‘I’d rather stay in Communist China than return to inheritance tax Britain’ Prohibitively high death taxes are blocking British expats from returning home
"His estate, divided across property, stocks, and shares, will certainly incur a hefty inheritance tax bill.
“We have three properties in Beijing, one in England, and one in Portugal,” he says.
“I’ve put as much of it in my wife’s name as possible but my worry is that because I am male and older, I will die before she does.”
Mr Mosely says Xiaomo will likely move to Britain if she is widowed. He says: “By the time she dies, she could have been living in the UK for 15 years, and then she’ll be subject to inheritance tax.”
In the meantime, Mr Mosely says he is miserable. Beijing has lost its appeal now that he is retired – and he wants to live out the rest of his years in Kent, where he and his wife own a house."
So, give it away and stop whining.
Sounds to me like he's weighed up his options and chosen his preferred one, I don't get the complaint.
The Telegraphs seems to have a bee in its bonnet about inheritance tax currently.
It s ‘so what’ story.
To be worried about your estate paying IHT, you need to tick three boxes.
Old enough to hear the Grim Reaper in the vicinity. Wealthy enough to be liable for IHT. Reluctant to loose your grip on control of your money, even after you die.
Basically Telegraph core demographic.
I've spent the last few months sorting my late mother's estate. While the basic IHT allowance is £325k, you get another £175k if leaving a house to your kids, and there's the same allowance again passed on from my father, who died a few years ago. So that's a total of a million pound allowance before any IHT would have been due, which doesn't seem unduly harsh.
Could the split between housing and non housing assets discourage downsizing ?
I don't think so, since the size of the residence nil-rate band doesn't depend on the value of the property that is left. But it could be tough on your beneficiaries if you have sizeable non-property assets to pass on but die while living in rental accommodation.
Yes it seems weird that selling up and renting later in life is penalised compared to having equity tied up in your own property.
There is, ISTR, some provision for exactly that situation - downsizing to a smaller home, or into care, as the ‘Qualifying Former Residential Interest’ . What I'm not clear about is whether the smaller home has to be owned or can be rented.
There's clearly a huge desire to get the Conservatives out.
But what do all the people desperate for a Labour Government want it to actually do? And what is Starmer actually planning to do?
Starmer has said he's not going to raise taxes significantly and he's told the Shadow Cabinet not to make any spending promises.
So if he isn't going to spend any money, what is he actually going to do?
He seems to be heading for a Gordon Brown scenario - desperate to get into power but with no tangible plans to actually do anything once he gets there.
So the public will almost certainly get their wish to get the Conservatives out - only for Starmer to come in and do precisely nothing - effectively continuing with existing policies.
The only change will be that the existing policies will have new branding and of course the rhetoric will be different.
What do I want it to do?
Well, Government to stop handing out lucrative contracts and appointments to its mates.
I'd like it to stop telling barefaced lies to the public, and to Parliament.
I'd like it to put more of the burden of paying for public services on those that can afford it rather than those that can't.
I'd like it to act with some integrity, domestically and internationally, so that some public faith in politicians is restored.
I'd like it to restore good trading relations with our natural trading partners, notably the EU.
That would do for starters. Anything else would be a bonus.
This is what I don't get about remaining Tories. This government- and with it the Conservative Party - is openly corrupt. That is not a conservative thing to support.
And I'm not just talking about financial corruption into the BILLIONS of our money grifted to their spiv friends and patrons. I also refer to the corruption of facts. Lying to parliament is a Bad Thing with a very rapid and swift penalty. Utterly corrupted by the Tories who don't just lie, but try to insist their lie is the truth no matter how egregious that claim is.
That is also not a conservative thing to support. True conservatives surely need to save the soul of their party, because at the moment they are the anti-Conservatives. Is there no level of filth that some people are prepared to swim in? And for what - to defend a party whose policies they largely oppose and whose principles are a mockery of what they hold dear?
I can see an awful lot of Tory voters - true lifelong conservatives - trying to save the soul of the party by killing the anti-Tories at the coming election. Kill it with electoral fire. And then you can have your party back.
Your last paragraph relies on two things, that the rump of remaining Tories are the sensible ones - unlikely, and that if they get wiped out that they learn the right lessons.
