Employee’s salary, then that will break down as:
Employer’s NI £13.08
Income Tax £17.38
Employee NI £11.52
(Student Loan if applicable £7.82)
Total Tax £41.98 (or £49.20 in deductions)
Net Wages £58.02 (or £50.20)
A young person today who works hard, goes to University and gets a Basic Rate job will be facing a Real Marginal Tax Rate of 49.8%.
Good enough for them too, if they want the benefits then they pay for it and that only applies after they have had 12750 taxfree so is not real
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.
Thanks. Beating illustrious PBers was sufficient reward.
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.
Well we won't be agreeing on the best structure for the education system because we have different values. In infrastructure investment we probably will largely agree since much of it is apolitical. It's neither left nor right nor centre to want nice clean fast trains running bang on time. The problem is the funding side - Taxes - and we might have a bit of common ground here. I'm of the view that wealth should be taxed more and low and middle incomes less. This is gaining traction outside the left now. Eg with some posters on here who are anything but.
But the Big Picture choice we have imo is (i) retain our ambition for good universal public services, welfare provision, and a high quality public realm or (ii) rein that back and reduce our expectations of what should be provided collectively. (i) needs wealth taxes, (ii) avoids them. I'd like to see Labour championing (i) against the Tories championing (ii). Real fork in the road. Let's see what sort of country people truly want.
"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.)
There's millions of adults who seem to me to be just as addicted to their smartphones as teenagers. So if there's a problem, I don't think we're setting a very good example.
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.
But the Dems could not do that for abortion rights despite having 49 years to do so.
Abortion Rights were codified by the settled law of the land in a Supreme Court judgment.
And if the Supreme Court does not affirm a constitutional right to something then no Federal law can enshrine that either if a state legislature and governor decide to not allow it
You are, as usual, missing the point.
The Supreme Court has already affirmed the constitutional right. This vote removes any cover they might have had for a Dobbs style manoeuvre, where the right wing nutters on the bench overturn the Court's own previous decisions.
It doesn't, if a case comes before the SC on Same Sex marriage they can still interpret no Federal constitutional right to it and throw out the new Federal law as unconstitutional
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.
Every change proposed to places like the top private schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities that those institutions don't want is criticised (by them and their supporters) as certain to make them MORE exclusively for the rich if it were implemented. I've seen this so many times.
In other words, what do the left know, given that they didn't attend those places? (Obviously some people on the left actually did, but that's still the general attitude.)
A good rule of thumb is if these institutions don't want something, do it.
The "that would make us more exclusive" line is a sneer and a threat.
F*** their pretentions to speak for the common good. I pay the government to do that, which is capable of being thrown out by the electorate nowadays. F*** institutions founded by royal charter in the Middle Ages or shortly thereafter. Don't listen to anything they say to defend their privileges, wealth, "traditions", and how great they are.
They are great, foreign parents pay good money to send their children to top British private boarding schools and Oxbridge.
Not a bog standard comprehensive or ex poly
"The target of educating UK children is met by not educating UK children." Run that past us again, will you? (apart from it being good to mix, obvs, but that's not what you mean.)
Our top educational institutions are one of our top global exports, many now have branches in the Far East too
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.
For sure look in the mirror and you will see an arsehole of epic proportions
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?
First part is irrelevant and the last part is gibberish.
The interesting part is whether this gibberish is verbatim somewhere in the training set or whether it simply encountered the complex plus conjugate thing so many times that it trotted it out as as soon as it saw i. I ca't work out where the gibberish at the end could come from.
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.
For me, 348 million results for Donald Trump and 467 million for Elon Musk. The presentation of results does seem to have changed, but not the numbers. [note "less than" symbols removed from OP's arrows because they confuse Vanilla.]
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.
Every change proposed to places like the top private schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities that those institutions don't want is criticised (by them and their supporters) as certain to make them MORE exclusively for the rich if it were implemented. I've seen this so many times.
In other words, what do the left know, given that they didn't attend those places? (Obviously some people on the left actually did, but that's still the general attitude.)
A good rule of thumb is if these institutions don't want something, do it.
The "that would make us more exclusive" line is a sneer and a threat.
