I wrote a long post about the private school debate a few days ago, so will resist repeating it. But I'd like to reinforce three points from it:
1. I find it offensive that many of the private school advocates are so sneeringly contemptuous about a 'state education'. Many of us are very proud of our comprehensive schools and the excellent academic and social education they provided. 2. There's a good number of private schools that offer a pretty poor quality of education, but the parents are seemingly unaware of it. 3. I find it grossly offensive that those who do not sent their kids to private schools, either because they can't afford it or prefer the state sector, are said to be lacking in aspiration for their kids. Were my parents still alive, they'd be fuming at this suggestion.
We had a horrendous French teacher at my junior school who every parent knew was terrible but he was kept around because he was "a jolly good laugh".
My French teacher learned her French living in rural France. We had a new student join for GCSEs whose father was French and informed us that everybody appears to speak French like comedy thick farmer.
I am currently laid up with sciatica so unusually am not on the campaign trail. Ground war intelligence will therefore be limited. I did note however that the Lib Dem candidate in Sheffield Hallam is campaigning under the slogan ' Shaffaq for Shaffield'. (Shades of Hooley for Healey).
I think the idea Labour seems to oppose the leader putting in candidates that support them is a bit odd, I mean if you didn't have that you'd probably never have any candidates at all?
It's funny to see the three remaining Corbyn supporters though saying that they hate factionalism when they tied up the NEC and selections themselves. They chose rubbish candidates, the difference is that the candidates SKS has "imposed" seem like actually quite sensible people.
I feel like I'm arguing against democracy here - but I wonder if it's just worth accepting that a political party can't really operate in a truly democratic way.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
Our son holds a senior management position in our local private school and the imposition of vat, certain now Starmer is going to be PM in a few weeks , is having an effect on their school numbers and across the industry
It is also seriously worrying teachers in these schools and to suggest because Starmer is not in power it is not the cause of disruption in the industry is simply not borne out by those actually working in private schools
Yes, please see the article I just posted.
This policy is starting to kill off multiple small prep and community schools in that help children with special needs, like Dowdham Prep and Alton School (Convent).
It's not the Etons and Winchesters that will be hurt by it. It's the little guys.
Charging £18,000 per year. That's 140% higher than state school funding. And higher than average for private schools.
Alton School said in a statement: This proposal is based on a continued decline in pupil numbers, to the extent that the school has now become unviable
oh
Indeed. a 20% price shock on top of a cost of living crisis (the GFC was responsible for 30,000 pupils leaving private education and 30 schools closing), is not good news.
As someone who doesn't have kids and already pays taxes to educate other people's kids, I quite like it when parents reduce the tax burden on me by paying for their own kids.
That was in July 2023 and before the policy became inevitable and immediate and the live consequences of this policy are now coming into sharp focus as reality kicks in and private schools see declining numbers for September term onwards
As I have said before the actual cost in children having to join the state sector and lost teaching jobs will be available in September and I genuinely expect labour to be shocked at the outcome
You think the IFS estimate is completely wrong?
But if children leaving the private sector are properly dispersed, then that means only two or three extra children for each state-sector school. Why is that an extra cost for the system?
And similarly teachers. There is currently a shortage of teachers in the state system, apparently. No problem then... any teacher now in the private sector can work in the state sector instead. No threat of unemployment there.
In the example cited, numbers have fallen from before covid until now. Remind me please.... Precisely when was this proposal of Labour's announced to the public? And if numbers were falling even before then, might not other factors have been at work?
You can't move seamlessly from private to state teacher. You need a couple of years teacher training.
I think. Doubtless ydoethur will correct or confirm
As far as I am aware different pension schemes as well
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
Our son holds a senior management position in our local private school and the imposition of vat, certain now Starmer is going to be PM in a few weeks , is having an effect on their school numbers and across the industry
It is also seriously worrying teachers in these schools and to suggest because Starmer is not in power it is not the cause of disruption in the industry is simply not borne out by those actually working in private schools
Yes, please see the article I just posted.
This policy is starting to kill off multiple small prep and community schools in that help children with special needs, like Dowdham Prep and Alton School (Convent).
It's not the Etons and Winchesters that will be hurt by it. It's the little guys.
Charging £18,000 per year. That's 140% higher than state school funding. And higher than average for private schools.
Alton School said in a statement: This proposal is based on a continued decline in pupil numbers, to the extent that the school has now become unviable
oh
Indeed. a 20% price shock on top of a cost of living crisis (the GFC was responsible for 30,000 pupils leaving private education and 30 schools closing), is not good news.
As someone who doesn't have kids and already pays taxes to educate other people's kids, I quite like it when parents reduce the tax burden on me by paying for their own kids.
Yes, and they're wrong, as I've repeatedly pointed out, doing my own sums on several threads. Ad infinitum, in fact.
Rather than rehashing my figures for the umpteenth time, I'll simply point you in the direction of the Guardian article that came out a week ago that arrived at a figure more or less identical to mine -
The estimate I can see there - not the Guardian's, but just attributed to an unnamed "leading industry consultant" - is here: I have heard that a leading industry consultant advises schools to budget for a near 25% decline by 2030. Notably, at a 25% decline, the net impact becomes negative as the cost of educating private school leavers in the state system would exceed all VAT gains.
So your estimate is that the net effect would be neutral?
No, I estimated a 30% decline over the next decade (based on how the GFC impacted intake numbers to extrapolate what a 20% hike in prices would likely do as existing kids finish private education but fewer start, leading to a year on year decline in numbers), which would make it a loss maker over time. That also doesn't take into account other effects such as the distortion in the housing market and the displacement of kids who might have otherwise got places for 'good' state schools now taken by those kids no longer attending private schools.
I think it's a bad policy, and I've repeatedly posted facts and figures with evidence to support this. Other posters with more experience of the education sector have also expressed similar doubts.
But it's a nice day out and I've no intention of rehashing this argument ad infinitum. I've posted my own figures repeatedly (which are close to those suggested in The Guardian) and expressed skepticism of the policy for the reasons above. We're now reaching a point where there's more repeats on here than afternoon television, so I'll stop.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
Our son holds a senior management position in our local private school and the imposition of vat, certain now Starmer is going to be PM in a few weeks , is having an effect on their school numbers and across the industry
It is also seriously worrying teachers in these schools and to suggest because Starmer is not in power it is not the cause of disruption in the industry is simply not borne out by those actually working in private schools
Yes, please see the article I just posted.