My concern is that a large defeat will leave those in solid seats, the Bill Cash and Edward Leigh’s of the world running the show who have learned nothing and not remotely adapted to the modern world.
They will also come to the wrong conclusion that they lost because they were “too centrist” and so lurch to bonkers. This will further destroy the Tories as a going concern for a long long time like the Liberals.
The best situation for Tories (short of an unlikely victory) is a modest defeat where the evidence to them is clear that despite all the shit over the last few years and the damage to their standing they managed to get close with Sunak and a more centrist approach with nods to the right and so replacing him with crazy isn’t the answer.
It’s also not great for the country to have parties in power with whopping majorities unless they actually have a decent plan how to fix things - either you get bad decisions that are un-opposable due to the majority or you get complacency such as under Blair where a huge majority, where he could have changed the face of the country, is wasted because they are too worried about the next election and losing the broad church that got them that majority and so don’t want to do anything to scare the horses so you end up with stagnation.
Sane people in Labour managed to save the party from me and BJO, so the Tories can at least try.
As I posted before, I expect that electoral and constitutional reform will be an inevitable big agenda item in the next parliament. Which means that the restored Tory party may not need distinguished psychopaths like Sir Edward Leigh - they could form their own party.
And PR also guarantees Farage's Reform UK and a new Corbynite left party 15-20% of the seats in the House of Commons each, so far from removing the hard right and hard left, PR just increases their power.
See Germany with PR where the AfD now on 19% and Linke has seats in the German Parliament too or Italy with PR where the hard right Meloni is now PM, or Spain with PR where Vox will win significant numbers of seats in the Spanish Parliament next month on current polls or Ireland with PR where SF tops the polls or Sweden with PR where the Sweden Democrats are now second biggest party or New Zealand with PR where New Zealand First have often won MPs.
See also Israel with PR where hard right nationalist and Orthodox Jewish parties have great influence over government. Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany too after using PR to get a foothold in the Reichstag
There are extremist parties elected under FPTP too: see India, Bosnia and even the US. Other countries with PR don’t have significant extremist parties doing well: e.g., South Africa, New Zealand, Malta, Japan.
See also Scotland where the SCons will never get their sweaty little hands on the levers of power.
On current Holyrood polls the SCons will have the balance of power between SNP and Labour and the LDs in 2026
If there has to be an instructive loss of being the governing party for the SNP at Holyrood, I can’t think of a more helpful interregnum than one of SLab being propped up by the SCons. SLab and Anas aren’t that bright, but even I don’t think they would be that self destructively moronic.
In 2007 of course the SCons propped up the SNP minority government of Salmond, if Yousaf ruled out indyref2 for the next Parliament then Ross might even keep him as FM if the SNP won most MSPs but not a majority (even with the Greens)
The propping up in 2007 was minimal, Salmond became FM with the support of the Greens not Aunty Annabelle. It even included (along with other Unionist parties) imposing the Edinburgh trams on the SNP very much against their will. Besides those were more pragmatic times, the chances of Ross and his crew voting for Yousaf are precisely zero.
I would much enjoy the bright new morning of Labour getting rid of the Tories being complimented by SLab coming to power on the basis of an arrangement with the SCons. Some SLD involvement would be the icing on the cake.
If SLab and LD have more MSPs than the SNP, then Sarwar could equally become FM without SCon support, however like Salmond in 2007 he would need SCon support to get legislation through
If my great-great-890-times-great-grandfather had been a dolphin, I could be eating ultra-fresh sashimi right now.
Wouldn't SLAB and LD need more MSPs than both the SNP and Greens in any case?
Not necessarily, if SLAB went all woke as the price of Gren support.
I remember the sheer delight of '97. It felt like the sun was shining again........ It weasn't just the fresh faced Tony Blair it was at least as much ridding ourselves of the legacy of Thatcher and the grubbiness of those that followed her........
It feels so much like that now...........
Sunak already sounds stale. Someone's told him the secret to getting your message across is constant repetition but what they didn't tell him is that the message itself has to resonate otherwise you sound like a speak your weight machine that's gone wonky.