F*** their pretentions to speak for the common good. I pay the government to do that, which is capable of being thrown out by the electorate nowadays. F*** institutions founded by royal charter in the Middle Ages or shortly thereafter. Don't listen to anything they say to defend their privileges, wealth, "traditions", and how great they are.
They are great, foreign parents pay good money to send their children to top British private boarding schools and Oxbridge.
Not a bog standard comprehensive or ex poly
"The target of educating UK children is met by not educating UK children." Run that past us again, will you? (apart from it being good to mix, obvs, but that's not what you mean.)
Our top educational institutions are one of our top global exports, many now have branches in the Far East too
Assuming you're not counting the money paid to the institutions themselves, essentially for access to a snobbish culture, you must be counting what...money spent on the grouse moor or on top-notch London apartments? These places stink this country up. Spend more on working class children. Difference in intelligence isn't inherited.
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.
You are the one with no clue, with your fantastical notion that all that matters is the name.
Student loan is murkier than the clear cut National Insurance, but it is to all intents and purposes a capped graduate tax. Its levied by HMRC and collected via PAYE based on income, just like any other income tax.
The following I wrote when I quit the Tories after NI was hiked, the hike was reversed so the numbers need adjusting but you'll see its quite clearly close to 50% for a Basic Rate taxpayer.
Following the announced tax rises, if an Employer has a budget of £100 to increase a Basic Rate Employee’s salary, then that will break down as:
Employer’s NI £13.08
Income Tax £17.38
Employee NI £11.52
(Student Loan if applicable £7.82)
Total Tax £41.98 (or £49.20 in deductions)
Net Wages £58.02 (or £50.20)
A young person today who works hard, goes to University and gets a Basic Rate job will be facing a Real Marginal Tax Rate of 49.8%.
Good enough for them too, if they want the benefits then they pay for it and that only applies after they have had 12750 taxfree so is not real
Not real? I see you don't know what the word Marginal means either.
I think its reasonable for everyone earning the same income to pay the same real tax rate on that income, it seems you're quite content being greedy grasping individual who'd sell his own grandkids to evade paying the same rate of tax as them though.
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 couple of issues to respond to in the replies, which I'll take separately.
Concrete ceilings add almost nothing to insulation (to the extent it is a rounding error in calculations and normally just left out), like a solid brick wall. A concrete barrier (wall/ceiling) between one room and another room (eg bedroom-loft as described) adds literally nothing because both sides are at the same temperature circulating the same air, and in that arrangement will both be inside the insulated envelope (which will be inside the roof - a warm roof setup).
As an illustration, compare a 100mm concrete ceiling to an insulating material - say Celotex, which is PIR (poly-isano-cyanurate).
A 100mm concrete ceiling has a U-value of 3.87 W/m^2K.
That is the equivalent of 2mm of Celotex - fifty times worse as an insulator, and therefore a rounding error.
A newbuild house roof in the UK requires the equivalent of ~175mm of Celotex, so a 100mm concrete ceiling would contribute about 1.2% of insulating value in such a setup.
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.
I'm not too surprised you'd disagree about removing the private schools subsidy - not everyone sees the sector as being as harmful as I do - but I am AMAZED that somebody on the Left would feel so strongly about it that it could make them not vote Labour.
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.
Every change proposed to places like the top private schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities that those institutions don't want is criticised (by them and their supporters) as certain to make them MORE exclusively for the rich if it were implemented. I've seen this so many times.
In other words, what do the left know, given that they didn't attend those places? (Obviously some people on the left actually did, but that's still the general attitude.)
A good rule of thumb is if these institutions don't want something, do it.
The "that would make us more exclusive" line is a sneer and a threat.
F*** their pretentions to speak for the common good. I pay the government to do that, which is capable of being thrown out by the electorate nowadays. F*** institutions founded by royal charter in the Middle Ages or shortly thereafter. Don't listen to anything they say to defend their privileges, wealth, "traditions", and how great they are.
They are great, foreign parents pay good money to send their children to top British private boarding schools and Oxbridge.
Not a bog standard comprehensive or ex poly
"The target of educating UK children is met by not educating UK children." Run that past us again, will you? (apart from it being good to mix, obvs, but that's not what you mean.)