This policy is starting to kill off multiple small prep and community schools in that help children with special needs, like Dowdham Prep and Alton School (Convent).
It's not the Etons and Winchesters that will be hurt by it. It's the little guys.
Charging £18,000 per year. That's 140% higher than state school funding. And higher than average for private schools.
Alton School said in a statement: This proposal is based on a continued decline in pupil numbers, to the extent that the school has now become unviable
oh
Indeed. a 20% price shock on top of a cost of living crisis (the GFC was responsible for 30,000 pupils leaving private education and 30 schools closing), is not good news.
As someone who doesn't have kids and already pays taxes to educate other people's kids, I quite like it when parents reduce the tax burden on me by paying for their own kids.
That was in July 2023 and before the policy became inevitable and immediate and the live consequences of this policy are now coming into sharp focus as reality kicks in and private schools see declining numbers for September term onwards
As I have said before the actual cost in children having to join the state sector and lost teaching jobs will be available in September and I genuinely expect labour to be shocked at the outcome
Let's get a few things clear.
The two schools the Telegraph has highlighted have been struggling for a while. The VAT announcement can't have helped, but as a coup de grace, not killing a fundamentally sound institution.
Lots of other factors- cost of living, falling numbers of children and international market factors- are also issues.
Independent schools could, you know, cut their coats according to their cloth. They don't have to pass on the increased costs, and their record in recent decades has been to spend like sailors and charge accordingly, because they've been able to. The sort of economies needed are the sort that the state has been demanding of most schools for years.
And whilst it's never nice to have to find a new job, I'm pretty confident that any redundant teacher will find a job in the state sector. It's really short of people right now.
A final thought experiment. Suppose a government were to announce the reverse: finding VAT exemption for independent schools by cutting mental health support workers for state schools. Does anyone really want to go into bat for that?
The difference is I am witnessing it actually happening within our own community and as much as you try to defend the policy it is flawed and will not raise the money expected and as I say by Autumn the figures will not be good for the labour government
By which time they’ll be in government and won’t care ! The vast majority of the public could care less what Labour do to private schools . But will care about the 7.5 million waiting list on the NHS .
You miss the point
This policy is to pay for 6,000 extra teachers and the likelihood is it will actually cost the state sector far more so then where is the money for the extra teachers ?
It’s an election campaign where both sides are winging it and will face a harsh reality after the election .
I'm not sure that's a fair assessment to either side as we haven't seen their manifestos yet.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
Our son holds a senior management position in our local private school and the imposition of vat, certain now Starmer is going to be PM in a few weeks , is having an effect on their school numbers and across the industry
It is also seriously worrying teachers in these schools and to suggest because Starmer is not in power it is not the cause of disruption in the industry is simply not borne out by those actually working in private schools
Yes, please see the article I just posted.
This policy is starting to kill off multiple small prep and community schools in that help children with special needs, like Dowdham Prep and Alton School (Convent).
It's not the Etons and Winchesters that will be hurt by it. It's the little guys.
Charging £18,000 per year. That's 140% higher than state school funding. And higher than average for private schools.
Alton School said in a statement: This proposal is based on a continued decline in pupil numbers, to the extent that the school has now become unviable
oh
Indeed. a 20% price shock on top of a cost of living crisis (the GFC was responsible for 30,000 pupils leaving private education and 30 schools closing), is not good news.
As someone who doesn't have kids and already pays taxes to educate other people's kids, I quite like it when parents reduce the tax burden on me by paying for their own kids.
That was in July 2023 and before the policy became inevitable and immediate and the live consequences of this policy are now coming into sharp focus as reality kicks in and private schools see declining numbers for September term onwards
As I have said before the actual cost in children having to join the state sector and lost teaching jobs will be available in September and I genuinely expect labour to be shocked at the outcome
Let's get a few things clear.
The two schools the Telegraph has highlighted have been struggling for a while. The VAT announcement can't have helped, but as a coup de grace, not killing a fundamentally sound institution.
Lots of other factors- cost of living, falling numbers of children and international market factors- are also issues.
Independent schools could, you know, cut their coats according to their cloth. They don't have to pass on the increased costs, and their record in recent decades has been to spend like sailors and charge accordingly, because they've been able to. The sort of economies needed are the sort that the state has been demanding of most schools for years.
And whilst it's never nice to have to find a new job, I'm pretty confident that any redundant teacher will find a job in the state sector. It's really short of people right now.
A final thought experiment. Suppose a government were to announce the reverse: finding VAT exemption for independent schools by cutting mental health support workers for state schools. Does anyone really want to go into bat for that?
The difference is I am witnessing it actually happening within our own community and as much as you try to defend the policy it is flawed and will not raise the money expected and as I say by Autumn the figures will not be good for the labour government
By which time they’ll be in government and won’t care ! The vast majority of the public could care less what Labour do to private schools . But will care about the 7.5 million waiting list on the NHS .
You miss the point
This policy is to pay for 6,000 extra teachers and the likelihood is it will actually cost the state sector far more so then where is the money for the extra teachers ?
It’s an election campaign where both sides are winging it and will face a harsh reality after the election .
I agree. The spending review will be brutal, and more or less identical whoever wins (spoiler: it will be Labour).
At least in 2010 all parties rolled the pitch on the needs for cuts, and we had a bit of debate about WHICH cuts. This year no one wants to mention it.
I wrote a long post about the private school debate a few days ago, so will resist repeating it. But I'd like to reinforce three points from it:
1. I find it offensive that many of the private school advocates are so sneeringly contemptuous about a 'state education'. Many of us are very proud of our comprehensive schools and the excellent academic and social education they provided. 2. There's a good number of private schools that offer a pretty poor quality of education, but the parents are seemingly unaware of it. 3. I find it grossly offensive that those who do not sent their kids to private schools, either because they can't afford it or prefer the state sector, are said to be lacking in aspiration for their kids. Were my parents still alive, they'd be fuming at this suggestion.
We had a horrendous French teacher at my junior school who every parent knew was terrible but he was kept around because he was "a jolly good laugh".
My French teacher learned her French living in rural France. We had a new student join for GCSEs whose father was French and informed us that everybody appears to speak French like comedy thick farmer.
But the point is that I highly doubt this teacher would have been able to stay so long in a state school. Common Entrance is and was a bit of a joke so I get he wasn't really judged on much but I was baffled he was allowed to stay so long.