I remember it too. The morning after polling day, the sun was shining brightly, the birds were singing, everyone was smiling 😃
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
Stupid question - how are the Government doing that - via the 2016 tax changes and a requirement to improve the energy efficiency of the house?
Asking because neither of those changes are making things easier for renters where supply is down, demand is equal (or higher than before due to population growth) and prices are rising.
What we actually need is for pension funds to actually focus on build to rent...
Any problems with supply are solely due to the fact that construction hasn't kept pace with population. The only answer to that is to build more, but the Government are siding with NIMBYs instead.
If a landlord sells up and exits the market then that doesn't adjust supply and demand net because either the landlord sells to another landlord (so no net change) or they sell to someone who used to be a tenant but is now an owner occupier instead (so 1 fewer supply, 1 fewer demand, no net change).
Build, build, build to boost supply.
This though is not true. The number of houses does not change I agree however the size of rental households is generally larger than owner occupied households so a house moving from rental to owner occupied actually increases the ratio of people looking to rent/houses to rent
That's due to age not rental/ownership primarily.
A retired couple who own their own home, or a widower who owns their own home don't live on their own because they are owner-occupiers.
And a couple with primary school aged kids who rent aren't going to throw their kids out of their home if they buy a property.
It may be due to age but that is irrelevant. You will still have more people chasing fewer properties
Here is a worked example to demonstrate
2,500,000 renters in 1 million homes
sell up half
you now have 1,250,000 displaced renters of which 1,200,000 will be soaked up by now being owner occupiers leaving 50,000 renters extra fighting for the diminished rental pool.
Sorry I dont see age is relevant to this....you have 2.5 renters per home regardless of age and only 2.4 for owner occupied. Owners will also have kids so your point is void. The higher occupancy for rental is more down to HMO's and young adults house sharing than families
Sorry your maths are wrong, age is entirely relevant to this.
You are looking at correlation not causation.
Sell half a million homes, have half a million households who were renting buy them, and the net change is zero.
The higher occupancy for rental is due to families. The age-profile of renters covers those with dependent children more than the age-profile of owner occupiers, so correlation is not causation like you are thinking.
Do you not consider that families with young children would already have bought if they could afford it? They can't so they rent. So yes age is irrelevant
Families with young children used to be able to afford to buy homes at a much higher rate, and if landlords are selling up to owner occupiers as per our scenario we are discussing, then they would be again.
So no, age is not irrelevant. Your statistic on people living per home is completely irrelevant, because that statistics is a correlation to ownership not caused by it. It has causative link to age profile, which correlates to ownership, so ownership correlates to people per home.
Correlation is not causation.
Landlords have been selling up since the Osborne reforms, the rental pool has been diminishing since the Osborne reforms. House prices haven't been going down. Few people rent if they can afford to buy, if they can't afford to buy landlords selling up and reducing the rental pool is not going to help them in the least. Your theory seems predicated on "they could buy but they are just being obstinate and rent"
House prices haven't gone down because supply hasn't kept up with demand. Not enough houses are being built.
Demand goes up by more than supply and prices go up. That's basic economics, not rocket science.
Build more houses.
If landlords sell up and tenants buy the houses, then the former tenant who now has their own home is greatly improved by that situation.
The tenants who still rent aren't helped, but they're not hurt either, since there's fewer homes available to rent, but fewer people seeking to rent too, so no net change.
Build more houses and the supply will go up and prices will go down. Anything else is just fiddling at the edges.
Yes but people that rent aren't going to be buying them is the point. If they could afford to buy then most of them would have already done so. Your assumption that rental properties are going to be magically affordable to those forced to rent now due to lack of choice is wrong.
I rent I would buy if I could, my landlord selling up wouldn't suddenly make it possible for me to buy. Most renters are in that position.
Sorry but who do you think is going to buy if the landlord sells up?
If its a household who were renting, then it takes a competitor seeking to rent out of the equation, demand for rental properties go down accordingly, no net change in supply and demand.
If its an alternative landlord, then they are going to want to let out the property, so no net change in supply and demand.
The house isn't suddenly going to vanish into the ether. It will still be there.
Building more houses raises overall supply. Whether a particular household owns or rents their property does not.