Our top educational institutions are one of our top global exports, many now have branches in the Far East too
Assuming you're not counting the money paid to the institutions themselves, essentially for access to a snobbish culture, you must be counting what...money spent on the grouse moor or on top-notch London apartments? These places stink this country up. Spend more on working class children. Difference in intelligence isn't inherited.
Intelligence is partly inherited, especially from the mother.
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.
I'm a dog, am I? Charming.
It's also worth considering that the Green investment will suffer from the usual attempts to pick solutions. Arguably, this has already happened, with the emphasis on offshore wind.
One thing that I find fairly constant in talking to politicians - they find the idea of simply setting the correct incentives and then tuning them to the results "inefficient".
So, rather than, say, offering structure tax breaks/subsidies for building zero carbon power sources with certain characteristics (reliability, environmental impact, lifespan, inherent storage etc), they want "Onshore wind - NOW", "No tidal"
Often this is based not on analysis, but who got to them last with a plausible pitch. I sold one on oil from ground nuts replacing petrol.....
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.
Subsidising private schools makes state schools better? I look forward to seeing your workings here.
By reducing the demand on the state sector. In effect, by paying people a bit not to use state schools* - that 'bit' being less than the state would pay to educate them within the state sector. Do the numbers add up? Dunno. But nothing wrong with the principle. And I suspect that the net result of making private education more expensive will be to increase the pressure on the state sector without increasing the funding by enough to compensate.
*though I'm really not sure this is 'paying people' - I don't see any reason in principle why non-profit-making educational establishments should be taxable.
Hmmm…I’m not sure this ‘reducing pressure’ argument really sticks. The system can accommodate plenty more kids from the sorts of families that would send them to private schools, mainly because they’re the sorts of kids who will engage well with what’s on offer at a comprehensive school, thrive even in a large class size, and help to sustain a positive culture at that school.
It would also have other advantages, mainly that those who would otherwise wall themselves and their kids off from the messy reality of many young people’s lives today would instead have a stake in the quality of our state education and be face to face with the kids it is currently failing.
Of course, none of this works if it is dragging down some kids for the benefit of others. But, having taught in some of the roughest schools in Bristol, I’d say an intelligent, well adjusted kid with engaged and supportive parents will thrive even in pretty crap schools. And that parental engagement will help improve the school.
This policy isn’t what will make me vote Labour, though. I think other things are more important.
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.
Every change proposed to places like the top private schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities that those institutions don't want is criticised (by them and their supporters) as certain to make them MORE exclusively for the rich if it were implemented. I've seen this so many times.
In other words, what do the left know, given that they didn't attend those places? (Obviously some people on the left actually did, but that's still the general attitude.)
A good rule of thumb is if these institutions don't want something, do it.
The "that would make us more exclusive" line is a sneer and a threat.
F*** their pretentions to speak for the common good. I pay the government to do that, which is capable of being thrown out by the electorate nowadays. F*** institutions founded by royal charter in the Middle Ages or shortly thereafter. Don't listen to anything they say to defend their privileges, wealth, "traditions", and how great they are.
They are great, foreign parents pay good money to send their children to top British private boarding schools and Oxbridge.
Not a bog standard comprehensive or ex poly
"The target of educating UK children is met by not educating UK children." Run that past us again, will you? (apart from it being good to mix, obvs, but that's not what you mean.)
Our top educational institutions are one of our top global exports, many now have branches in the Far East too
But exported education is no use to UK children.
Yes it is, they are British organisations bringing money into the British economy
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.
But the Dems could not do that for abortion rights despite having 49 years to do so.
Abortion Rights were codified by the settled law of the land in a Supreme Court judgment.
And if the Supreme Court does not affirm a constitutional right to something then no Federal law can enshrine that either if a state legislature and governor decide to not allow it
You are, as usual, missing the point.
The Supreme Court has already affirmed the constitutional right. This vote removes any cover they might have had for a Dobbs style manoeuvre, where the right wing nutters on the bench overturn the Court's own previous decisions.
It doesn't, if a case comes before the SC on Same Sex marriage they can still interpret no Federal constitutional right to it and throw out the new Federal law as unconstitutional
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.