He was a quality banterman and a good rugby coach.
How is this any different from Tories for Nick Palmer that famously didn't do him any good in the end?
I must have missed that - was that in 2015?
Tories for Palmer made their first appearance 2005-10. He was very narrowly defeated in that election.
Crickey was it that far back.
I might be missing something, but what was the story? I don't quite get what's going on in High Peak either.
It should be a nonstory, but the plod have got involved because a Tory MP has been posting on Facebook saying Labour voters for him (but it still clearly says Tory Party ad). Nick Palmer basically had the same at during previous elections. He got a bit of stick on here at the time do you need one taxi or two for them all to fit in.
Its really just the equivalent of the testimonials that we see time and time again, i am a life long (insert party) but this time i will vote for (insert other party). Labour got caught last week doing it. Sunak has had his i am just an ordinary bloke in a yellow vest asking a helpful question.
@Casino_Royale Here’s one for you. Serious question. As a white, male, higher rate taxpayer who happens to work in the legal profession is told on a regular basis by you both, and the wider Tory party, that I am the cause of this nation’s ills and am not part of the body politic, apparently I “abet the work of criminal gangs” no less*,why should I stay in the U.K if Tories win? I could leave on a spouse visa to the States. What has the U.K. to offer me if the Tories win? You evidently hate people like me and everything we do. The same goes for teachers, civil servants, “luvvies” etc etc etc. Do I have a future in Tory Britain? I don’t think so.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
Our son holds a senior management position in our local private school and the imposition of vat, certain now Starmer is going to be PM in a few weeks , is having an effect on their school numbers and across the industry
It is also seriously worrying teachers in these schools and to suggest because Starmer is not in power it is not the cause of disruption in the industry is simply not borne out by those actually working in private schools
Yes, please see the article I just posted.
This policy is starting to kill off multiple small prep and community schools in that help children with special needs, like Dowdham Prep and Alton School (Convent).
It's not the Etons and Winchesters that will be hurt by it. It's the little guys.
Charging £18,000 per year. That's 140% higher than state school funding. And higher than average for private schools.
Alton School said in a statement: This proposal is based on a continued decline in pupil numbers, to the extent that the school has now become unviable
oh
Indeed. a 20% price shock on top of a cost of living crisis (the GFC was responsible for 30,000 pupils leaving private education and 30 schools closing), is not good news.
As someone who doesn't have kids and already pays taxes to educate other people's kids, I quite like it when parents reduce the tax burden on me by paying for their own kids.
That was in July 2023 and before the policy became inevitable and immediate and the live consequences of this policy are now coming into sharp focus as reality kicks in and private schools see declining numbers for September term onwards
As I have said before the actual cost in children having to join the state sector and lost teaching jobs will be available in September and I genuinely expect labour to be shocked at the outcome
Let's get a few things clear.
The two schools the Telegraph has highlighted have been struggling for a while. The VAT announcement can't have helped, but as a coup de grace, not killing a fundamentally sound institution.
Lots of other factors- cost of living, falling numbers of children and international market factors- are also issues.
Independent schools could, you know, cut their coats according to their cloth. They don't have to pass on the increased costs, and their record in recent decades has been to spend like sailors and charge accordingly, because they've been able to. The sort of economies needed are the sort that the state has been demanding of most schools for years.
And whilst it's never nice to have to find a new job, I'm pretty confident that any redundant teacher will find a job in the state sector. It's really short of people right now.
A final thought experiment. Suppose a government were to announce the reverse: finding VAT exemption for independent schools by cutting mental health support workers for state schools. Does anyone really want to go into bat for that?
The difference is I am witnessing it actually happening within our own community and as much as you try to defend the policy it is flawed and will not raise the money expected and as I say by Autumn the figures will not be good for the labour government
By which time they’ll be in government and won’t care ! The vast majority of the public could care less what Labour do to private schools . But will care about the 7.5 million waiting list on the NHS .
You miss the point
This policy is to pay for 6,000 extra teachers and the likelihood is it will actually cost the state sector far more so then where is the money for the extra teachers ?
It’s an election campaign where both sides are winging it and will face a harsh reality after the election .
I agree. The spending review will be brutal, and more of less identical whoever wins (spoiler: it will be Labour).
At least in 2010 all parties rolled the pitch on the needs for cuts, and we had a bit of debate about WHICH cuts. This year no one wants to mention it.
I'd say Labour in low 30s and Starmer ratings heavily negative by the end of this year.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
What solution do you propose that would be consistent with the nation-state? You (and arguably Casino) can work abroad *regardless* of who forms HMG. I understand your point but I don't know what the solution is. We have too many old and sick to adopt a Singapore option and I don't think Singapore scales to a country anyway. So I'm stuck.
Question: does this mean the end of the nation-state as the organising entity? If the talent migrates to the lowest tax regime and sunniest weather, how does Britain survive?
It's a very real question and it is one no party seems to even consider. Remote working plus digital visas plus English language universality means Britain is quite fucked, and politicians seem intent on fucking it up even more by importing millions of people who transform the safe, tolerant, secular culture of the country, which is one of the few things that makes people want to stay
Britain is probably doomed
There is of course a massive unmentioned elephant in the room here, which could potentially change all of this, but I'm not allowed to mention it
It's happening on a very minor scale in Scotland, with people WFH from Northumberland for Scottish banks and so on. You pay tax based on where you are resident, so you get a better deal in England... Also some edge cases with the military getting uplifts if they are based in Scotland. Again a very small effect but you can start to get a feel for it.
I assume there must be one or two civil servants in that position, which is interesting if they are enacting policy than does not affect where they live. Nothing wrong in principle with that, but it does make me uneasy.
I would guess we will move from residency based income taxation to something else. The social contract between taxation/services feels vulnerable.
What I never understood about the military was HMG were only worried about the officers and higher NCOs in Scotland. Not the lower ranks in rUK. No payment to them for being so unfortunate as to be sent to live in, say, Catterick rather than Redford, and so pay more tax.
I can't believe there is so much discussion of VAT on private schools. It really does show how unrepresentative of the wider population this board is.
I think it does show the discussion here is unrepresentative.
I can understand some people have strong opinions about it if it is going to cost them money, but I can't understand their thinking that if the Tories press the issue it is going to transform the contest. It will just not be important to enough people who are open to switching to the Tories.
