I picked up (from Drachinifel's, and mini-me Drach's, channel) about wider access to UK archival footage etc following various copyright rulings and high level legal decisions here: https://youtu.be/1wPlqEXqSXE?t=252
It has been easy to make fun of the book by Liz Truss, Ten Years to Save the West. Reviewers have mocked the paranoia, lack of self-awareness and blaming of others for the disasters of her short premiership. It didn’t help when she held the book upside down on television. Most people have probably joined in the mirth and otherwise tried to forget it all. But for Conservatives like me, it is a reminder of the most excruciatingly embarrassing period in the modern history of our party, one for which a severe electoral price is still being paid.
It might come as a surprise, therefore, when I say that this book has to be taken seriously. Not because Truss is about to return to power, or because it is a deep study of how politics works, or because its proposals deserve support. I haven’t, as a critic of how government was conducted in those infamous 49 days, changed my mind. But I do think that the ideas this former prime minister expresses have become the common currency of many people on the right, in this country and abroad.
They tell us a great deal about the struggle over the future of conservatism — a struggle already taking place around the world and that will become urgent and intense in Britain if the Tories go into opposition after the coming election.
Truss perceives many of the institutions of government to have been “captured by left-wing ideology” or become excessively powerful, knitting together in a “deep state” that frustrates elected leaders. Her answer is to abolish a great many of them. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) would be eliminated, the Bank of England weakened, the Supreme Court abolished and the European Convention on Human Rights abandoned. Internationally, we would withdraw from the climate negotiations at Cop summits and seek to abolish the United Nations. The elected government — albeit elected by a very small number of people in her own case — would be liberated from all these agreements and constraints.
Before dismissing such notions as the rantings of a very disappointed ex-leader, we should note that they have a lot in common with the policies of more successful leaders overseas. In America, the Republicans have become largely subservient to a Trump agenda that includes “dismantling the deep state”, firing civil servants by presidential order, removing “Marxist” prosecutors and justifying the brazen attempt to overturn the outcome of the last presidential election.
The irony is that economically Truss wasn't far from what was needed. She was cackhanded in it, but had some good ideas.
Cutting instead of raising NI to make work pay better? Very, very good idea, and one Hunt has continued, quite rightly.
Going for growth? Good idea.
It was the economy that brought her down, but it was on economics she was closest to what was needed and if she'd kept stumpt now then in the future I think her tenure could be looked back at better as badly handled but with some kernels of good ideas that her successors have adopted.
But instead she's going full MAGAite batshit crazy deep state conspiracy theory lunatic.
She'll be talking about pizza, sexual abuse and Pepe the Frog soon.
"Going for growth" is a good idea much like "Seeking world peace"; few would argue with the aim but the implementation is the challenge.
Unfunded tax cuts was Truss's approach - that's the head-in-the-sand path to penury. Most of the debt cases I see have followed the same path with their personal finances, it never ends well.
Yeah, the amount of people who give credit to Truss for recognising that not enough growth is problematic is quite weird. Nearly everyone agrees on that, bar a few greens. And even they realise that lack of growth hinders our economy, they just think it is worth it to protect the planet and/or change the focus in life away from economic matters.
Growth was the secondary thing I mentioned.
The primary thing I gave her credit for was reversing decades of Treasury orthodoxy that raising NI was a good idea. An idea the current PM was very keen on and did a big increase in NI.
Truss reversed that and Hunt has continued to recognise that NI as a tax solely on work is a bad idea.
Truss deserves credit for that. The rest of the bullshit? Yes call it out. She failed. She failed catastrophically.
But the idea that someone is all good or all bad is the biggest fallacy of all. She had some good ideas, catastrophically implemented. Along with a bunch of bad ideas too.
The key to improve is to take any good ideas, dump the bullshit, and implement the good sensibly.
While I'm not into 'days' (though Saint George is at least the national saint), it'd be nice to go a year without the repetitive chorus of "He wasn't born here, you know".
Yes, I know. People bang on about it every year.
The passing of the Rwanda bill on St George's day makes the fact even more apt today.
Saint George killed a dragon?
It’s up there with a virgin birth.
Let’s be honest he was high on magic mushrooms and in all likelihood killed a dragonfly.
Dragon mythology is global and rather hard to explain.
I like to think that it's a deep-rooted instinct inherited from proto-mammal ancestors who lived in the shadows of dinosaurs 66m years ago. That's bollocks of course but I still like to think it.
Isn’t it just an uninformed explanation for dinosaur fossils?
Not sure I believe that one. How often did our ancient ancestors come across well preserved, relatively complete dinosaur fossils?
If they were walking along the beach at Lyme Regis it’s quite possible that one would be found after a landslip.
Yes, indeed that's possible. I am not sure it explains the prevalence of dragon mythology in, say, Scandinavia though.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Nine days to the local elections. Maybe that is why Rwanda is suddenly urgent, although surely no-one thinks Dunny-on-the-Wold Borough Council has its own immigration policy.
A little something for SKS's St George's Day patriotism initiative:
St George, it seems, was born a Grecian And got bumped off by Diocletian An Englishman he really ain’t So how come he’s their patron saint?
And you will find, in similar vein, He’s claimed by Moscow *and* Ukraine, Georgia, Malta, Bosnia too, And several others in the queue
And as for all that dragon stuff, It really is a load of guff It’s just another permutation Of fables found in every nation
So given that the English are Almost entirely secular They sure don’t need a patron saint The notion is entirely quaint.
Very droll, but it isn't unusual to have a patron Saint from another country. Ireland has a British patron Saint for example.
Multiculturalism is nothing new.
France’s is the Virgin Mary and Germany’s is, guess what, English - St Boniface.
The German city of Freiburg has St George as their patron saint and the city's flag is St George's cross. It is very strange to see all the 'England flags' about the place.
Tragedy in the channel this morning with several migrants dead in attempting to cross to UK with French Coast Guard confirming operation in the channel
The conditions are perfect apparently for crossing the channel and speculation the boat was overloaded
Rebel Wilson has claimed that a member of the royal family who was “15th or 20th in line to the British throne” invited her to an orgy in California where drugs were freely offered to guests.
Writing in her memoir Rebel Rising, the Australian actress says that the party was held in 2014 and hosted by a tech billionaire at a rented ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
The comedian, 44, best known for Pitch Perfect and Bridesmaids, said that she did not realise the medieval-themed party was an orgy until 2am when a tray of “molly”, the slang term for MDMA, was passed around.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
It has been easy to make fun of the book by Liz Truss, Ten Years to Save the West. Reviewers have mocked the paranoia, lack of self-awareness and blaming of others for the disasters of her short premiership. It didn’t help when she held the book upside down on television. Most people have probably joined in the mirth and otherwise tried to forget it all. But for Conservatives like me, it is a reminder of the most excruciatingly embarrassing period in the modern history of our party, one for which a severe electoral price is still being paid.
It might come as a surprise, therefore, when I say that this book has to be taken seriously. Not because Truss is about to return to power, or because it is a deep study of how politics works, or because its proposals deserve support. I haven’t, as a critic of how government was conducted in those infamous 49 days, changed my mind. But I do think that the ideas this former prime minister expresses have become the common currency of many people on the right, in this country and abroad.
They tell us a great deal about the struggle over the future of conservatism — a struggle already taking place around the world and that will become urgent and intense in Britain if the Tories go into opposition after the coming election.
Truss perceives many of the institutions of government to have been “captured by left-wing ideology” or become excessively powerful, knitting together in a “deep state” that frustrates elected leaders. Her answer is to abolish a great many of them. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) would be eliminated, the Bank of England weakened, the Supreme Court abolished and the European Convention on Human Rights abandoned. Internationally, we would withdraw from the climate negotiations at Cop summits and seek to abolish the United Nations. The elected government — albeit elected by a very small number of people in her own case — would be liberated from all these agreements and constraints.
Before dismissing such notions as the rantings of a very disappointed ex-leader, we should note that they have a lot in common with the policies of more successful leaders overseas. In America, the Republicans have become largely subservient to a Trump agenda that includes “dismantling the deep state”, firing civil servants by presidential order, removing “Marxist” prosecutors and justifying the brazen attempt to overturn the outcome of the last presidential election.