Natural Law Party?
You have the thighs (more likely the abdominals) for Yogic Flying?
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.
Subsidising private schools makes state schools better? I look forward to seeing your workings here.
By reducing the demand on the state sector. In effect, by paying people a bit not to use state schools* - that 'bit' being less than the state would pay to educate them within the state sector. Do the numbers add up? Dunno. But nothing wrong with the principle. And I suspect that the net result of making private education more expensive will be to increase the pressure on the state sector without increasing the funding by enough to compensate.
*though I'm really not sure this is 'paying people' - I don't see any reason in principle why non-profit-making educational establishments should be taxable.
Hmmm…I’m not sure this ‘reducing pressure’ argument really sticks. The system can accommodate plenty more kids from the sorts of families that would send them to private schools, mainly because they’re the sorts of kids who will engage well with what’s on offer at a comprehensive school, thrive even in a large class size, and help to sustain a positive culture at that school.
It would also have other advantages, mainly that those who would otherwise wall themselves and their kids off from the messy reality of many young people’s lives today would instead have a stake in the quality of our state education and be face to face with the kids it is currently failing.
Of course, none of this works if it is dragging down some kids for the benefit of others. But, having taught in some of the roughest schools in Bristol, I’d say an intelligent, well adjusted kid with engaged and supportive parents will thrive even in pretty crap schools. And that parental engagement will help improve the school.
This policy isn’t what will make me vote Labour, though. I think other things are more important.
Rubbish. Most private school parents wouldn't touch a non already outstanding rated state school with a bargepole and certainly not a rough school.
Or they would send their children to a private boarding school abroad
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.
My issue is that if money has been paid for stuff that is substandard, we want our money back, or the correct stuff supplied. Works for Tesco's, Amazon, whoever. I'm not convinced of criminality, other than one Mone's part of claiming no links in Parliament, if that is what happened.
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.
Sorry to disappoint - but IMO a more egalitarian education system is a worthwhile and important goal. When looking at ways to improve the country it's right up there for me. Strong and sincere view.
Speaking of disappointment, the facile smearing of this view as "chip on shoulder" does you no favours. Insinuations of "chip on shoulder!" and "class war!" are standard MO in lieu of reasoned argument for defenders of privilege.
The ruling class knows it's in a class war. Its whole culture is one of exclusion and shared contempt. We're talking about people schooled in some cases behind five-metre thick walls, shut off from the "townies" who live outside them, who send their own brats to such places in later life, and who look forward to their grandbrats and greatgrandbrats attending them too.
They really don't like it up 'em.
I happen to be up there in income and my kids go to private school. The school has less security than most state schools. I went to state school myself and neither of my parents went to university. The reason I send my kids private is because the state system refuses to accommodate Montessori education, despite the data clearly showing it as a superior form of education. When they are teenagers, I plan to transition them back to the state system.
Lots of other private school parents will have similar reasons for going private, always slightly nuanced but mainly because they want to do the best for their kids. The ones with massive security tend to be Jewish ones, because of the appalling level of anti-Semitic attacks in the UK. I actually support tax on private education, but you will never win this argument with divisive rhetoric.
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.
I'm a dog, am I? Charming.
It's also worth considering that the Green investment will suffer from the usual attempts to pick solutions. Arguably, this has already happened, with the emphasis on offshore wind.
One thing that I find fairly constant in talking to politicians - they find the idea of simply setting the correct incentives and then tuning them to the results "inefficient".
So, rather than, say, offering structure tax breaks/subsidies for building zero carbon power sources with certain characteristics (reliability, environmental impact, lifespan, inherent storage etc), they want "Onshore wind - NOW", "No tidal"
Often this is based not on analysis, but who got to them last with a plausible pitch. I sold one on oil from ground nuts replacing petrol.....
Yes, there's something in this. Also when the govt transacts with the private sector it tends to get ripped off.
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.
Subsidising private schools makes state schools better? I look forward to seeing your workings here.
By reducing the demand on the state sector. In effect, by paying people a bit not to use state schools* - that 'bit' being less than the state would pay to educate them within the state sector. Do the numbers add up? Dunno. But nothing wrong with the principle. And I suspect that the net result of making private education more expensive will be to increase the pressure on the state sector without increasing the funding by enough to compensate.