Perhaps an interesting question is whether the people who have Rishi Sunak's ear are similarly unrealistic about this and similar issues.
I would just comment that @RochdalePioneers confirmed to me when I asked him that it is Lib Dem policy to oppose vat on private school fees so not just conservatives
Lib Dem opposition to policies on educational fees tends to evaporate after the election has passed.
Very droll.
The fact is that when it comes to VAT on private schools the Lib Dems don’t have particularly strong views. It
That sounds plausible. Indeed, if anyone discovers an issue that the Lib Dems do have particularly strong views on these days, it would be interesting to hear about it.
It’s all here if you care to read, including much more specific policies than either other party has published yet.
These dates were all before private school fees blew up on the doorsteps.
Have we done this poll?
Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if some private schools have to close because they cannot afford to operate if their VAT tax breaks are withdrawn? The public are divided:
The question is so loaded it sinks below the Plimsoll line. Why not ask "Should we provide tax breaks to wealthy parents who can afford to give their children a privileged education?", which is just as valid or invalid.
Or this tracker poll also from Yougov, which depending on how you interpret the three way question* gives a five to one advantage to those wanting to remove the tax break.
* On the basis that the "tax break only if private schools support state schools more" option is in practice "remove" because (a) they don't and (b) it doesn't make the school fees cheaper for those that can afford them so it won't make any difference to schools closing.
I am currently laid up with sciatica so unusually am not on the campaign trail. Ground war intelligence will therefore be limited. I did note however that the Lib Dem candidate in Sheffield Hallam is campaigning under the slogan ' Shaffaq for Shaffield'. (Shades of Hooley for Healey).
I am also suffering from Sciatica - had tried to treat it with copious amounts of booze and Ibuprofen but I’ve now given up and resting it - I’ve discovered that BBC, ITV and C4 have some really good old films films that you wouldn’t find on all the streaming services so I’m treating myself to The 39 Steps with Robert Powell on ITV player. I hope you recover quickly.
These dates were all before private school fees blew up on the doorsteps.
Have we done this poll?
Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if some private schools have to close because they cannot afford to operate if their VAT tax breaks are withdrawn? The public are divided:
The question is so loaded it sinks below the Plimsoll line. Why not ask "Should we provide tax breaks to wealthy parents who can afford to give their children a privileged education?", which is just as valid or invalid.
Or this tracker poll also from Yougov, which depending on how you interpret the three way question* gives a five to one advantage to those wanting to remove the tax break.
* On the basis that the only allow the "tax break only if private schools support state schools more" option is in practice remove because (a) they aren't and (b) it doesn't make the school fees cheaper for those that can afford them so it won't make any difference to schools closing.
It's an interesting one for sure.
I think tax break can be interpreted in a negative way but putting a tax on can be interpreted positively. I.e. tax the rich always seems to score highly in polling.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
It is, you absolute and total fucking moron.
It's exactly what killed it off. Pupil numbers dived for next year because parents weren't willing to subscribe to the school with that sort of price increase hanging over their head. It's not a hugely wealthy area here. The letter from the Trustees specifically highlighted these political factors pushing the school roll into unviability.
I know you don't want to accept this because it means accepting that your nasty little policy has nasty real-world effects. But it's thrown my son out of his school, lost the community an important educational institution, and lost his teachers their jobs- many of whom are family friends. I hate Labour for it.
So fuck off, there's a good chap.
Reading todays Telegraph, Labour have now already killed a second one 😢
And the anti aspirational, class war, anti Tory not governing for all the country, no such thing as a family it’s just you and the state government - arn’t even IN YET!
Just look at Streeting’s reply on QT. And BJO comments this morning, nearly tempting him back, The state of it.
I went to a private boarding school in North Wales at the age of eight. There were lots of them dotted around. You had to go that young if you wanted to go onto Public School which took you at thirteen. I don't know a single person who followed that route who wouldn't have loved a government to come in and price their parents out of sending them!
I was educated in state sector, and I said to my mum, why didn’t you send me to a private school with all the money you have? And she said it was a school with a very good reputation for exam grades, so there was no need to spend money on a private education.
So it’s not about how much money in the household, but the type of thinking and parenting. I don’t think she had ever bothered a thought toward whatever I ended up doing in life, muck spreader, air hostess like herself, bar maid.
I’m not sure I would think the same, without ambition if I had children.
I have benefited from heaps of family money though when I went to college in London. So that’s alright then.
It only took 12 years but SKS has decided to pick up the Blue Labour movement that Ed Milliband temporarily tried.
This has to be a pitch to the Sun right?
There's something about SKS that's very insincere: like he knows he has to say all the right things to win, but does he actually believe them?
With Blair, you never had a doubt. With Sir Keir "I am a socialist" Starmer you simply don't know.
I kind of feel again this is a bit telling the story after the event. I posted the other day a load of things from 1997 that said Blair didn't believe in anything, there was no enthusiasm for Labour etc.
How is this any different from Tories for Nick Palmer that famously didn't do him any good in the end?
I must have missed that - was that in 2015?
Tories for Palmer made their first appearance 2005-10. He was very narrowly defeated in that election.
Crickey was it that far back.
I might be missing something, but what was the story? I don't quite get what's going on in High Peak either.
It should be a nonstory, but the plod have got involved because a Tory MP has been posting on Facebook saying Labour voters for him (but it still clearly says Tory Party ad). Nick Palmer basically had the same at during previous elections. He got a bit of stick on here at the time do you need one taxi or two for them all to fit in.
Its really just the equivalent of the testimonials that we see time and time again, i am a life long (insert party) but this time i will vote for (insert other party). Labour got caught last week doing it. Sunak has had his i am just an ordinary bloke in a yellow vest asking a helpful question.
I wouldn't say it was a none story - he's misrepresenting the party he is standing for...
If Labour tax excessively or ruin the country I'll be off too. That Thailand link looks very appealing
As I read this and think about it, it's dawning in me... Something that should strike terror into lefties in the post COVID world...
Post COVID remote working = 💪💪steroids💪💪 for the Laffer curve
The Tories are taxing excessively. And have ruined the country.
And yet you are still here...
Damn right they have. I'm on the fence right now. Family connections etc being the only thing really keeping me there. If the situation worsens significantly I'll be off
But that was just my personal anecdote
My main point is, we don't know for sure what shape the Laffer curve is until it's put to the test. My view is, now, with remote working and easy digital nomad visas, high taxes ain't that viable anymore
And this is the conundrum faced by most western governments. They are expensive places to live, need to raise hefty tax revenues to pay for it, but the world gets more connected every year making it easy for disconnected people and companies to leave.