A fair number will be bought as second homes I have no doubt for a start. The simple fact is house prices aren't falling even though landlords have been selling up. Most renters cannot buy or they would have. Your whole premise is built on them suddenly being able to buy a house they already can't afford.
Now if stats had shown falling house prices since Osbornes reforms you might have a point. Stats dont show this so your premise is false.
The rate of selling by landlords is fart in a thunderstorm compared to the undersupply of housing. The demand to buy is increasing (with the population) by six figures a year.
I'm wondering about a perhaps underdiscussed element of housing supply - the Barrett building site I drive past each morning, it well.. hasn't exactly looked chock full of builders recently. I have no idea how long a site should take to complete though.
I think I heard that house prices in Britain are now falling on an annual rate. Seems like it would be obvious that housebuilders will respond by slowing down completions in the hope that they'll make more money selling next year.
This is why the State needs to be a major housebuilder, and/or it needs to be much easier for individuals to buy a plot of land with planning permission and pay a builder to build a single house on it.
The big housebuilders are never going to increase supply of houses in a market where prices are falling. Just as SeanF said in relation to parties and voting systems, why would they act against their own interests to do that?
Average UK house prices increased by 4.1% in the 12 months to March 2023, down from 5.8% in February 2023.
The rate of increase is slowing, its not the same as house prices falling
Higher rents means higher rental inflation. Workers will need to go on strike for higher pay to pay their rent. Controls on the rental market are leading to baked-in higher inflation.
I've done a fair bit of private renting, and I despair at some of the policies that come out of the left on this. As a renter, I wanted to a vibrant market that would give me a lot of choice at affordable prices with some measure of protection that would stop me being made homeless on a whim. That's about it.
Rent controls coupled with eviction freezes just fucks the whole thing.
The latest policy wheeze - help renters by pushing landlords out of business - hasn't come from the left, though. It is Tory policy.
Stupid question - how are the Government doing that - via the 2016 tax changes and a requirement to improve the energy efficiency of the house?
Asking because neither of those changes are making things easier for renters where supply is down, demand is equal (or higher than before due to population growth) and prices are rising.
What we actually need is for pension funds to actually focus on build to rent...
Any problems with supply are solely due to the fact that construction hasn't kept pace with population. The only answer to that is to build more, but the Government are siding with NIMBYs instead.
If a landlord sells up and exits the market then that doesn't adjust supply and demand net because either the landlord sells to another landlord (so no net change) or they sell to someone who used to be a tenant but is now an owner occupier instead (so 1 fewer supply, 1 fewer demand, no net change).
Build, build, build to boost supply.
Would argue that isn't quite true - when the children move out of this house, both will be buying houses and not renting properties first.
But yep the solution is build, build build which is why I suggested getting pension funds focussed on doing so.
But don’t we need reform of the regulation art burdens as well to make it easier.
As for pensions funds, why should they be used like this ? Why is it people seem to see, more and more, pension funds as a pot of money to dip into to found whatever they want funding. We need to make it more attractive to invest here not compel pensions funds to invest to plug investment gaps.
Let's face it, if the private renting sector was an attractive option for pension funds to invest in they would be there already. It's not and their duty is to their pensioners to find a reasonable return on the funds under their management so that they can meet the obligation to pay pensions.
So, the relevant question, rather than imposing obligations on pension funds in breach of their duty, is what would make it attractive? The answers of higher rents, lower regulation and the ability to move people on in a cost effective way if they are abusing their neighbours are not what those promulgating this policy want to hear.
The West really needs to stop letting in young male refugees from hotbeds of terrorism. Host them in camps in the region. We shouldn't have to put innocent people at risk due to arbitrary beneficiaries of charity.
A complicating factor in European solidarity, but the EU really have no choice in this matter, since the Polish government has pretty clearly violated EU law.
Commission launches infringement procedure against POLAND for violating EU law with the new law establishing a special committee https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_3134 Today, the European Commission opened an infringement procedure by sending a letter of formal notice to Poland for violations of EU law. This decision follows a thorough assessment by the Commission of the new law in Poland on the State Committee for the Examination of Russian influence on the internal security of Poland between 2007 and 2022, which is in force since 31 May 2023.