*though I'm really not sure this is 'paying people' - I don't see any reason in principle why non-profit-making educational establishments should be taxable.
Hmmm…I’m not sure this ‘reducing pressure’ argument really sticks. The system can accommodate plenty more kids from the sorts of families that would send them to private schools, mainly because they’re the sorts of kids who will engage well with what’s on offer at a comprehensive school, thrive even in a large class size, and help to sustain a positive culture at that school.
It would also have other advantages, mainly that those who would otherwise wall themselves and their kids off from the messy reality of many young people’s lives today would instead have a stake in the quality of our state education and be face to face with the kids it is currently failing.
Of course, none of this works if it is dragging down some kids for the benefit of others. But, having taught in some of the roughest schools in Bristol, I’d say an intelligent, well adjusted kid with engaged and supportive parents will thrive even in pretty crap schools. And that parental engagement will help improve the school.
This policy isn’t what will make me vote Labour, though. I think other things are more important.
Rubbish. Most private school parents wouldn't touch a non already outstanding rated state school with a bargepole and certainly not a rough school.
Or they would send their children to a private boarding school abroad
That wasn’t what I was arguing (I don’t know whether you’re right, I don’t know enough parents making that decision).
I’m saying that IF this sort of kids ended up at a rough school they’d be fine. No comment on whether their parents would choose to send them.
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.
Natural Law Party?
You have the thighs (more likely the abdominals) for Yogic Flying?
) I loved that PPB of theirs, the same one that Ghedebrav mentions, and I thnk you posted , of 1997. For me an effective antidote to just about everything that has happened since about 1980.
Mr. kinabalu, it isn't a subsidy. By that definition, a 20% income tax rate is an 80% subsidy of the private sector.
The assumption the state is owed everything and anything it doesn't take in tax is a gracious gift is a rather socialist perspective.
To exempt something from tax is to subsidise it. This is a simple and correct use of English. You're the one bringing ideology into play with this framing.
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;
We need more precise data than that. That is a survey for marketing purposes by a company - Tado - trying to stampede the public into buying uber-expensive central heating controls (eg £120 per radiator) and a management service, rather than say getting their free loft insulation from their local provider, or spending a couple of hundred on paying for the loft insulation if they had not done it when it was free. Source of graphic: https://www.tado.com/gb-en/press/uk-homes-losing-heat-up-to-three-times-faster-than-european-neighbours
It was a private survey, and I am not even aware that they published the basic data. They wanted scary media headlines, and obvs (our media being as thick as planks) they got them.
It was debunked at the time, but BS floats back to the surface.
If you want to talk about UK loft insulation, you need data such as that from the English Housing Survey. Not sure whether SWNI publish similar.
The number of totally uninsulated lofts in the UK is under 1%. About 2 years ago 20% of UK lofts had less than 125mm and were easy to do, and a larger 60% had less than 200mm. So it's about finding the right ones and topping them up - *not* "these all need to be done".
The gains from thicker loft insulation fall exponentially, as you would expect.
So usually programmes have excluded house which already have up to 100mm.
Then there are the hard to insulate bunch (eg rooms in roof).
The biggest issue is as I point occasionally out older Owner Occupied stock. Private LLs are regulated on it aggressively, and (from memory) Govts threw just under £20bn at the Social Sector between 2000 and 2018 ish).
Cavity wall insulation is done in something like 70-80% of the suitable stock. Double glazing is more like 90%.
So there are certainly gains to be made, but it's not a simple project, and will be beneficial not transformative. It's about top ups.
A wax crayon debate around "this lot have done nothing" is confusing, rather than helpful. But, as I said before - there are certainly failures as well as successes in the current govt, and the failures are around ideology and butt-sitting when action was needed.
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.
Sorry to disappoint - but IMO a more egalitarian education system is a worthwhile and important goal. When looking at ways to improve the country it's right up there for me. Strong and sincere view.
Speaking of disappointment, the facile smearing of this view as "chip on shoulder" does you no favours. Insinuations of "chip on shoulder!" and "class war!" are standard MO in lieu of reasoned argument for defenders of privilege.
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.