Two ways to change things: 1. Cut costs. The UK is absurdly expensive from the perspective of administrative and bureaucratic cost. The spivocracy takes its cut so that no matter how much money we tip into services we always seem to end up with dangerously threadbare front line provision. We're not spending money on the right things 2. Make the UK worth investing in. Better infrastructure, better skills, longer-term planning instead of immediate political tactical points-scoring
If we actually had good services, good infrastructure, good investment into skills then maybe the taxes taken might be worth paying. But we don't. An ocean of cash being wasted, and a skim off the top into Tory pockets.
I agree about the waste. Not just Tory pockets tho. Plenty of labour sorting union types in the public sector draining just as much cash
In my opinion the problem in both cases is lack of accountability. Imo all power requires accountability and that isn't happening
Imo all public services basically need to be dismantled and rebuilt from scratch in an accountable way. NHS -> continental European insurance style system. Voucher based education system where successful profitable schools can expand and take over/replace unsuccessful ones. Other services -> as localised as possible
Both main political parties have their vested interests that stand in the way of this but if a political leader is willing to be brave and face those down, and take their long term political success from an electorate they have enriched with an amazing country that works and provides good quality of life, at a lower tax cost, then I'd love to see that. Can't see it happening with these two. Not in a million years
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
Lots of entrepreneurs have already gone to places like Dubai. They can run their UK businesses fairly easily now with combination of zoom and coming back for a few days here and there. The internet has changed that requirement you need to be physically located in the country where you do business, but the poor f##ks who do the low end part of the work do.
Given the possible vat measure, I have made inquiries with my local council on primary places for Sept. As of last week, my local schools have precisely 0,0,1 & 2 places at Reception for Sept. For the age group a couple of years older it is…0.
I will move heaven and earth not to disrupt my children’s education mid phase (though judging by the class whatsapp group, a few self employed parents will be forced into the switch). But it’s not hard to see how intakes for the year starting Sept 2025 are going to stretch the admissions process to breaking point, to the detriment of all children.
Then we get to the secondary phase. I live in a Grammar country, the admissions process for which already leads to a fairly socially engineered intake. With Starmer’s tax, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s going to happen to average household incomes of state grammars from next year.
Such a poor policy. And of course discriminatory given it impacts a specific age group (namely 5-18) but not younger or older.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
What solution do you propose that would be consistent with the nation-state? You (and arguably Casino) can work abroad *regardless* of who forms HMG. I understand your point but I don't know what the solution is. We have too many old and sick to adopt a Singapore option and I don't think Singapore scales to a country anyway. So I'm stuck.
Question: does this mean the end of the nation-state as the organising entity? If the talent migrates to the lowest tax regime and sunniest weather, how does Britain survive?
It's a very real question and it is one no party seems to even consider. Remote working plus digital visas plus English language universality means Britain is quite fucked, and politicians seem intent on fucking it up even more by importing millions of people who transform the safe, tolerant, secular culture of the country, which is one of the few things that makes people want to stay
Britain is probably doomed
There is of course a massive unmentioned elephant in the room here, which could potentially change all of this, but I'm not allowed to mention it
It's happening on a very minor scale in Scotland, with people WFH from Northumberland for Scottish banks and so on. You pay tax based on where you are resident, so you get a better deal in England... Also some edge cases with the military getting uplifts if they are based in Scotland. Again a very small effect but you can start to get a feel for it.
I assume there must be one or two civil servants in that position, which is interesting if they are enacting policy than does not affect where they live. Nothing wrong in principle with that, but it does make me uneasy.
I would guess we will move from residency based income taxation to something else. The social contract between taxation/services feels vulnerable.
What I never understood about the military was HMG were only worried about the officers and higher NCOs in Scotland. Not the lower ranks in rUK. No payment to them for being so unfortunate as to be sent to live in, say, Catterick rather than Redford, and so pay more tax.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
I genuinely hope not as this is a wonderful country with lots of good things to be proud off and living abroad does not guarantee happiness anyway
I like @Casino_Royale and admire his resolute defence of his positions though he does go a wee bit over the top at times
This forum needs lots of views and at present conservative views are really irrelevant but it will not be long before the focus will turn to Labour and we will see just how they cope in very difficult times
It only took 12 years but SKS has decided to pick up the Blue Labour movement that Ed Milliband temporarily tried.
This has to be a pitch to the Sun right?
There's something about SKS that's very insincere: like he knows he has to say all the right things to win, but does he actually believe them?
With Blair, you never had a doubt. With Sir Keir "I am a socialist" Starmer you simply don't know.
I kind of feel again this is a bit telling the story after the event. I posted the other day a load of things from 1997 that said Blair didn't believe in anything, there was no enthusiasm for Labour etc.
Have a look at how high Blair's leadership ratings were in 1997.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
What solution do you propose that would be consistent with the nation-state? You (and arguably Casino) can work abroad *regardless* of who forms HMG. I understand your point but I don't know what the solution is. We have too many old and sick to adopt a Singapore option and I don't think Singapore scales to a country anyway. So I'm stuck.
Question: does this mean the end of the nation-state as the organising entity? If the talent migrates to the lowest tax regime and sunniest weather, how does Britain survive?
It's a very real question and it is one no party seems to even consider. Remote working plus digital visas plus English language universality means Britain is quite fucked, and politicians seem intent on fucking it up even more by importing millions of people who transform the safe, tolerant, secular culture of the country, which is one of the few things that makes people want to stay
Britain is probably doomed
There is of course a massive unmentioned elephant in the room here, which could potentially change all of this, but I'm not allowed to mention it
It's happening on a very minor scale in Scotland, with people WFH from Northumberland for Scottish banks and so on. You pay tax based on where you are resident, so you get a better deal in England... Also some edge cases with the military getting uplifts if they are based in Scotland. Again a very small effect but you can start to get a feel for it.
I assume there must be one or two civil servants in that position, which is interesting if they are enacting policy than does not affect where they live. Nothing wrong in principle with that, but it does make me uneasy.
I would guess we will move from residency based income taxation to something else. The social contract between taxation/services feels vulnerable.