The Commission considers that the new law violates:
- the principle of democracy (Articles 2 and 10 TEU);
- the principles of legality and non-retroactivity of sanctions (Article 49 Charter) and general principles of legal certainty and res judicata;
- the rights to effective judicial protection (Article 47 Charter), ne bis in idem and the protection of professional secrecy (Article 7 Charter);
- the requirements of EU law relating to data protection (GDPR and Article 8 Charter).
More concretely, the Commission considers that the new law unduly interferes with the democratic process. The activities of the committee, e.g., investigations and public hearings, risking to create grave reputational damage for candidates in elections and, by finding that a person acted under Russian influence, could limit the effectiveness of the political rights of persons elected in democratic elections.
The new law provides a very broad and unspecified definition of “Russian influence” and “activities”. The Committee may impose sanctions prohibiting a public official to hold functions relating to the use of public funds for a period of up to 10 years. This is similar in nature to measures provided for in the Criminal Code. These sanctions are applicable also to behaviour which was legal at the time of conduct. Thereby the law violates the principles of legality and of non-retroactivity.
The Committee's decisions are subject to review only by administrative courts which is limited to the requirement of respect of the law and cannot review the correctness of the assessment of facts and the weighing of evidence as conducted by the Committee...
‘I’d rather stay in Communist China than return to inheritance tax Britain’ Prohibitively high death taxes are blocking British expats from returning home
"His estate, divided across property, stocks, and shares, will certainly incur a hefty inheritance tax bill.
“We have three properties in Beijing, one in England, and one in Portugal,” he says.
“I’ve put as much of it in my wife’s name as possible but my worry is that because I am male and older, I will die before she does.”
Mr Mosely says Xiaomo will likely move to Britain if she is widowed. He says: “By the time she dies, she could have been living in the UK for 15 years, and then she’ll be subject to inheritance tax.”
In the meantime, Mr Mosely says he is miserable. Beijing has lost its appeal now that he is retired – and he wants to live out the rest of his years in Kent, where he and his wife own a house."
So, give it away and stop whining.
Sounds to me like he's weighed up his options and chosen his preferred one, I don't get the complaint.
The Telegraphs seems to have a bee in its bonnet about inheritance tax currently.
It s ‘so what’ story.
To be worried about your estate paying IHT, you need to tick three boxes.
Old enough to hear the Grim Reaper in the vicinity. Wealthy enough to be liable for IHT. Reluctant to loose your grip on control of your money, even after you die.
Basically Telegraph core demographic.
I've spent the last few months sorting my late mother's estate. While the basic IHT allowance is £325k, you get another £175k if leaving a house to your kids, and there's the same allowance again passed on from my father, who died a few years ago. So that's a total of a million pound allowance before any IHT would have been due, which doesn't seem unduly harsh.
Could the split between housing and non housing assets discourage downsizing ?
I don't think so, since the size of the residence nil-rate band doesn't depend on the value of the property that is left. But it could be tough on your beneficiaries if you have sizeable non-property assets to pass on but die while living in rental accommodation.
Yes it seems weird that selling up and renting later in life is penalised compared to having equity tied up in your own property.
It's an attempt to mitigate the effect that works in the opposite direction.
If a person's estate is purely property he/she has no opportunity (except via poxy equity release schemes) to reduce their estate by gifting because their is no liquidity or ability to carve the estate up.
In contrast, if a person's estate is purely cash/investments then that person can chip away at their estate by gifting through the gifts out of normal income exemption rule - or - £3,000 pa exemption rule - or - more substantially via the seven year PET rule - or - by gifting surreptitiously.
Therefore, holding property as your only/main asset is severely disadvantaged versus cash. This of course feeds into the care home funding difficulties.
In the 2013 election the FDP under PR won no seats at all, while at the time the Lib Dems were in government in the UK.
Even at the 2015 election the Lib Dems won more seats than the FDP had.
The idea that FPTP is the only thing holding the Lib Dems back is a joke, a comfort blanket used by Lib Dem supporters. The thing holding the Lib Dems back is that people don't want to vote for them.
And I say that as someone who is currently voting for them.