The irony is that economically Truss wasn't far from what was needed. She was cackhanded in it, but had some good ideas.
Cutting instead of raising NI to make work pay better? Very, very good idea, and one Hunt has continued, quite rightly.
Going for growth? Good idea.
It was the economy that brought her down, but it was on economics she was closest to what was needed and if she'd kept stumpt now then in the future I think her tenure could be looked back at better as badly handled but with some kernels of good ideas that her successors have adopted.
But instead she's going full MAGAite batshit crazy deep state conspiracy theory lunatic.
She'll be talking about pizza, sexual abuse and Pepe the Frog soon.
"Going for growth" is a good idea much like "Seeking world peace"; few would argue with the aim but the implementation is the challenge.
Unfunded tax cuts was Truss's approach - that's the head-in-the-sand path to penury. Most of the debt cases I see have followed the same path with their personal finances, it never ends well.
Yeah, the amount of people who give credit to Truss for recognising that not enough growth is problematic is quite weird. Nearly everyone agrees on that, bar a few greens. And even they realise that lack of growth hinders our economy, they just think it is worth it to protect the planet and/or change the focus in life away from economic matters.
The pie is big enough. We just need to change the way the slices are cut.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
No no look at the boats! Over here, the boats, look!
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
A little something for SKS's St George's Day patriotism initiative:
St George, it seems, was born a Grecian And got bumped off by Diocletian An Englishman he really ain’t So how come he’s their patron saint?
And you will find, in similar vein, He’s claimed by Moscow *and* Ukraine, Georgia, Malta, Bosnia too, And several others in the queue
And as for all that dragon stuff, It really is a load of guff It’s just another permutation Of fables found in every nation
So given that the English are Almost entirely secular They sure don’t need a patron saint The notion is entirely quaint.
Haha brilliant!!!
And why on earth do we have ‘three lions’ and bang on about it as if it’s some kind of national symbol? Lions don’t live in little England except on some old buff’s country estate.
It’s ridiculous to glorify ‘three lions’. Dandelions would be more appropriate.
And Buddha didn’t live in Surrey Heath and yet some misguided people use it as a representative symbol for themselves.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
No no look at the boats! Over here, the boats, look!
I would suggest that with this mornings drowning tragedy in the channel, our anger should be directed to the people smugglers and thanks to the rescue services including the French and UK including the RNLI whose only purpose is to save lives at sea
Had to pick up my wife from the garage where her car is getting fixed this morning and heard some of Michelle Hussein's rant at the Immigration minister. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, and I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme, her rudeness, her determination to continuously talk over the person she is interviewing, her assertions rather than questions and her general attitude is intensely irritating.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
It has been easy to make fun of the book by Liz Truss, Ten Years to Save the West...
..Before dismissing such notions as the rantings of a very disappointed ex-leader, we should note that they have a lot in common with the policies of more successful leaders overseas. In America, the Republicans have become largely subservient to a Trump agenda that includes “dismantling the deep state”, firing civil servants by presidential order, removing “Marxist” prosecutors and justifying the brazen attempt to overturn the outcome of the last presidential election.
With any luck we'll soon be able to dismiss the current MAGA nonsense as the ramblings of a very disappointed ex-leader, too.
We can certainly dismiss William Hague's ramblings of those of a disappointed ex-leader, not to mention a disappointing ex-leader.
Let us not forget that Hague championed Jeffrey Archer's London Mayoral candidacy long after it was clear that he should have been ruled out - presumably because the noble Lord was kind enough to allow Hague and friend Seb Coe to use his London flat for their weekly judo practice.
Put yourself in a compromised position like that and people will own you for the rest of your life.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
No current state pension recipients have not paid for their state pension.
If they have, then let's use their savings they've set aside to pay for it to fully fund their pensions and not have today's workers pay for it instead.
The borrowing figures should end any of Hunt's plans to cut NI further in a last desperate gasp before the GE.
Employee NI is the right tax to cut. Because it's the one paid by working people. Ordinary people. The working class, the middle class. People who don't earn their cash from rent seeking the UK's desperately undersupplied housing market. Workers, not those sitting pretty on triple locked state and final salary pensions; many of which are taxpayer subsidised. The tax of the PAYE army which ALWAYS pays their taxes, unlike those who can work for cash and change (perfectly legally) profits & dividends to suit. It can't get swallowed up in the weeds by suppliers like changes in fuel duty or a cut in VAT would (Or even employers NI). It could even be cut, and be revenue neutral by freezing allowances and represents a transfer of wealth to workers.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
But IT did go up a lot, way more than the cuts in NI, due to fiscal drift. The budget increased the tax burden, it didn't reduce it.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
No They paid for current pensioners state pension not their own.
They now expect younger people who they vilify to pay theirs when they reach state pension age.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
No current state pension recipients have not paid for their state pension.
If they have, then let's use their savings they've set aside to pay for it to fully fund their pensions and not have today's workers pay for it instead.
I believe NI has been around since 1907 (approx) so I think you will find that current state pensioners have paid for their state pension!
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
No current state pension recipients have not paid for their state pension.
If they have, then let's use their savings they've set aside to pay for it to fully fund their pensions and not have today's workers pay for it instead.
That NI is contribution to anything other than general government income is a fiction.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
No They paid for current pensioners state pension not their own.
They now expect younger people who they vilify to pay theirs when they reach state pension age.
* The ghost of Bernie Madoff has entered the chat.*
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
Back around 2000, I had a few years where I contributed either zero or less than a hundred quid to the exchequer. Those years are classified as full stamp, and count for as much as the recent years where I've contributed about 3 grand in NI. The linkage to the state pension is deemed/nominal and 100% not based on how much you've put into any sort of pot. I also have two gap years in my records from when I was travelling and was 'unlinked' with the system so to speak - those do not count. My Vehicle emissions duty is £0.00 in my current car, but I still need to be able to 'pay' it (By having a valid MOT certificate). Employee NI probably should be reduced to 0%, the link to state pension years could, should and would be able to be maintained.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
He has a plan.
Rishi wouldn't recognise a plan if one came up behind him and inserted a porcupine where the sun doesn't shine.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
But IT did go up a lot, way more than the cuts in NI, due to fiscal drift. The budget increased the tax burden, it didn't reduce it.
Are barristers one of those professions where you can get out of paying employee NI (And your employer (Is that yourself ?)) pays employer NI to a more tax efficient arrangement via dividends and whatnot ?
Rwanda's passed then, and Rishi has declared that "no foreign court" will block deportations.
Has Rishi forgotten it is the British Supreme Court which keeps sticking its oar in?
Waking up to discover I live in a country that no longer believes in international law and inalienable human rights is quite a thing. Anyone who seriously believes this government will stop at refugees is a gullible fool.
The one good thing- there isn't time for them to do any more than this.
When is Rishi expecting to get a Massive Rwanda Bounce in the polls?
I've said on here a few times that Sunak's lack of knowledge about the country he governs is astounding. I hope - and believe - he has seriously overestimated the appetite there is among most people for performative cruelty.
Yes you have to hope this sort of stuff doesn't work politically, not now and not ever. Imagine a party winning an election this way. Shudder. IMO it won't move the dial much for the GE (24/10). The main target is potential Reform voters and they don't like Sunak. He's just not their cup of tea.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
NI gives you an entitlement to the state pension. The idea that the NI someone has paid has fully funded their pension is ridiculous.
St George was born in Turkey to a Palestinian mum.
He would have been sent to Rwanda if he tried to get to the UK.
Of course. That sort of juvenile attempted smart-arsery is how twitter celebrates St. George's Day.
I know little about St. George - no-one does, really - but as a third century (?) saint from the Middle East it's doubtful his values would have found a home in 21st century Britain. He was probably a religious maniac. If we could pick and choose our immigrants I doubt he would make it near the top of the list. (Although my favourite, and almost certainly made up story about this possibly made up man is that after slaying the dragon, he was offered a banquet and the hand of the relevant princess in marriage, which he got all embarassed about and turned down, but in quite a socially awkward way, before going on his way, possibly subsequently regretting his choice but finding any rowing back all to uncomfortable to go through with. And THAT is why he is the patron saint of England.)