What I never understood about the military was HMG were only worried about the officers and higher NCOs in Scotland. Not the lower ranks in rUK. No payment to them for being so unfortunate as to be sent to live in, say, Catterick rather than Redford, and so pay more tax.
Ha. Never thought of that!
It's not in itself an unreasonable principle, if one is sent to different parts of the UK, if it is done fairly. But the Tory emphasis is rather blatant here.
How is this any different from Tories for Nick Palmer that famously didn't do him any good in the end?
I must have missed that - was that in 2015?
Tories for Palmer made their first appearance 2005-10. He was very narrowly defeated in that election.
Crickey was it that far back.
I might be missing something, but what was the story? I don't quite get what's going on in High Peak either.
It should be a nonstory, but the plod have got involved because a Tory MP has been posting on Facebook saying Labour voters for him (but it still clearly says Tory Party ad). Nick Palmer basically had the same at during previous elections. He got a bit of stick on here at the time do you need one taxi or two for them all to fit in.
Its really just the equivalent of the testimonials that we see time and time again, i am a life long (insert party) but this time i will vote for (insert other party). Labour got caught last week doing it. Sunak has had his i am just an ordinary bloke in a yellow vest asking a helpful question.
I wouldn't say it was a none story - he's misrepresenting the party he is standing for...
It's obvious what he's up to. Clear attempt to impersonate the Labour candidate when you consider the average attention span of a voter
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
Lots of entrepreneurs have already gone to places like Dubai. They can run their UK businesses fairly easily now with combination of zoom and coming back for a few days here and there. The internet has changed that requirement you need to be physically located in the country where you do business.
And yet the idiot PB lefties on here will 1. deny it is happening or can ever happen, and 2. even when it DOES happen they will deny it is happening, even with the person to whom it is happening
"What you are personally experiencing is a lie, and you are wrong, you are not experiencing this"
How is this any different from Tories for Nick Palmer that famously didn't do him any good in the end?
I must have missed that - was that in 2015?
Tories for Palmer made their first appearance 2005-10. He was very narrowly defeated in that election.
Crickey was it that far back.
I might be missing something, but what was the story? I don't quite get what's going on in High Peak either.
It should be a nonstory, but the plod have got involved because a Tory MP has been posting on Facebook saying Labour voters for him (but it still clearly says Tory Party ad). Nick Palmer basically had the same at during previous elections. He got a bit of stick on here at the time do you need one taxi or two for them all to fit in.
Its really just the equivalent of the testimonials that we see time and time again, i am a life long (insert party) but this time i will vote for (insert other party). Labour got caught last week doing it. Sunak has had his i am just an ordinary bloke in a yellow vest asking a helpful question.
I wouldn't say it was a none story - he's misrepresenting the party he is standing for...
No he is not. Only the wilfully ignorant can possibly understand it in those terms. I don’t think it’s wise or helpful but it is not deceptive.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
Our son holds a senior management position in our local private school and the imposition of vat, certain now Starmer is going to be PM in a few weeks , is having an effect on their school numbers and across the industry
It is also seriously worrying teachers in these schools and to suggest because Starmer is not in power it is not the cause of disruption in the industry is simply not borne out by those actually working in private schools
Yes, please see the article I just posted.
This policy is starting to kill off multiple small prep and community schools in that help children with special needs, like Dowdham Prep and Alton School (Convent).
It's not the Etons and Winchesters that will be hurt by it. It's the little guys.
Charging £18,000 per year. That's 140% higher than state school funding. And higher than average for private schools.
Alton School said in a statement: This proposal is based on a continued decline in pupil numbers, to the extent that the school has now become unviable
oh
Indeed. a 20% price shock on top of a cost of living crisis (the GFC was responsible for 30,000 pupils leaving private education and 30 schools closing), is not good news.
As someone who doesn't have kids and already pays taxes to educate other people's kids, I quite like it when parents reduce the tax burden on me by paying for their own kids.
Yes, and they're wrong, as I've repeatedly pointed out, doing my own sums on several threads. Ad infinitum, in fact.
Rather than rehashing my figures for the umpteenth time, I'll simply point you in the direction of the Guardian article that came out a week ago that arrived at a figure more or less identical to mine -
The estimate I can see there - not the Guardian's, but just attributed to an unnamed "leading industry consultant" - is here: I have heard that a leading industry consultant advises schools to budget for a near 25% decline by 2030. Notably, at a 25% decline, the net impact becomes negative as the cost of educating private school leavers in the state system would exceed all VAT gains.
So your estimate is that the net effect would be neutral?
No, I estimated a 30% decline over the next decade (based on how the GFC impacted intake numbers to extrapolate what a 20% hike in prices would likely do as existing kids finish private education but fewer start, leading to a year on year decline in numbers), which would make it a loss maker over time. That also doesn't take into account other effects such as the distortion in the housing market and the displacement of kids who might have otherwise got places for 'good' state schools now taken by those kids no longer attending private schools.
I think it's a bad policy, and I've repeatedly posted facts and figures with evidence to support this. Other posters with more experience of the education sector have also expressed similar doubts.
But it's a nice day out and I've no intention of rehashing this argument ad infinitum. I've posted my own figures repeatedly (which are close to those suggested in The Guardian) and expressed skepticism of the policy for the reasons above. We're now reaching a point where there's more repeats on here than afternoon television, so I'll stop.
Never mind, then.
Sorry, but cider with friends in a sunny beer garden beckons. My calculations based on the available data points (from the GFC) indicate a potential drop in numbers of 30% in 10 years, which makes the policy net negative. Plus the distortions to the housing market and increased competition for good state school places. It's a subject on which I've posted many times, and don't want to rehash again, since it's a lovely day outside.
FWIW, I do see the other side to the argument and my calculations are based on fairly limited data, the GFC being a two or three year blip at most, with long term predictions over the next decade becoming more guesswork - but my guess is, as it has repeatedly been, that this policy will end up costing the taxpayer and reduce educational outcomes for thousands of children over the long run.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
What solution do you propose that would be consistent with the nation-state? You (and arguably Casino) can work abroad *regardless* of who forms HMG. I understand your point but I don't know what the solution is. We have too many old and sick to adopt a Singapore option and I don't think Singapore scales to a country anyway. So I'm stuck.
Question: does this mean the end of the nation-state as the organising entity? If the talent migrates to the lowest tax regime and sunniest weather, how does Britain survive?