Sorry to disappoint - but IMO a more egalitarian education system is a worthwhile and important goal. When looking at ways to improve the country it's right up there for me. Strong and sincere view.
Speaking of disappointment, the facile smearing of this view as "chip on shoulder" does you no favours. Insinuations of "chip on shoulder!" and "class war!" are standard MO in lieu of reasoned argument for defenders of privilege.
If you want to improve state education, tell me how you will train more teachers to fill the gaps in the schools.
This is by far the biggest problem facing the state school system at the moment.
Since we were discussing student loans, an idea. Over a period of five years, a teacher will get all their student loans paid off by the state. Load it heavily to the last couple of years - years 4 and 5 pay off 50% of the loan.
Yes, they may quit after five years. But people tend to be fairly "sticky" in their jobs - after 5 years many will stay on.
Sounds good. I also like the idea of steering the best teachers to the most challenging schools.
But look, I fail to see why the price of me supporting the ending of tax breaks for private schools is that I have to spell out this that & the other about the education system.
It never ceases to amaze me how much heat and irrationality this topic generates. Why so wedded to private schools in this country? To the extent that merely suggesting an end to the subsidy is viewed as Class War. I don't get it.
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.
Generally it's not the houses that are expensive, but the land they are built on - thus all the arguments about planning (to increase the supply of land for building houses on) and land value taxation (to ensure that land is used efficiently and not hoarded to restrict supply).
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 couple of issues to respond to in the replies, which I'll take separately.
Concrete ceilings add almost nothing to insulation (to the extent it is a rounding error in calculations and normally just left out), like a solid brick wall. A concrete barrier (wall/ceiling) between one room and another room (eg bedroom-loft as described) adds literally nothing because both sides are at the same temperature circulating the same air, and in that arrangement will both be inside the insulated envelope (which will be inside the roof - a warm roof setup).
As an illustration, compare a 100mm concrete ceiling to an insulating material - say Celotex, which is PIR (poly-isano-cyanurate).
A 100mm concrete ceiling has a U-value of 3.87 W/m^2K.
That is the equivalent of 2mm of Celotex - fifty times worse as an insulator, and therefore a rounding error.
A newbuild house roof in the UK requires the equivalent of ~175mm of Celotex, so a 100mm concrete ceiling would contribute about 1.2% of insulating value in such a setup.
As I understand it, concrete is useful in buildings as a thermal store. Consequently a house with concrete slabs for floors/ceilings will hold more heat energy at a given temperature, and so take longer to cool down/warm up than the same house without concrete, but the same insulation.
My brother-in-law takes advantage of this by running his air-source heat pump in the early hours, so that he can store heat in the concrete slabs, and avoid using the heat pump at times of the day when electricity is more expensive.
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.
Natural Law Party?
You have the thighs (more likely the abdominals) for Yogic Flying?
) I loved that PPB of theirs, the same one that Ghedebrav mentions, and I thnk you posted , of 1997. For me an effective antidote to just about everything that has happened since about 1980.
Somewhere I have their rather elaborate manifesto document from circa 1990. Bonkers!
Comments
Student loan is murkier than the clear cut National Insurance, but it is to all intents and purposes a capped graduate tax. Its levied by HMRC and collected via PAYE based on income, just like any other income tax.
The following I wrote when I quit the Tories after NI was hiked, the hike was reversed so the numbers need adjusting but you'll see its quite clearly close to 50% for a Basic Rate taxpayer.
Following the announced tax rises, if an Employer has a budget of £100 to increase a Basic Rate Employee’s salary, then that will break down as:
Employer’s NI £13.08
Income Tax £17.38
Employee NI £11.52
(Student Loan if applicable £7.82)
Total Tax £41.98 (or £49.20 in deductions)
Net Wages £58.02 (or £50.20)
A young person today who works hard, goes to University and gets a Basic Rate job will be facing a Real Marginal Tax Rate of 49.8%.
Speaking of disappointment, the facile smearing of this view as "chip on shoulder" does you no favours. Insinuations of "chip on shoulder!" and "class war!" are standard MO in lieu of reasoned argument for defenders of privilege.
And students who have moved overseas still have to re-pay.