I plan to celebrate St. George's Day in the traditional English way of belatedly realising it, nodding in a half-satisfied manner and carrying on with my day as planned.
The borrowing figures should end any of Hunt's plans to cut NI further in a last desperate gasp before the GE.
Employee NI is the right tax to cut. Because it's the one paid by working people. Ordinary people. The working class, the middle class. People who don't earn their cash from rent seeking the UK's desperately undersupplied housing market. Workers, not those sitting pretty on triple locked state and final salary pensions; many of which are taxpayer subsidised. The tax of the PAYE army which ALWAYS pays their taxes, unlike those who can work for cash and change (perfectly legally) profits & dividends to suit. It can't get swallowed up in the weeds by suppliers like changes in fuel duty or a cut in VAT would (Or even employers NI). It could even be cut, and be revenue neutral by freezing allowances and represents a transfer of wealth to workers.
It's absolutely the right tax to cut.
This country suffers from a long term resentment towards those who work.
Possibly starting from feudalism and echoing down through Jane Austen to the nimbyism of today.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
But IT did go up a lot, way more than the cuts in NI, due to fiscal drift. The budget increased the tax burden, it didn't reduce it.
Are barristers one of those professions where you can get out of paying employee NI (And your employer (Is that yourself ?)) pays employer NI to a more tax efficient arrangement via dividends and whatnot ?
Nope - self employed..
Also there is no way any Government would get rid of Employer NI, there are £60bn where IR35 is so important...
It has been easy to make fun of the book by Liz Truss, Ten Years to Save the West. Reviewers have mocked the paranoia, lack of self-awareness and blaming of others for the disasters of her short premiership. It didn’t help when she held the book upside down on television. Most people have probably joined in the mirth and otherwise tried to forget it all. But for Conservatives like me, it is a reminder of the most excruciatingly embarrassing period in the modern history of our party, one for which a severe electoral price is still being paid.
It might come as a surprise, therefore, when I say that this book has to be taken seriously. Not because Truss is about to return to power, or because it is a deep study of how politics works, or because its proposals deserve support. I haven’t, as a critic of how government was conducted in those infamous 49 days, changed my mind. But I do think that the ideas this former prime minister expresses have become the common currency of many people on the right, in this country and abroad.
They tell us a great deal about the struggle over the future of conservatism — a struggle already taking place around the world and that will become urgent and intense in Britain if the Tories go into opposition after the coming election.
Truss perceives many of the institutions of government to have been “captured by left-wing ideology” or become excessively powerful, knitting together in a “deep state” that frustrates elected leaders. Her answer is to abolish a great many of them. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) would be eliminated, the Bank of England weakened, the Supreme Court abolished and the European Convention on Human Rights abandoned. Internationally, we would withdraw from the climate negotiations at Cop summits and seek to abolish the United Nations. The elected government — albeit elected by a very small number of people in her own case — would be liberated from all these agreements and constraints.
Before dismissing such notions as the rantings of a very disappointed ex-leader, we should note that they have a lot in common with the policies of more successful leaders overseas. In America, the Republicans have become largely subservient to a Trump agenda that includes “dismantling the deep state”, firing civil servants by presidential order, removing “Marxist” prosecutors and justifying the brazen attempt to overturn the outcome of the last presidential election.
The irony is that economically Truss wasn't far from what was needed. She was cackhanded in it, but had some good ideas.
Cutting instead of raising NI to make work pay better? Very, very good idea, and one Hunt has continued, quite rightly.
Going for growth? Good idea.
It was the economy that brought her down, but it was on economics she was closest to what was needed and if she'd kept stumpt now then in the future I think her tenure could be looked back at better as badly handled but with some kernels of good ideas that her successors have adopted.
But instead she's going full MAGAite batshit crazy deep state conspiracy theory lunatic.
She'll be talking about pizza, sexual abuse and Pepe the Frog soon.
I quite like this analogy about Truss' proposals for growth:
Unfortunately, her approach worked a bit like this: imagine a bunch of people are stuck in a warm, stuffy room together. Everyone wants the windows to be opened, but they are fastened shut by complicated locks. While people try to work out how the locks operate, one of them, Liz, attempts to throw a chair through the window. The chair bounces off and hits her in the face.
It has been easy to make fun of the book by Liz Truss, Ten Years to Save the West. Reviewers have mocked the paranoia, lack of self-awareness and blaming of others for the disasters of her short premiership. It didn’t help when she held the book upside down on television. Most people have probably joined in the mirth and otherwise tried to forget it all. But for Conservatives like me, it is a reminder of the most excruciatingly embarrassing period in the modern history of our party, one for which a severe electoral price is still being paid.
It might come as a surprise, therefore, when I say that this book has to be taken seriously. Not because Truss is about to return to power, or because it is a deep study of how politics works, or because its proposals deserve support. I haven’t, as a critic of how government was conducted in those infamous 49 days, changed my mind. But I do think that the ideas this former prime minister expresses have become the common currency of many people on the right, in this country and abroad.
They tell us a great deal about the struggle over the future of conservatism — a struggle already taking place around the world and that will become urgent and intense in Britain if the Tories go into opposition after the coming election.
Truss perceives many of the institutions of government to have been “captured by left-wing ideology” or become excessively powerful, knitting together in a “deep state” that frustrates elected leaders. Her answer is to abolish a great many of them. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) would be eliminated, the Bank of England weakened, the Supreme Court abolished and the European Convention on Human Rights abandoned. Internationally, we would withdraw from the climate negotiations at Cop summits and seek to abolish the United Nations. The elected government — albeit elected by a very small number of people in her own case — would be liberated from all these agreements and constraints.
Before dismissing such notions as the rantings of a very disappointed ex-leader, we should note that they have a lot in common with the policies of more successful leaders overseas. In America, the Republicans have become largely subservient to a Trump agenda that includes “dismantling the deep state”, firing civil servants by presidential order, removing “Marxist” prosecutors and justifying the brazen attempt to overturn the outcome of the last presidential election.
So William Hague is saying Liz Truss' ideas are dishonest but it's the core philosophy of the political movement he is part of.
It's just an extract but that is not the way I am reading it. What he is saying, correctly, is that people who think that way are a significant part of the broader Conservative movement and may well form the next administration in the USA. Given its electoral success internationally we should not fail to take its challenges seriously just because Truss made herself as an exponent of these ideas look ridiculous in the UK.
It is indeed a challenge to the centre right. If you don't believe all of that isolationist guff will fix our problems what is the agenda for the centre right? What kind of society are they hoping to achieve? It is all very well for people like me to say I am alienated by the current government, not least this morning, but what do I want in its place and how do I hope to have a party capable of winning an election that has a significant minority who sympathises with these views? We have seen this very debate played out in the US where half of the Republican Congress thought that spending money in the USA was more important than supporting Ukraine and half didn't.
Had to pick up my wife from the garage where her car is getting fixed this morning and heard some of Michelle Hussein's rant at the Immigration minister. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, and I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme, her rudeness, her determination to continuously talk over the person she is interviewing, her assertions rather than questions and her general attitude is intensely irritating.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
I've not come across Michelle Hussein, but it sounds like maybe they should get Mishal Husain on instead
(The aggressive approach is rarely that good though - everyone wants to be Paxman. I prefer the apparently gentle but incisive approach of someone like Amol Rajan, ask the right questions and give the interviewee time to talk and enough rope to hang themselves. Any experienced media handler will be able to shrug off aggressive questioning by remaining calm and not actually have to say much.)
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
NI gives you an entitlement to the state pension. The idea that the NI someone has paid has fully funded their pension is ridiculous.
That entitlement is now simply convention. The state pension could be swept aside with legislation just like any other benefit.