If FPTP actually helps the LDs they are being rather noble in having its abolition as a core objective.
Or they're deluding into thinking it hurts them and led by wishful thinking that its the only thing holding them back.
Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it, is an apt saying.
It's the only thing holding together the Labour and Conservative parties in their current forms.
And @bigjohnowls, for example, would be much happier in a party made for him.
But is it a bad thing the parties are being held together?
Politics isn't about purity and making people happy though, its about messy compromises.
FPTP means that Labour and the Tories if they're serious about governing have to make those compromises before the election and tell the public some home truths...
LOL. Couldn't get past that bit.
Its true though.
Parties that win majorities in this country do so by extending their reach beyond their core vote.
I'm reasonably confident now that the Tories are going to lose the next election, and they're going to lose it because they're no longer serious about governing and Sunak is retreating into a core vote strategy appealing to would-be Tory Councillors like HYUFD.
That may make a purer Tory party that keeps HYUFD happy. But its a recipe for losing an election, and deserving to lose an election.
You are a libertarian who voted for Brexit and wants to concrete all over the greenbelt, I voted Remain and want to protect our greenbelt and focus new affordable homes on brownbelt land and urban high rise first.
The idea that I am the extremist and you are the ultra centrist on everything, is of course, absurd
I helped survey a mining pit tip a week or two ago. There were more than 200 plant species and plenty of butterflies, including several uncommon ones. The place is used as open space by the locals and is a local wildlife reserve.
Next to this tip are cultivated fields with little more than the crop, which is probably sprayed with insecticide.
"Brownfield" sites aren't always brown.
Sites like the one you surveyed are also often terrible choices for housing, being nowhere near other housing and seldom big enough to generate enough of a centre of mass for a new town or even for public transport services - so apart from the one token shop, everyone who buys a house there has to drive three miles to the nearest shops/schools/doctors/leisure opportunities/friends.
Urban extensions on farmland tend to be far greener than a lot of brownfield development.
I'm all for densification in inner urban areas like Central Manchester, and redevelopment of ex-industrial areas like Ardwick or Collyhurst. But that won't solve the problem by itself.
The West really needs to stop letting in young male refugees from hotbeds of terrorism. Host them in camps in the region. We shouldn't have to put innocent people at risk due to arbitrary beneficiaries of charity.
One final thing, it’s not obvious to me at all that PR solves any real woes as outlined by @RochdalePioneers earlier.
I think it gives different issues. With FPTP we have big coalition parties held together by the prospect of power, but always underneath the crust are the the factions.
In PR the horse trading starts after the result. It would be a shift for UK voters. There would be the issue of manifesto 'promises' being traded away and the acrimony after (see tuition fees).
The biggest issue that I believe we have is the short term nature of parliaments, leading to a very poor culture of big infrastructure building. Parties like to have delivered clear and obvious results in time to campaign for the next election (40 new hospitals!). Clearly increasing the interval between elections may not be the answer, but something needs to be done if the country is ever to get big infrastructure being built.
This is why it is a good thing (TM) to have an election which will give approximately the same resut as the one before, if nothing very much has happened to the political landscape. And this is what happens when you have the single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member seats.
Imagine that you normally label yourself "Conservative". Yet you are a traditional decent Conservative. You believe in One-Nation Conservatism, in having close links with our Europen trading partners, in compassion towards the unfortunate and in preserving the Green Belt. Not so long ago, these were at the heart of Conservatism, so the idea is not so fanciful.
In a multi-member seat there can be several candidates who share your values. So you give your vote - you have only one - to the candidate you like best. And then identify your second choice candidate, who will get your support if your first choice does not need your vote, either because his cause is hopeless and he is eliminated, or because he has far more votes than he needs to be sure of election. Your vote still counts.
Vote "Conservative" under the present system,and you have no idea what you are getting. Just a government of mavericks all wearing blue rosettes.
But under STV you are almost certain to vote for the same policies, and so will everybody else - so the result of an election is unlikely to change very much. You have stabilty, continuity and the opportuntiy to plan ahead with confidence.
Does everybody remember the history of our steel industry? Nationalised by Labour, denationalised by the Conservatives, renationalised by Labour, and finally privatised by the Conservatives. No way to run an industry, is it? And who owns what is left of it now?