I'd have been disappointed if it had taken me longer than half an hour as it is for schools
Leon might be pleased that it uses what3words in some of the clues
https://www.gchq.gov.uk/files/The GCHQ Christmas Challenge 2022.pdf
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-parliament-expel-vice-president-eva-kaili/
For fans of 80s music, an HD video of Don Henley's The Boys Of Summer has finally been uploaded to YouTube for the first time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RUIeX6UCT8
Many overseas still need to pay taxes. Especially Americans abroad, so the fact its levied on those abroad doesn't cease it effectively being a tax.
Though even if you exclude Student Loans, a basic rate working taxpayer has more than double the tax liability from their salary budget than someone not facing NI does.
In other words, what do the left know, given that they didn't attend those places? (Obviously some people on the left actually did, but that's still the general attitude.)
A good rule of thumb is if these institutions don't want something, do it.
The "that would make us more exclusive" line is a sneer and a threat. It's basically saying "we can survive anything you can throw at us, and make it the worse for you too, if we want". Well let's see about that, shall we?
F*** their pretentions to speak for the common good. I pay the government to do that, which is capable of being thrown out by the electorate nowadays. F*** institutions founded by royal charter in the Middle Ages or shortly thereafter. Don't listen to anything they say to defend their privileges, wealth, "traditions", and how great they are.
And no it's not gesture politics, WhisperingOracle. It would be if it were surface only, for sure. There's a solution to that.
More choice all round
The assumption the state is owed everything and anything it doesn't take in tax is a gracious gift is a rather socialist perspective.
The Supreme Court has already affirmed the constitutional right.
This vote removes any cover they might have had for a Dobbs style manoeuvre, where the right wing nutters on the bench overturn the Court's own previous decisions.
This is by far the biggest problem facing the state school system at the moment.
Since we were discussing student loans, an idea. Over a period of five years, a teacher will get all their student loans paid off by the state. Load it heavily to the last couple of years - years 4 and 5 pay off 50% of the loan.
Yes, they may quit after five years. But people tend to be fairly "sticky" in their jobs - after 5 years many will stay on.
Not a bog standard comprehensive or ex poly
Do the numbers add up? Dunno. But nothing wrong with the principle. And I suspect that the net result of making private education more expensive will be to increase the pressure on the state sector without increasing the funding by enough to compensate.
*though I'm really not sure this is 'paying people' - I don't see any reason in principle why non-profit-making educational establishments should be taxable.
Thus forcing more pupils in outstanding ranked state schools to lesser ranked state schools
Is, for example, the exemption from business rates a subsidy ?
They really don't like it up 'em.
Also extendable to other areas we might decide there are too few people going into.
Education for all, but if you're doing something the country think is worthwhile, we will pay you to do it. If you want to study something frivolous like English literature, that's fine, but do it at your own (eventual) expense.
But the Big Picture choice we have imo is (i) retain our ambition for good universal public services, welfare provision, and a high quality public realm or (ii) rein that back and reduce our expectations of what should be provided collectively. (i) needs wealth taxes, (ii) avoids them. I'd like to see Labour championing (i) against the Tories championing (ii). Real fork in the road. Let's see what sort of country people truly want.
The SC Court have already upheld the right to same sex marriage, less than a decade ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obergefell_v._Hodges
The interesting part is whether this gibberish is verbatim somewhere in the training set or whether it simply encountered the complex plus conjugate thing so many times that it trotted it out as as soon as it saw i. I ca't work out where the gibberish at the end could come from.
I think its reasonable for everyone earning the same income to pay the same real tax rate on that income, it seems you're quite content being greedy grasping individual who'd sell his own grandkids to evade paying the same rate of tax as them though.
Concrete ceilings add almost nothing to insulation (to the extent it is a rounding error in calculations and normally just left out), like a solid brick wall. A concrete barrier (wall/ceiling) between one room and another room (eg bedroom-loft as described) adds literally nothing because both sides are at the same temperature circulating the same air, and in that arrangement will both be inside the insulated envelope (which will be inside the roof - a warm roof setup).
As an illustration, compare a 100mm concrete ceiling to an insulating material - say Celotex, which is PIR (poly-isano-cyanurate).