(This is also why public sector pensions aren't quite as valuable as they seem - they also depend on the benevolence of the government of the day)
Had to pick up my wife from the garage where her car is getting fixed this morning and heard some of Michelle Hussein's rant at the Immigration minister. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, and I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme, her rudeness, her determination to continuously talk over the person she is interviewing, her assertions rather than questions and her general attitude is intensely irritating.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
I've not come across Michelle Hussein, but it sounds like maybe they should get Mishal Husain on instead
(The aggressive approach is rarely that good though - everyone wants to be Paxman. I prefer the apparently gentle but incisive approach of someone like Amol Rajan, ask the right questions and give the interviewee time to talk and enough rope to hang themselves. Any experienced media handler will be able to shrug off aggressive questioning by remaining calm and not actually have to say much.)
Woops, getting both her names wrong must be some sort of a record. Time for more coffee I think.
Rebel Wilson has claimed that a member of the royal family who was “15th or 20th in line to the British throne” invited her to an orgy in California where drugs were freely offered to guests.
Writing in her memoir Rebel Rising, the Australian actress says that the party was held in 2014 and hosted by a tech billionaire at a rented ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
The comedian, 44, best known for Pitch Perfect and Bridesmaids, said that she did not realise the medieval-themed party was an orgy until 2am when a tray of “molly”, the slang term for MDMA, was passed around.
Had to pick up my wife from the garage where her car is getting fixed this morning and heard some of Michelle Hussein's rant at the Immigration minister. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, and I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme, her rudeness, her determination to continuously talk over the person she is interviewing, her assertions rather than questions and her general attitude is intensely irritating.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
I've not come across Michelle Hussein, but it sounds like maybe they should get Mishal Husain on instead
(The aggressive approach is rarely that good though - everyone wants to be Paxman. I prefer the apparently gentle but incisive approach of someone like Amol Rajan, ask the right questions and give the interviewee time to talk and enough rope to hang themselves. Any experienced media handler will be able to shrug off aggressive questioning by remaining calm and not actually have to say much.)
Had to pick up my wife from the garage where her car is getting fixed this morning and heard some of Michelle Hussein's rant at the Immigration minister. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, and I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme, her rudeness, her determination to continuously talk over the person she is interviewing, her assertions rather than questions and her general attitude is intensely irritating.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
I've not come across Michelle Hussein, but it sounds like maybe they should get Mishal Husain on instead
(The aggressive approach is rarely that good though - everyone wants to be Paxman. I prefer the apparently gentle but incisive approach of someone like Amol Rajan, ask the right questions and give the interviewee time to talk and enough rope to hang themselves. Any experienced media handler will be able to shrug off aggressive questioning by remaining calm and not actually have to say much.)
Woops, getting both her names wrong must be some sort of a record. Time for more coffee I think.
I actually did a quick Google in case there was a Michelle Hussein political interviewer (took me straight to Mishal, so I guess it's a common misspelling). Didn't want to look like a tit while trying to be a smartarse
BREAKING: A dinghy with migrants has left the coast of France and is heading in the direction of the UK.
It comes after Rishi Sunak's Rwanda bill was finally passed through the Lords yesterday.
WRT betting on the general election and its timing, the ground may now have shifted slightly.
The government is already taking the line, this very morning, that the deterrent effect kicks in when flights start.
Two points on that. Flights may not start anyway - we are now nearer to day one of complex litigation, which will go to the SC, which may well only start once a named individual is served with an order for deportation under the act.
Second, if there are flights, they won't (IMHO) be a deterrent.
Which means it is, despite the talk, vital that the GE is held before the alleged deterrent can kick in, and after it is clear that 'leftie lawyers' are slowing it down placing Labour in the maximally awkward place.
On balance this supports an earlier rather than a later date for the GE.
Why the hell is anyone still talking about Liz Truss?
We might as well have a dialogue about Reginald Maudling.
Because outright owners (Tory) and private renters (Labour) have both increased significantly as proportions of all households from 2011 to 2021.
The key swing cohort of mortgage holders has shrunk as a result. This group has now been smashed by high interest rates, which is partly down to Truss.
A little something for SKS's St George's Day patriotism initiative:
St George, it seems, was born a Grecian And got bumped off by Diocletian An Englishman he really ain’t So how come he’s their patron saint?
And you will find, in similar vein, He’s claimed by Moscow *and* Ukraine, Georgia, Malta, Bosnia too, And several others in the queue
And as for all that dragon stuff, It really is a load of guff It’s just another permutation Of fables found in every nation
So given that the English are Almost entirely secular They sure don’t need a patron saint The notion is entirely quaint.
Haha brilliant!!!
And why on earth do we have ‘three lions’ and bang on about it as if it’s some kind of national symbol? Lions don’t live in little England except on some old buff’s country estate.
It’s ridiculous to glorify ‘three lions’. Dandelions would be more appropriate.
The use of three lions goes back at least as far as Richard I in 1198. You could argue with him whether it was an appropriate symbol for a Plantagenet King, but since it's been in use for at least 826 years the argument is a bit moot.
The earlier Kings of Wessex used a dragon, of course, and it's perhaps not surprising that rulers reliant on force at arms for maintaining their kingdom would look to fearsome creatures to rally around.
England, of course, has many other national emblems, such as the Oak, our national tree, the Rose, our national flower (though, naturellement, you may call this flower what you will), and the Robin, our national bird.
At least the lion, as England's national animal, has the advantage of being a real animal, unlike, say, the Dragon (Wales), or the Unicorn (Scotland).
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
No current state pension recipients have not paid for their state pension.
If they have, then let's use their savings they've set aside to pay for it to fully fund their pensions and not have today's workers pay for it instead.
Give it a rest you nutjob. Most people have little to no savings. What bit of they paid NI for 50 years and that was always designated as funding state pensions. You are always desperate to get something for nothing.
Had to pick up my wife from the garage where her car is getting fixed this morning and heard some of Michelle Hussein's rant at the Immigration minister. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, and I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme, her rudeness, her determination to continuously talk over the person she is interviewing, her assertions rather than questions and her general attitude is intensely irritating.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
I've not come across Michelle Hussein, but it sounds like maybe they should get Mishal Husain on instead
(The aggressive approach is rarely that good though - everyone wants to be Paxman. I prefer the apparently gentle but incisive approach of someone like Amol Rajan, ask the right questions and give the interviewee time to talk and enough rope to hang themselves. Any experienced media handler will be able to shrug off aggressive questioning by remaining calm and not actually have to say much.)
A little something for SKS's St George's Day patriotism initiative:
St George, it seems, was born a Grecian And got bumped off by Diocletian An Englishman he really ain’t So how come he’s their patron saint?
And you will find, in similar vein, He’s claimed by Moscow *and* Ukraine, Georgia, Malta, Bosnia too, And several others in the queue
And as for all that dragon stuff, It really is a load of guff It’s just another permutation Of fables found in every nation
So given that the English are Almost entirely secular They sure don’t need a patron saint The notion is entirely quaint.
Haha brilliant!!!
And why on earth do we have ‘three lions’ and bang on about it as if it’s some kind of national symbol? Lions don’t live in little England except on some old buff’s country estate.
It’s ridiculous to glorify ‘three lions’. Dandelions would be more appropriate.
The use of three lions goes back at least as far as Richard I in 1198. You could argue with him whether it was an appropriate symbol for a Plantagenet King, but since it's been in use for at least 826 years the argument is a bit moot.
The earlier Kings of Wessex used a dragon, of course, and it's perhaps not surprising that rulers reliant on force at arms for maintaining their kingdom would look to fearsome creatures to rally around.
England, of course, has many other national emblems, such as the Oak, our national tree, the Rose, our national flower (though, naturellement, you may call this flower what you will), and the Robin, our national bird.
At least the lion, as England's national animal, has the advantage of being a real animal, unlike, say, the Dragon (Wales), or the Unicorn (Scotland).
Worth remembering that Lions used to have a much larger range (perhaps into France), so it's not that unusual.
The symbol of Scotland is a unicorn in chains - Scottish Kings were strong enough to capture the most formidable of creatures.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
NI gives you an entitlement to the state pension. The idea that the NI someone has paid has fully funded their pension is ridiculous.
My NI payments over 50+years would have yielded a far better deal than the state pension guaranteed.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
No current state pension recipients have not paid for their state pension.