If values and policies become more important than party labels, then we start having an electorate that thinks things out for itself. It also means a reduction in the power of party leaders and the party machine, which is why both Sunak and Starmer are hostile.
I for one do not want to see either of them in office... Dictators, bah!
In the 2013 election the FDP under PR won no seats at all, while at the time the Lib Dems were in government in the UK.
Even at the 2015 election the Lib Dems won more seats than the FDP had.
The idea that FPTP is the only thing holding the Lib Dems back is a joke, a comfort blanket used by Lib Dem supporters. The thing holding the Lib Dems back is that people don't want to vote for them.
And I say that as someone who is currently voting for them.
If FPTP actually helps the LDs they are being rather noble in having its abolition as a core objective.
Or they're deluding into thinking it hurts them and led by wishful thinking that its the only thing holding them back.
Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it, is an apt saying.
It's the only thing holding together the Labour and Conservative parties in their current forms.
And @bigjohnowls, for example, would be much happier in a party made for him.
But is it a bad thing the parties are being held together?
Politics isn't about purity and making people happy though, its about messy compromises.
FPTP means that Labour and the Tories if they're serious about governing have to make those compromises before the election and tell the public some home truths...
LOL. Couldn't get past that bit.
Its true though.
Parties that win majorities in this country do so by extending their reach beyond their core vote.
I'm reasonably confident now that the Tories are going to lose the next election, and they're going to lose it because they're no longer serious about governing and Sunak is retreating into a core vote strategy appealing to would-be Tory Councillors like HYUFD.
That may make a purer Tory party that keeps HYUFD happy. But its a recipe for losing an election, and deserving to lose an election.
You are a libertarian who voted for Brexit and wants to concrete all over the greenbelt, I voted Remain and want to protect our greenbelt and focus new affordable homes on brownbelt land and urban high rise first.
The idea that I am the extremist and you are the ultra centrist on everything, is of course, absurd
I helped survey a mining pit tip a week or two ago. There were more than 200 plant species and plenty of butterflies, including several uncommon ones. The place is used as open space by the locals and is a local wildlife reserve.
Next to this tip are cultivated fields with little more than the crop, which is probably sprayed with insecticide.
"Brownfield" sites aren't always brown.
Sites like the one you surveyed are also often terrible choices for housing, being nowhere near other housing and seldom big enough to generate enough of a centre of mass for a new town or even for public transport services - so apart from the one token shop, everyone who buys a house there has to drive three miles to the nearest shops/schools/doctors/leisure opportunities/friends.
Urban extensions on farmland tend to be far greener than a lot of brownfield development.
I'm all for densification in inner urban areas like Central Manchester, and redevelopment of ex-industrial areas like Ardwick or Collyhurst. But that won't solve the problem by itself.
Yes. Being a colliery site there is a local community but the facilities there are already stretched and the nearest town with decent shops is indeed about 3 miles away. There is a solar array on the site of the colliery buildings, which were cleared, but the rest was left to 'rewild'. There were rumblings about development but I suspect we've just sunk that, if it wasn't already sunk, and it will instead be used as a 'biodiversity net gain' site.
In Doncaster there is a lot of house building, particularly to the south around the airport (rumours about compulsory purchase ongoing) and on the east side near the motorway link road. Where the demand is coming from I don't know, but I suppose prices here aren't as stupid as elsewhere so they are more affordable. Most of this development is 'greenfield' but the issue is more the pressure on local roads and facilities than loss of "green fields".
There certainly doesn't seem to be any bottleneck in supply.
The sad thing is that they all seem to be identikit boxes with very little space. We really should aspire to build better.
Comments
That way no-one is in negative equity, and inflation also adds to the real-terms fall.
Also, that will cause many casual investors to go back to investing in stocks and shares, rather than residential property.
So, the relevant question, rather than imposing obligations on pension funds in breach of their duty, is what would make it attractive? The answers of higher rents, lower regulation and the ability to move people on in a cost effective way if they are abusing their neighbours are not what those promulgating this policy want to hear.