It's a very real question and it is one no party seems to even consider. Remote working plus digital visas plus English language universality means Britain is quite fucked, and politicians seem intent on fucking it up even more by importing millions of people who transform the safe, tolerant, secular culture of the country, which is one of the few things that makes people want to stay
Britain is probably doomed
There is of course a massive unmentioned elephant in the room here, which could potentially change all of this, but I'm not allowed to mention it
I don’t go for the same hyperbole, but it’s certainly true that the number of people now able to work from anywhere, often well-paid positions in creative or consultancy industries, does represent something of a threat to many developed Western countries.
That many governments of second-tier economies, are now going out of their way to sell this remote working to the global mobile, including with generous tax breaks, should be concerning to Western governments. When it’s a few hundred people no-one notices, but a trickle can quickly turn into a flood if global companies start encouraging it. £100k to live in London, or £80k to live on a beach in Thailand, is an easy decision to make for many.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
I genuinely hope not as this is a wonderful country with lots of good things to be proud off and living abroad does not guarantee happiness anyway
I like @Casino_Royale and admire his resolute defence of his positions though he does go a wee bit over the top at times
This forum needs lots of views and at present conservative views are really irrelevant but it will not be long before the focus will turn to Labour and we will see just how they cope in very difficult times
Is Britain still a wonderful country? Compared to others? These days I am not entirely sure, and that grieves me
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
It is, you absolute and total fucking moron.
It's exactly what killed it off. Pupil numbers dived for next year because parents weren't willing to subscribe to the school with that sort of price increase hanging over their head. It's not a hugely wealthy area here. The letter from the Trustees specifically highlighted these political factors pushing the school roll into unviability.
I know you don't want to accept this because it means accepting that your nasty little policy has nasty real-world effects. But it's thrown my son out of his school, lost the community an important educational institution, and lost his teachers their jobs- many of whom are family friends. I hate Labour for it.
So fuck off, there's a good chap.
Reading todays Telegraph, Labour have now already killed a second one 😢
And the anti aspirational, class war, anti Tory not governing for all the country, no such thing as a family it’s just you and the state government - arn’t even IN YET!
Just look at Streeting’s reply on QT. And BJO comments this morning, nearly tempting him back, The state of it.
I went to a private boarding school in North Wales at the age of eight. There were lots of them dotted around. You had to go that young if you wanted to go onto Public School which took you at thirteen. I don't know a single person who followed that route who wouldn't have loved a government to come in and price their parents out of sending them!
I was educated in the state sector, and I said to my mum, why didn’t you send me to a private school with all the money you have? And she said it was a school with a very good reputation, so there was no need to spend money on a private education.
So it’s not about how much money in the household, but the type of thinking. She wasn’t bothered whatever I ended up doing in life, muck spreader, air hostess like herself, bar maid.
I’m not sure I would think the same, without ambition if I had children.
As a parent, I've experienced both and come to the general conclusion that it is better to retain the money for the child's future rather spending it on the upgrade to private school.
I should say that both my children ended their school years at separate state schools. Both state schools are highly regarded, particularly the school my youngest goes to (she's in her last year). It is so good that it equals the private schools I am familiar with in most respects (i.e. except class size) and she has a much better social life as it is a much bigger school. So the state school postcode lottery and luck in application really come into it.
Edit: worth adding that if VAT was on the fees we would never have entertained private schools at all.
The question is not whether people who use public schools to educate their children are rich or poor, good or evil, deserving or undeserving. The question is whether it is a "them" problem (the responsibility of the individual) or an "us" problem (the responsibility of the collective and hence the nation). For the life of me I can't put it in the latter category. The government is responsible for providing education (I think?) but should not enforce its use. If Casino or anybody else wants to educate his children in public schools, and he can afford it, then the state should not compel him.
That, to be fair, is not what this is about, unlike in 1987 when Kinnock did stand on a manifesto of outlawing fee paying education.
It's about realism and incentives and what damage is done along the way.
This is a bad policy because it will kill marginal schools while leaving Eton untouched.
But if we say the government shouldn't interfere at all, where does that go? Do we then adopt the TSE idea of vouchers for all which can be doubled for poorer families and topped up by richer ones?
(FWIW I think that's a much better policy in terms of social mobility than VAT on private schools.)
Are you saying Eton will pay no VAT?
Eton has two options:
Option one; to charge the VAT in which case most of their parents will be able to afford it with no trouble at all and they will be unaffected;
Option two; to meet the additional requirement for VAT out of their income from endowments, which is sufficiently large that they could probably afford not to charge fees at all for around 50 years.
My guess is they will have some combination of the two.
The irony is, if they go for option two and at the same time are forced to become a corporation, they will probably end up running at a constant loss as a result and so pay no corporation tax.
My guess, given the rowing lake story, is that they will take a third option.
Restructure and discover that the government ends up paying them net VAT.
I wonder if smaller private schools could end up banding together and form a larger organisation (the way in the state sector they have multi-academy trusts) and leverage the same tax advantages?
One can imagine private equity buying them up and forming groups of schools, with the unviable ones closed with land and buildings repurposed.
The question is not whether people who use public schools to educate their children are rich or poor, good or evil, deserving or undeserving. The question is whether it is a "them" problem (the responsibility of the individual) or an "us" problem (the responsibility of the collective and hence the nation). For the life of me I can't put it in the latter category. The government is responsible for providing education (I think?) but should not enforce its use. If Casino or anybody else wants to educate his children in public schools, and he can afford it, then the state should not compel him.
That, to be fair, is not what this is about, unlike in 1987 when Kinnock did stand on a manifesto of outlawing fee paying education.
It's about realism and incentives and what damage is done along the way.
This is a bad policy because it will kill marginal schools while leaving Eton untouched.
But if we say the government shouldn't interfere at all, where does that go? Do we then adopt the TSE idea of vouchers for all which can be doubled for poorer families and topped up by richer ones?
(FWIW I think that's a much better policy in terms of social mobility than VAT on private schools.)
Are you saying Eton will pay no VAT?
Eton has two options:
Option one; to charge the VAT in which case most of their parents will be able to afford it with no trouble at all and they will be unaffected;
Option two; to meet the additional requirement for VAT out of their income from endowments, which is sufficiently large that they could probably afford not to charge fees at all for around 50 years.
My guess is they will have some combination of the two.
The irony is, if they go for option two and at the same time are forced to become a corporation, they will probably end up running at a constant loss as a result and so pay no corporation tax.