If they have, then let's use their savings they've set aside to pay for it to fully fund their pensions and not have today's workers pay for it instead.
That NI is contribution to anything other than general government income is a fiction.
You cannot get the state pension without sufficient NI payments or credits however. Nor can you get JSA now either without NI payments
Had to pick up my wife from the garage where her car is getting fixed this morning and heard some of Michelle Hussein's rant at the Immigration minister. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, and I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme, her rudeness, her determination to continuously talk over the person she is interviewing, her assertions rather than questions and her general attitude is intensely irritating.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
I've not come across Michelle Hussein, but it sounds like maybe they should get Mishal Husain on instead
(The aggressive approach is rarely that good though - everyone wants to be Paxman. I prefer the apparently gentle but incisive approach of someone like Amol Rajan, ask the right questions and give the interviewee time to talk and enough rope to hang themselves. Any experienced media handler will be able to shrug off aggressive questioning by remaining calm and not actually have to say much.)
See my earlier post on Mike Freer MP's interview where he does mention this harsher environment whereas Robin Day and Brian Walden would let politicians speak. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwMRRx8IciU
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
But IT did go up a lot, way more than the cuts in NI, due to fiscal drift. The budget increased the tax burden, it didn't reduce it.
Are barristers one of those professions where you can get out of paying employee NI (And your employer (Is that yourself ?)) pays employer NI to a more tax efficient arrangement via dividends and whatnot ?
We are self employed but I certainly paid a fair bit of NI. It was all rather complicated and has now changed again but I used to pay it in my tax return and also paid what I think were class 4 NI (now abolished) which was pretty modest. Whether this amounted to the same NI I would have paid as an employee, I am not sure. What I did know was that i had no right to sick pay or unemployment benefits, for example.
I am now an Advocate Depute, which is a really odd position in that I get taxed through PAYE and NI but I still don't get sick pay, at least from my employer.
The upside is that this lack of sick pay means I stay remarkably healthy! Not had any single days off for illness in at least a couple of decades.
A little something for SKS's St George's Day patriotism initiative:
St George, it seems, was born a Grecian And got bumped off by Diocletian An Englishman he really ain’t So how come he’s their patron saint?
And you will find, in similar vein, He’s claimed by Moscow *and* Ukraine, Georgia, Malta, Bosnia too, And several others in the queue
And as for all that dragon stuff, It really is a load of guff It’s just another permutation Of fables found in every nation
So given that the English are Almost entirely secular They sure don’t need a patron saint The notion is entirely quaint.
Ha ha, that's pisspoor
Oh freddled gruntbuggly, Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning) As plurdled gabbleblotchits, in midsummer morning On a lurgid bee, That mordiously hath blurted out, Its earted jurtles, grumbling Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. [drowned out by moaning and screaming] Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles, Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts, And living glupules frart and stipulate, Like jowling meated liverslime, Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes, And hooptiously drangle me, With crinkly bindlewurdles,mashurbitries. Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, See if I don't!
Why the hell is anyone still talking about Liz Truss?
We might as well have a dialogue about Reginald Maudling.
Reg’s dead baby, Liz is very much alive while stinking out the room. I daresay if it’s discovered Maudling wore pervy jewellery he may re-enter the discourse.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
No current state pension recipients have not paid for their state pension.
If they have, then let's use their savings they've set aside to pay for it to fully fund their pensions and not have today's workers pay for it instead.
I believe NI has been around since 1907 (approx) so I think you will find that current state pensioners have paid for their state pension!
NI is a tax no different to any other, so I think you will find that they have not!
If you've been misled, then that's a shame, but if there's a pot of money current pensioners have paid into then let's use that but the reality is there is not.
Having paid NI no more pays for current pensions, than having paid fuel duty, alcohol duty or income tax does.
It's a tax that has been spent. Sorry you were misled if you thought otherwise.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
But IT did go up a lot, way more than the cuts in NI, due to fiscal drift. The budget increased the tax burden, it didn't reduce it.
Are barristers one of those professions where you can get out of paying employee NI (And your employer (Is that yourself ?)) pays employer NI to a more tax efficient arrangement via dividends and whatnot ?
I believe barristers are self employed not limited companies so no.
But anyway it isn't a more efficient tax arrangement but a different arrangement if you set up a company. Yes you avoid NI (if you pay below a certain level) but you pay Corporation Tax instead. Both then pay Income tax. There will be winners and losers but it isn't obvious because of different rates for NI, Income Tax and Corporation Tax depending upon what you choose and the different thresholds for each plus the timing which can give control over the calculation (NI - weekly or monthly calculation, unless a Director when annually, Income tax - annually, but can control if paying dividends by the timing of the dividend, Corporation Tax - annually). I choose to set up a company not for tax reasons but for simplifying stuff.
Most abuse is by large companies insisting contractors set up companies so that the large company does not have to pay employer NI and is not bound by employment rules. These contractors usually should be employees (hence IR35).
BREAKING: A dinghy with migrants has left the coast of France and is heading in the direction of the UK.
It comes after Rishi Sunak's Rwanda bill was finally passed through the Lords yesterday.
WRT betting on the general election and its timing, the ground may now have shifted slightly.
The government is already taking the line, this very morning, that the deterrent effect kicks in when flights start.
Two points on that. Flights may not start anyway - we are now nearer to day one of complex litigation, which will go to the SC, which may well only start once a named individual is served with an order for deportation under the act.
Second, if there are flights, they won't (IMHO) be a deterrent.
Which means it is, despite the talk, vital that the GE is held before the alleged deterrent can kick in, and after it is clear that 'leftie lawyers' are slowing it down placing Labour in the maximally awkward place.
On balance this supports an earlier rather than a later date for the GE.
Now Parliament has finally passed the Rwanda bill, Rishi will want time for that and the new minimum salary requirement for migrants to take effect and reduce immigration. So an autumn general election looks most likely still
BREAKING: A dinghy with migrants has left the coast of France and is heading in the direction of the UK.
It comes after Rishi Sunak's Rwanda bill was finally passed through the Lords yesterday.
WRT betting on the general election and its timing, the ground may now have shifted slightly.
The government is already taking the line, this very morning, that the deterrent effect kicks in when flights start.
Two points on that. Flights may not start anyway - we are now nearer to day one of complex litigation, which will go to the SC, which may well only start once a named individual is served with an order for deportation under the act.
Second, if there are flights, they won't (IMHO) be a deterrent.
Which means it is, despite the talk, vital that the GE is held before the alleged deterrent can kick in, and after it is clear that 'leftie lawyers' are slowing it down placing Labour in the maximally awkward place.
On balance this supports an earlier rather than a later date for the GE.
Earlier when? We've already seen off the May crowd. Incidentally, one other factor is that Rishi might be ousted if Conservative MPs after the locals are desperate for another throw of the dice, but there is no obvious PM-in-waiting, and Rishi might yet be saved by the Mayoral elections if Andy Street holds on, or Susan Hall does better than expected.
Had to pick up my wife from the garage where her car is getting fixed this morning and heard some of Michelle Hussein's rant at the Immigration minister. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, and I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme, her rudeness, her determination to continuously talk over the person she is interviewing, her assertions rather than questions and her general attitude is intensely irritating.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
I've not come across Michelle Hussein, but it sounds like maybe they should get Mishal Husain on instead
(The aggressive approach is rarely that good though - everyone wants to be Paxman. I prefer the apparently gentle but incisive approach of someone like Amol Rajan, ask the right questions and give the interviewee time to talk and enough rope to hang themselves. Any experienced media handler will be able to shrug off aggressive questioning by remaining calm and not actually have to say much.)
Woops, getting both her names wrong must be some sort of a record. Time for more coffee I think.
I actually did a quick Google in case there was a Michelle Hussein political interviewer (took me straight to Mishal, so I guess it's a common misspelling). Didn't want to look like a tit while trying to be a smartarse
I actually googled "Michelle Hussain" and got images of Mishal Hussain so I thought that I had got it right. Hey ho.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
No current state pension recipients have not paid for their state pension.