A 100mm concrete ceiling has a U-value of 3.87 W/m^2K.
That is the equivalent of 2mm of Celotex - fifty times worse as an insulator, and therefore a rounding error.
A newbuild house roof in the UK requires the equivalent of ~175mm of Celotex, so a 100mm concrete ceiling would contribute about 1.2% of insulating value in such a setup.
If anyone wants to play, there is an online calculator here:
https://www.vesma.com/tutorial/uvalue01/uvalue01.htm
Is there a personal aspect?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/children-intelligence-iq-mother-inherit-inheritance-genetics-genes-a7345596.html
Of course when we had more grammars we had more state schools that could compete with our top private schools
One thing that I find fairly constant in talking to politicians - they find the idea of simply setting the correct incentives and then tuning them to the results "inefficient".
So, rather than, say, offering structure tax breaks/subsidies for building zero carbon power sources with certain characteristics (reliability, environmental impact, lifespan, inherent storage etc), they want "Onshore wind - NOW", "No tidal"
Often this is based not on analysis, but who got to them last with a plausible pitch. I sold one on oil from ground nuts replacing petrol.....
It would also have other advantages, mainly that those who would otherwise wall themselves and their kids off from the messy reality of many young people’s lives today would instead have a stake in the quality of our state education and be face to face with the kids it is currently failing.
Of course, none of this works if it is dragging down some kids for the benefit of others. But, having taught in some of the roughest schools in Bristol, I’d say an intelligent, well adjusted kid with engaged and supportive parents will thrive even in pretty crap schools. And that parental engagement will help improve the school.
This policy isn’t what will make me vote Labour, though. I think other things are more important.
You have the thighs (more likely the abdominals) for Yogic Flying?
I'm impressed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyXAB5L3EIQ
Or they would send their children to a private boarding school abroad
Lots of other private school parents will have similar reasons for going private, always slightly nuanced but mainly because they want to do the best for their kids. The ones with massive security tend to be Jewish ones, because of the appalling level of anti-Semitic attacks in the UK. I actually support tax on private education, but you will never win this argument with divisive rhetoric.
I’m saying that IF this sort of kids ended up at a rough school they’d be fine. No comment on whether their parents would choose to send them.
Source of graphic: https://www.tado.com/gb-en/press/uk-homes-losing-heat-up-to-three-times-faster-than-european-neighbours
It was a private survey, and I am not even aware that they published the basic data. They wanted scary media headlines, and obvs (our media being as thick as planks) they got them.
It was debunked at the time, but BS floats back to the surface.
If you want to talk about UK loft insulation, you need data such as that from the English Housing Survey. Not sure whether SWNI publish similar.
The number of totally uninsulated lofts in the UK is under 1%. About 2 years ago 20% of UK lofts had less than 125mm and were easy to do, and a larger
60% had less than 200mm. So it's about finding the right ones and topping them up - *not* "these all need to be done".
The gains from thicker loft insulation fall exponentially, as you would expect.
So usually programmes have excluded house which already have up to 100mm.
Then there are the hard to insulate bunch (eg rooms in roof).
The biggest issue is as I point occasionally out older Owner Occupied stock. Private LLs are regulated on it aggressively, and (from memory) Govts threw just under £20bn at the Social Sector between 2000 and 2018 ish).
Cavity wall insulation is done in something like 70-80% of the suitable stock. Double glazing is more like 90%.
So there are certainly gains to be made, but it's not a simple project, and will be beneficial not transformative. It's about top ups.
A wax crayon debate around "this lot have done nothing" is confusing, rather than helpful. But, as I said before - there are certainly failures as well as successes in the current govt, and the failures are around ideology and butt-sitting when action was needed.
But look, I fail to see why the price of me supporting the ending of tax breaks for private schools is that I have to spell out this that & the other about the education system.
It never ceases to amaze me how much heat and irrationality this topic generates. Why so wedded to private schools in this country? To the extent that merely suggesting an end to the subsidy is viewed as Class War. I don't get it.
My brother-in-law takes advantage of this by running his air-source heat pump in the early hours, so that he can store heat in the concrete slabs, and avoid using the heat pump at times of the day when electricity is more expensive.
Of course, concrete has its own problems.