Commission launches infringement procedure against POLAND for violating EU law with the new law establishing a special committee
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_3134
Today, the European Commission opened an infringement procedure by sending a letter of formal notice to Poland for violations of EU law. This decision follows a thorough assessment by the Commission of the new law in Poland on the State Committee for the Examination of Russian influence on the internal security of Poland between 2007 and 2022, which is in force since 31 May 2023.
The Commission considers that the new law violates:
- the principle of democracy (Articles 2 and 10 TEU);
- the principles of legality and non-retroactivity of sanctions (Article 49 Charter) and general principles of legal certainty and res judicata;
- the rights to effective judicial protection (Article 47 Charter), ne bis in idem and the protection of professional secrecy (Article 7 Charter);
- the requirements of EU law relating to data protection (GDPR and Article 8 Charter).
More concretely, the Commission considers that the new law unduly interferes with the democratic process. The activities of the committee, e.g., investigations and public hearings, risking to create grave reputational damage for candidates in elections and, by finding that a person acted under Russian influence, could limit the effectiveness of the political rights of persons elected in democratic elections.
The new law provides a very broad and unspecified definition of “Russian influence” and “activities”. The Committee may impose sanctions prohibiting a public official to hold functions relating to the use of public funds for a period of up to 10 years. This is similar in nature to measures provided for in the Criminal Code. These sanctions are applicable also to behaviour which was legal at the time of conduct. Thereby the law violates the principles of legality and of non-retroactivity.
The Committee's decisions are subject to review only by administrative courts which is limited to the requirement of respect of the law and cannot review the correctness of the assessment of facts and the weighing of evidence as conducted by the Committee...
If a person's estate is purely property he/she has no opportunity (except via poxy equity release schemes) to reduce their estate by gifting because their is no liquidity or ability to carve the estate up.
In contrast, if a person's estate is purely cash/investments then that person can chip away at their estate by gifting through the gifts out of normal income exemption rule - or - £3,000 pa exemption rule - or - more substantially via the seven year PET rule - or - by gifting surreptitiously.
Therefore, holding property as your only/main asset is severely disadvantaged versus cash. This of course feeds into the care home funding difficulties.
Urban extensions on farmland tend to be far greener than a lot of brownfield development.
I'm all for densification in inner urban areas like Central Manchester, and redevelopment of ex-industrial areas like Ardwick or Collyhurst. But that won't solve the problem by itself.
New thread
Imagine that you normally label yourself "Conservative". Yet you are a traditional decent Conservative. You believe in One-Nation Conservatism, in having close links with our Europen trading partners, in compassion towards the unfortunate and in preserving the Green Belt. Not so long ago, these were at the heart of Conservatism, so the idea is not so fanciful.
In a multi-member seat there can be several candidates who share your values. So you give your vote - you have only one - to the candidate you like best. And then identify your second choice candidate, who will get your support if your first choice does not need your vote, either because his cause is hopeless and he is eliminated, or because he has far more votes than he needs to be sure of election. Your vote still counts.
Vote "Conservative" under the present system,and you have no idea what you are getting. Just a government of mavericks all wearing blue rosettes.
But under STV you are almost certain to vote for the same policies, and so will everybody else - so the result of an election is unlikely to change very much. You have stabilty, continuity and the opportuntiy to plan ahead with confidence.
Does everybody remember the history of our steel industry? Nationalised by Labour, denationalised by the Conservatives, renationalised by Labour, and finally privatised by the Conservatives. No way to run an industry, is it? And who owns what is left of it now?
If values and policies become more important than party labels, then we start having an electorate that thinks things out for itself. It also means a reduction in the power of party leaders and the party machine, which is why both Sunak and Starmer are hostile.
I for one do not want to see either of them in office... Dictators, bah!
In Doncaster there is a lot of house building, particularly to the south around the airport (rumours about compulsory purchase ongoing) and on the east side near the motorway link road. Where the demand is coming from I don't know, but I suppose prices here aren't as stupid as elsewhere so they are more affordable. Most of this development is 'greenfield' but the issue is more the pressure on local roads and facilities than loss of "green fields".
There certainly doesn't seem to be any bottleneck in supply.
The sad thing is that they all seem to be identikit boxes with very little space. We really should aspire to build better.