If they have, then let's use their savings they've set aside to pay for it to fully fund their pensions and not have today's workers pay for it instead.
Give it a rest you nutjob. Most people have little to no savings. What bit of they paid NI for 50 years and that was always designated as funding state pensions. You are always desperate to get something for nothing.
No it was always designated as a tax.
A tax that has been spent.
It never funded your pension, you were lied to if you are that ignorant.
I don't want to get anything for nothing, quite the opposite. All I want is my income to be taxed at the same rate as anyone else's.
Had to pick up my wife from the garage where her car is getting fixed this morning and heard some of Michelle Hussein's rant at the Immigration minister. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, and I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme, her rudeness, her determination to continuously talk over the person she is interviewing, her assertions rather than questions and her general attitude is intensely irritating.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
I've not come across Michelle Hussein, but it sounds like maybe they should get Mishal Husain on instead
(The aggressive approach is rarely that good though - everyone wants to be Paxman. I prefer the apparently gentle but incisive approach of someone like Amol Rajan, ask the right questions and give the interviewee time to talk and enough rope to hang themselves. Any experienced media handler will be able to shrug off aggressive questioning by remaining calm and not actually have to say much.)
Woops, getting both her names wrong must be some sort of a record. Time for more coffee I think.
I actually did a quick Google in case there was a Michelle Hussein political interviewer (took me straight to Mishal, so I guess it's a common misspelling). Didn't want to look like a tit while trying to be a smartarse
Mishal is Koranic, Michelle is Bible (both Old and New Testament). Both very beautiful, but many people on R4 get it wrong and it would be courteous to get it right.
On the whole she only talks over people, like this morning, when they are egregiously repetitive in not even trying to answer a question and display an unseriousness about their task of speaking on behalf of government to the people who vote and pay for it. She tends to be better briefed than many interviewers.
A little something for SKS's St George's Day patriotism initiative:
St George, it seems, was born a Grecian And got bumped off by Diocletian An Englishman he really ain’t So how come he’s their patron saint?
And you will find, in similar vein, He’s claimed by Moscow *and* Ukraine, Georgia, Malta, Bosnia too, And several others in the queue
And as for all that dragon stuff, It really is a load of guff It’s just another permutation Of fables found in every nation
So given that the English are Almost entirely secular They sure don’t need a patron saint The notion is entirely quaint.
Very droll, but it isn't unusual to have a patron Saint from another country. Ireland has a British patron Saint for example.
Multiculturalism is nothing new.
Britain/England has a lot of imaginary/borrowed stuff though.
Look at the British coat of arms: on one side a unicorn, on the other and on top lions. It has a motto in French, and another in Norman French. The Scottish version has something in Latin. Nothing in English anywhere.
The royal line is borrowed from Germany. The national dish is borrowed from India. The national drink is originally from China.
The most famous British people - James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, Jesus Christ, Robin Hood - are all fictional. Though you can visit the actual house where Sherlock Holmes lived, and see a sign for platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross.
And nobody even knows what the country is called. In most of the rest of Europe people routinely say 'England' when they mean the UK/Great Britain. On my passport it says 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' which implies Northern Ireland isn't part of Great Britain, but people everywhere use Great Britain/Britain when they usually aren't excluding Northern Ireland.
Rebel Wilson has claimed that a member of the royal family who was “15th or 20th in line to the British throne” invited her to an orgy in California where drugs were freely offered to guests.
Writing in her memoir Rebel Rising, the Australian actress says that the party was held in 2014 and hosted by a tech billionaire at a rented ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
The comedian, 44, best known for Pitch Perfect and Bridesmaids, said that she did not realise the medieval-themed party was an orgy until 2am when a tray of “molly”, the slang term for MDMA, was passed around.
It has been easy to make fun of the book by Liz Truss, Ten Years to Save the West...
..Before dismissing such notions as the rantings of a very disappointed ex-leader, we should note that they have a lot in common with the policies of more successful leaders overseas. In America, the Republicans have become largely subservient to a Trump agenda that includes “dismantling the deep state”, firing civil servants by presidential order, removing “Marxist” prosecutors and justifying the brazen attempt to overturn the outcome of the last presidential election.
BREAKING: A dinghy with migrants has left the coast of France and is heading in the direction of the UK.
It comes after Rishi Sunak's Rwanda bill was finally passed through the Lords yesterday.
WRT betting on the general election and its timing, the ground may now have shifted slightly.
The government is already taking the line, this very morning, that the deterrent effect kicks in when flights start.
Two points on that. Flights may not start anyway - we are now nearer to day one of complex litigation, which will go to the SC, which may well only start once a named individual is served with an order for deportation under the act.
Second, if there are flights, they won't (IMHO) be a deterrent.
Which means it is, despite the talk, vital that the GE is held before the alleged deterrent can kick in, and after it is clear that 'leftie lawyers' are slowing it down placing Labour in the maximally awkward place.
On balance this supports an earlier rather than a later date for the GE.
Earlier when? We've already seen off the May crowd. Incidentally, one other factor is that Rishi might be ousted if Conservative MPs after the locals are desperate for another throw of the dice, but there is no obvious PM-in-waiting, and Rishi might yet be saved by the Mayoral elections if Andy Street holds on, or Susan Hall does better than expected.
Personally I think July or September (if the latter with an early announcement prior to dissolution).
Had to pick up my wife from the garage where her car is getting fixed this morning and heard some of Michelle Hussein's rant at the Immigration minister. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, and I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme, her rudeness, her determination to continuously talk over the person she is interviewing, her assertions rather than questions and her general attitude is intensely irritating.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
I've not come across Michelle Hussein, but it sounds like maybe they should get Mishal Husain on instead
(The aggressive approach is rarely that good though - everyone wants to be Paxman. I prefer the apparently gentle but incisive approach of someone like Amol Rajan, ask the right questions and give the interviewee time to talk and enough rope to hang themselves. Any experienced media handler will be able to shrug off aggressive questioning by remaining calm and not actually have to say much.)
Woops, getting both her names wrong must be some sort of a record. Time for more coffee I think.
I actually did a quick Google in case there was a Michelle Hussein political interviewer (took me straight to Mishal, so I guess it's a common misspelling). Didn't want to look like a tit while trying to be a smartarse
Mishal is Koranic, Michelle is Bible (both Old and New Testament). Both very beautiful, but many people on R4 get it wrong and it would be courteous to get it right.
On the whole she only talks over people, like this morning, when they are egregiously repetitive in not even trying to answer a question and display an unseriousness about their task of speaking on behalf of government to the people who vote and pay for it. She tends to be better briefed than many interviewers.
She was pretty good with Suella yesterday who repeatedly avoided answering the question by screeching let me finish.
"Overall, government debt was around 98.3% of the UK's annual gross domestic product (GDP) in March - up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year and at levels not seen since the early 1960s."
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Unfunded NI cuts pushing up the debt!
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Indeed, NI cuts should be fully funded by raising income tax.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
Er no. NI is there for people to contribute towards their state pension.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
NI gives you an entitlement to the state pension. The idea that the NI someone has paid has fully funded their pension is ridiculous.
My NI payments over 50+years would have yielded a far better deal than the state pension guaranteed.
And my fuel duty over 20+ years would have yielded far better roads had it actually been spend on the roads than gone into the general pot too.
Unfortunately we don't get to control how individual taxes are directed.
Your NI payments in the past, like my fuel duty payments in the past, like all other taxes, have already been spent. They weren't ever set aside to fund your pension.
Had to pick up my wife from the garage where her car is getting fixed this morning and heard some of Michelle Hussein's rant at the Immigration minister. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, and I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme, her rudeness, her determination to continuously talk over the person she is interviewing, her assertions rather than questions and her general attitude is intensely irritating.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
I've not come across Michelle Hussein, but it sounds like maybe they should get Mishal Husain on instead
(The aggressive approach is rarely that good though - everyone wants to be Paxman. I prefer the apparently gentle but incisive approach of someone like Amol Rajan, ask the right questions and give the interviewee time to talk and enough rope to hang themselves. Any experienced media handler will be able to shrug off aggressive questioning by remaining calm and not actually have to say much.)
Woops, getting both her names wrong must be some sort of a record. Time for more coffee I think.
I actually did a quick Google in case there was a Michelle Hussein political interviewer (took me straight to Mishal, so I guess it's a common misspelling). Didn't want to look like a tit while trying to be a smartarse
I actually googled "Michelle Hussain" and got images of Mishal Hussain so I thought that I had got it right. Hey ho.
Most abuse is by large companies insisting contractors set up companies so that the large company does not have to pay employer NI and is not bound by employment rules. These contractors usually should be employees (hence IR35).
Never really reported on by the media, because pretty much every talking head on the TV and radio isn't a straightforward category A NI employee...
A little something for SKS's St George's Day patriotism initiative:
St George, it seems, was born a Grecian And got bumped off by Diocletian An Englishman he really ain’t So how come he’s their patron saint?
And you will find, in similar vein, He’s claimed by Moscow *and* Ukraine, Georgia, Malta, Bosnia too, And several others in the queue
And as for all that dragon stuff, It really is a load of guff It’s just another permutation Of fables found in every nation
So given that the English are Almost entirely secular They sure don’t need a patron saint The notion is entirely quaint.
Very droll, but it isn't unusual to have a patron Saint from another country. Ireland has a British patron Saint for example.
Multiculturalism is nothing new.
Britain/England has a lot of imaginary/borrowed stuff though.
Look at the British coat of arms: on one side a unicorn, on the other and on top lions. It has a motto in French, and another in Norman French. The Scottish version has something in Latin. Nothing in English anywhere.
The royal line is borrowed from Germany. The national dish is borrowed from India. The national drink is originally from China.
The most famous British people - James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, Jesus Christ, Robin Hood - are all fictional. Though you can visit the actual house where Sherlock Holmes lived, and see a sign for platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross.
And nobody even knows what the country is called. In most of the rest of Europe people routinely say 'England' when they mean the UK/Great Britain. On my passport it says 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' which implies Northern Ireland isn't part of Great Britain, but people everywhere use Great Britain/Britain when they usually aren't excluding Northern Ireland.
And in Churches across the land the most sung about city in the country is that famous English city . . . Jerusalem.
It has been easy to make fun of the book by Liz Truss, Ten Years to Save the West. Reviewers have mocked the paranoia, lack of self-awareness and blaming of others for the disasters of her short premiership. It didn’t help when she held the book upside down on television. Most people have probably joined in the mirth and otherwise tried to forget it all. But for Conservatives like me, it is a reminder of the most excruciatingly embarrassing period in the modern history of our party, one for which a severe electoral price is still being paid.
It might come as a surprise, therefore, when I say that this book has to be taken seriously. Not because Truss is about to return to power, or because it is a deep study of how politics works, or because its proposals deserve support. I haven’t, as a critic of how government was conducted in those infamous 49 days, changed my mind. But I do think that the ideas this former prime minister expresses have become the common currency of many people on the right, in this country and abroad.
They tell us a great deal about the struggle over the future of conservatism — a struggle already taking place around the world and that will become urgent and intense in Britain if the Tories go into opposition after the coming election.
Truss perceives many of the institutions of government to have been “captured by left-wing ideology” or become excessively powerful, knitting together in a “deep state” that frustrates elected leaders. Her answer is to abolish a great many of them. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) would be eliminated, the Bank of England weakened, the Supreme Court abolished and the European Convention on Human Rights abandoned. Internationally, we would withdraw from the climate negotiations at Cop summits and seek to abolish the United Nations. The elected government — albeit elected by a very small number of people in her own case — would be liberated from all these agreements and constraints.
Before dismissing such notions as the rantings of a very disappointed ex-leader, we should note that they have a lot in common with the policies of more successful leaders overseas. In America, the Republicans have become largely subservient to a Trump agenda that includes “dismantling the deep state”, firing civil servants by presidential order, removing “Marxist” prosecutors and justifying the brazen attempt to overturn the outcome of the last presidential election.
So William Hague is saying Liz Truss' ideas are dishonest but it's the core philosophy of the political movement he is part of.
It's just an extract but that is not the way I am reading it. What he is saying, correctly, is that people who think that way are a significant part of the broader Conservative movement and may well form the next administration in the USA. Given its electoral success internationally we should not fail to take its challenges seriously just because Truss made herself as an exponent of these ideas look ridiculous in the UK.
It is indeed a challenge to the centre right. If you don't believe all of that isolationist guff will fix our problems what is the agenda for the centre right? What kind of society are they hoping to achieve? It is all very well for people like me to say I am alienated by the current government, not least this morning, but what do I want in its place and how do I hope to have a party capable of winning an election that has a significant minority who sympathises with these views? We have seen this very debate played out in the US where half of the Republican Congress thought that spending money in the USA was more important than supporting Ukraine and half didn't.
Good argument!
I think William Hague is one of the good guys on the Conservative side. It's always a dilemma when you see your movement veer off in the wrong direction. Do you reject both the direction and the movement you were previously part of and no longer agree with? Or do you try to change it from within, with all the compromises that entails? See also Labour and Corbyn.
It has been easy to make fun of the book by Liz Truss, Ten Years to Save the West...
..Before dismissing such notions as the rantings of a very disappointed ex-leader, we should note that they have a lot in common with the policies of more successful leaders overseas. In America, the Republicans have become largely subservient to a Trump agenda that includes “dismantling the deep state”, firing civil servants by presidential order, removing “Marxist” prosecutors and justifying the brazen attempt to overturn the outcome of the last presidential election.
Comments
I picked up (from Drachinifel's, and mini-me Drach's, channel) about wider access to UK archival footage etc following various copyright rulings and high level legal decisions here:
https://youtu.be/1wPlqEXqSXE?t=252
Does anyone know more?
The primary thing I gave her credit for was reversing decades of Treasury orthodoxy that raising NI was a good idea. An idea the current PM was very keen on and did a big increase in NI.
Truss reversed that and Hunt has continued to recognise that NI as a tax solely on work is a bad idea.
Truss deserves credit for that. The rest of the bullshit? Yes call it out. She failed. She failed catastrophically.
But the idea that someone is all good or all bad is the biggest fallacy of all. She had some good ideas, catastrophically implemented. Along with a bunch of bad ideas too.
The key to improve is to take any good ideas, dump the bullshit, and implement the good sensibly.
It’s Fictional Illegal Immigrant Men Of Violence, coming here and killing Fictional Endangered Animals and taking jobs from local Men Of Violence.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67650247.amp
But didn't Rishi Rich tell us that he would bring down the debt?
Tragedy in the channel this morning with several migrants dead in attempting to cross to UK with French Coast Guard confirming operation in the channel
The conditions are perfect apparently for crossing the channel and speculation the boat was overloaded
The UK just announced a new £500 million ($620 million) aid package for Ukraine, the single largest announced by the country.
The package will include Storm Shadow cruise missiles, 1600 strike and air defence missiles, more than 400 vehicles, (continued).
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1782557999686422977
This will keep interest rates higher for longer.
Merging Income Tax and NI would depending upon your political bent allow real tax cuts for people in work, or raise billions for expenditure. Win/win either way.
Only people who lose out are those not working for a living, who want to be subsidised by those who are working.
Well they can just go and get a job.
I almost started to feel sympathy for a Minister responsible for one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in Westminster history.
Current state pension recipients have paid for their state pension so it's only fair that current workers should do so
👍
Let us not forget that Hague championed Jeffrey Archer's London Mayoral candidacy long after it was clear that he should have been ruled out - presumably because the noble Lord was kind enough to allow Hague and friend Seb Coe to use his London flat for their weekly judo practice.
Put yourself in a compromised position like that and people will own you for the rest of your life.
If they have, then let's use their savings they've set aside to pay for it to fully fund their pensions and not have today's workers pay for it instead.
Someone who i follow on twitter says.
St George was born in Turkey to a Palestinian mum.
He would have been sent to Rwanda if he tried to get to the UK.
It's absolutely the right tax to cut.
They now expect younger people who they vilify to pay theirs when they reach state pension age.
Nicola Sturgeon’s appearance before the UK’s parliament’s Scottish Affairs Committee has been postponed.
The former first minister was due to appear before the committee next week as part of its inquiry into intergovernmental relations.
But an update from the committee clerks has confirmed this session is no longer going ahead “due to a change in witness availability”.
A new date for the meeting has not yet been set.
My Vehicle emissions duty is £0.00 in my current car, but I still need to be able to 'pay' it (By having a valid MOT certificate). Employee NI probably should be reduced to 0%, the link to state pension years could, should and would be able to be maintained.
A day for politeness to our PM.
A The witness is under arrest somewhere.
B The witness has done a runner from the enquiry.
A or B?
The idea that the NI someone has paid has fully funded their pension is ridiculous.
Edit - it seems Scotland is doing the opposite of the Post Office Inquiry and letting the law go first.
I know little about St. George - no-one does, really - but as a third century (?) saint from the Middle East it's doubtful his values would have found a home in 21st century Britain. He was probably a religious maniac. If we could pick and choose our immigrants I doubt he would make it near the top of the list.
(Although my favourite, and almost certainly made up story about this possibly made up man is that after slaying the dragon, he was offered a banquet and the hand of the relevant princess in marriage, which he got all embarassed about and turned down, but in quite a socially awkward way, before going on his way, possibly subsequently regretting his choice but finding any rowing back all to uncomfortable to go through with. And THAT is why he is the patron saint of England.)
I plan to celebrate St. George's Day in the traditional English way of belatedly realising it, nodding in a half-satisfied manner and carrying on with my day as planned.
Possibly starting from feudalism and echoing down through Jane Austen to the nimbyism of today.
Also there is no way any Government would get rid of Employer NI, there are £60bn where IR35 is so important...
Unfortunately, her approach worked a bit like this: imagine a bunch of people are stuck in a warm, stuffy room together. Everyone wants the windows to be opened, but they are fastened shut by complicated locks. While people try to work out how the locks operate, one of them, Liz, attempts to throw a chair through the window. The chair bounces off and hits her in the face.
Financial Times
Liz Truss's certifiable bat skit
It is indeed a challenge to the centre right. If you don't believe all of that isolationist guff will fix our problems what is the agenda for the centre right? What kind of society are they hoping to achieve? It is all very well for people like me to say I am alienated by the current government, not least this morning, but what do I want in its place and how do I hope to have a party capable of winning an election that has a significant minority who sympathises with these views? We have seen this very debate played out in the US where half of the Republican Congress thought that spending money in the USA was more important than supporting Ukraine and half didn't.
(The aggressive approach is rarely that good though - everyone wants to be Paxman. I prefer the apparently gentle but incisive approach of someone like Amol Rajan, ask the right questions and give the interviewee time to talk and enough rope to hang themselves. Any experienced media handler will be able to shrug off aggressive questioning by remaining calm and not actually have to say much.)
(This is also why public sector pensions aren't quite as valuable as they seem - they also depend on the benevolence of the government of the day)
We might as well have a dialogue about Reginald Maudling.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68574142
Kari Lake says she is concerned that Hillary Clinton may be plotting to send a hit man after her to take her out.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1782500397292089659
The government is already taking the line, this very morning, that the deterrent effect kicks in when flights start.
Two points on that. Flights may not start anyway - we are now nearer to day one of complex litigation, which will go to the SC, which may well only start once a named individual is served with an order for deportation under the act.
Second, if there are flights, they won't (IMHO) be a deterrent.
Which means it is, despite the talk, vital that the GE is held before the alleged deterrent can kick in, and after it is clear that 'leftie lawyers' are slowing it down placing Labour in the maximally awkward place.
On balance this supports an earlier rather than a later date for the GE.
The key swing cohort of mortgage holders has shrunk as a result. This group has now been smashed by high interest rates, which is partly down to Truss.
= giant Labour poll leads
The earlier Kings of Wessex used a dragon, of course, and it's perhaps not surprising that rulers reliant on force at arms for maintaining their kingdom would look to fearsome creatures to rally around.
England, of course, has many other national emblems, such as the Oak, our national tree, the Rose, our national flower (though, naturellement, you may call this flower what you will), and the Robin, our national bird.
At least the lion, as England's national animal, has the advantage of being a real animal, unlike, say, the Dragon (Wales), or the Unicorn (Scotland).
(I'd not be totally against the idea of Trump having a hit man as VP, as long as the hit man was no Trump loyalist)
You are always desperate to get something for nothing.
Let them speak, then point out the contradictions.
Seems odd
The symbol of Scotland is a unicorn in chains - Scottish Kings were strong enough to capture the most formidable of creatures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwMRRx8IciU
I am now an Advocate Depute, which is a really odd position in that I get taxed through PAYE and NI but I still don't get sick pay, at least from my employer.
The upside is that this lack of sick pay means I stay remarkably healthy! Not had any single days off for illness in at least a couple of decades.
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning)
As plurdled gabbleblotchits, in midsummer morning
On a lurgid bee,
That mordiously hath blurted out,
Its earted jurtles, grumbling
Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. [drowned out by moaning and screaming]
Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles,
Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts,
And living glupules frart and stipulate,
Like jowling meated liverslime,
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,
And hooptiously drangle me,
With crinkly bindlewurdles,mashurbitries.
Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't!
I daresay if it’s discovered Maudling wore pervy jewellery he may re-enter the discourse.
We were discussing 2024's answer to T. Dan Smith over the weekend.
If you've been misled, then that's a shame, but if there's a pot of money current pensioners have paid into then let's use that but the reality is there is not.
Having paid NI no more pays for current pensions, than having paid fuel duty, alcohol duty or income tax does.
It's a tax that has been spent. Sorry you were misled if you thought otherwise.
But anyway it isn't a more efficient tax arrangement but a different arrangement if you set up a company. Yes you avoid NI (if you pay below a certain level) but you pay Corporation Tax instead. Both then pay Income tax. There will be winners and losers but it isn't obvious because of different rates for NI, Income Tax and Corporation Tax depending upon what you choose and the different thresholds for each plus the timing which can give control over the calculation (NI - weekly or monthly calculation, unless a Director when annually, Income tax - annually, but can control if paying dividends by the timing of the dividend, Corporation Tax - annually). I choose to set up a company not for tax reasons but for simplifying stuff.
Most abuse is by large companies insisting contractors set up companies so that the large company does not have to pay employer NI and is not bound by employment rules. These contractors usually should be employees (hence IR35).
A tax that has been spent.
It never funded your pension, you were lied to if you are that ignorant.
I don't want to get anything for nothing, quite the opposite. All I want is my income to be taxed at the same rate as anyone else's.
On the whole she only talks over people, like this morning, when they are egregiously repetitive in not even trying to answer a question and display an unseriousness about their task of speaking on behalf of government to the people who vote and pay for it. She tends to be better briefed than many interviewers.
Look at the British coat of arms: on one side a unicorn, on the other and on top lions. It has a motto in French, and another in Norman French. The Scottish version has something in Latin. Nothing in English anywhere.
The royal line is borrowed from Germany. The national dish is borrowed from India. The national drink is originally from China.
The most famous British people - James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, Jesus Christ, Robin Hood - are all fictional. Though you can visit the actual house where Sherlock Holmes lived, and see a sign for platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross.
And nobody even knows what the country is called. In most of the rest of Europe people routinely say 'England' when they mean the UK/Great Britain. On my passport it says 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' which implies Northern Ireland isn't part of Great Britain, but people everywhere use Great Britain/Britain when they usually aren't excluding Northern Ireland.
You just didn't notice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDJHAZEPSn0
Unfortunately we don't get to control how individual taxes are directed.
Your NI payments in the past, like my fuel duty payments in the past, like all other taxes, have already been spent. They weren't ever set aside to fund your pension.
I think William Hague is one of the good guys on the Conservative side. It's always a dilemma when you see your movement veer off in the wrong direction. Do you reject both the direction and the movement you were previously part of and no longer agree with? Or do you try to change it from within, with all the compromises that entails? See also Labour and Corbyn.