My guess, given the rowing lake story, is that they will take a third option.
Restructure and discover that the government ends up paying them net VAT.
I wonder if smaller private schools could end up banding together and form a larger organisation (the way in the state sector they have multi-academy trusts) and leverage the same tax advantages?
One can imagine private equity buying them up and forming groups of schools, with the unviable ones closed with land and buildings repurposed.
Oh god, the classic PE, sale and lease back of physical assets tactic. Morrisons will shortly be going busto for this very reason.
No they aren't but that's not the point I was making, mine was about the narrative which is strikingly similar to 1997.
Blair’s ratings rose significantly after the election. That chart doesn’t show the pre election period. They were always higher than any recent leader of either party though.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
I genuinely hope not as this is a wonderful country with lots of good things to be proud off and living abroad does not guarantee happiness anyway
I like @Casino_Royale and admire his resolute defence of his positions though he does go a wee bit over the top at times
This forum needs lots of views and at present conservative views are really irrelevant but it will not be long before the focus will turn to Labour and we will see just how they cope in very difficult times
Is Britain still a wonderful country? Compared to others? These days I am not entirely sure, and that grieves me
As you know I have travelled from the Artic to Antarctic and all places in between but when I arrive home here in Llandudno I always remember the expression - east - west - home is best
No they aren't but that's not the point I was making, mine was about the narrative which is strikingly similar to 1997.
There’s some truth in that, but I promise you Blair did “feel” much more liked in 1997. He had a touch of the “JFK factor” and Starmer is no where near that. Also the 97 manifesto was more radical than some pretend. Minimum wage. Windfall tax. Independent BoE. Lords reform.
But you’re right some of the respect for him came later. But he had advantages in that which Starmer won’t have. He spent 97-01 reaping the rewards of Major’s hard work, and winning popular wars, and as we moved into the 01 election he had loads of cash to shower everywhere. Starmer won’t have that.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
What solution do you propose that would be consistent with the nation-state? You (and arguably Casino) can work abroad *regardless* of who forms HMG. I understand your point but I don't know what the solution is. We have too many old and sick to adopt a Singapore option and I don't think Singapore scales to a country anyway. So I'm stuck.
Question: does this mean the end of the nation-state as the organising entity? If the talent migrates to the lowest tax regime and sunniest weather, how does Britain survive?
It's a very real question and it is one no party seems to even consider. Remote working plus digital visas plus English language universality means Britain is quite fucked, and politicians seem intent on fucking it up even more by importing millions of people who transform the safe, tolerant, secular culture of the country, which is one of the few things that makes people want to stay
Britain is probably doomed
There is of course a massive unmentioned elephant in the room here, which could potentially change all of this, but I'm not allowed to mention it
It's happening on a very minor scale in Scotland, with people WFH from Northumberland for Scottish banks and so on. You pay tax based on where you are resident, so you get a better deal in England... Also some edge cases with the military getting uplifts if they are based in Scotland. Again a very small effect but you can start to get a feel for it.
I assume there must be one or two civil servants in that position, which is interesting if they are enacting policy than does not affect where they live. Nothing wrong in principle with that, but it does make me uneasy.
I would guess we will move from residency based income taxation to something else. The social contract between taxation/services feels vulnerable.
What I never understood about the military was HMG were only worried about the officers and higher NCOs in Scotland. Not the lower ranks in rUK. No payment to them for being so unfortunate as to be sent to live in, say, Catterick rather than Redford, and so pay more tax.
Ha. Never thought of that!
It's not in itself an unreasonable principle, if one is sent to different parts of the UK, if it is done fairly. But the Tory emphasis is rather blatant here.
Well there was that attempt at a court case that argued being forced to live in Edinburgh was against human rights.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
What solution do you propose that would be consistent with the nation-state? You (and arguably Casino) can work abroad *regardless* of who forms HMG. I understand your point but I don't know what the solution is. We have too many old and sick to adopt a Singapore option and I don't think Singapore scales to a country anyway. So I'm stuck.
Question: does this mean the end of the nation-state as the organising entity? If the talent migrates to the lowest tax regime and sunniest weather, how does Britain survive?
It's a very real question and it is one no party seems to even consider. Remote working plus digital visas plus English language universality means Britain is quite fucked, and politicians seem intent on fucking it up even more by importing millions of people who transform the safe, tolerant, secular culture of the country, which is one of the few things that makes people want to stay
Britain is probably doomed
There is of course a massive unmentioned elephant in the room here, which could potentially change all of this, but I'm not allowed to mention it
I don’t go for the same hyperbole, but it’s certainly true that the number of people now able to work from anywhere, often well-paid positions in creative or consultancy industries, does represent something of a threat to many developed Western countries.
That many governments of second-tier economies, are now going out of their way to sell this remote working to the global mobile, including with generous tax breaks, should be concerning to Western governments. When it’s a few hundred people no-one notices, but a trickle can quickly turn into a flood if global companies start encouraging it. £100k to live in London, or £80k to live on a beach in Thailand, is an easy decision to make for many.
The digital tax exile decision was easier when it was nice nearby places like the Netherlands and Portugal. As they close their schemes, the difference to home becomes harder to overcome. E.g. educating your kids in Greece or Thailand. Not unfeasible, just much more like emigration. And, of course, global companies know they do not need to pay £80k if the job ends up in Thailand.
No they aren't but that's not the point I was making, mine was about the narrative which is strikingly similar to 1997.
There’s some truth in that, but I promise you Blair did “feel” much more liked in 1997. He had a touch of the “JFK factor” and Starmer is no where near that. Also the 97 manifesto was more radical than some pretend. Minimum wage. Windfall tax. Independent BoE. Lords reform.
But you’re right some of the respect for him came later. But he had advantages in that which Starmer won’t have. He spent 97-01 reaping the rewards of Major’s hard work, and winning popular wars, and as we moved into the 01 election he had loads of cash to shower everywhere. Starmer won’t have that.
I am under no doubt Blair was more liked than Starmer - but my point is that he wasn't universally loved in the way some people now say. That narrative developed post the election.
I do think the narrative is very similar. The "no love for Labour" sticks out to me, along with "the don't knows will save us", as was a Mail headline. And something I recall Labour supporters in 2019 (including me) saying. I don't buy it.
Let’s hope the predictions of a 30% decline in independent sector don’t actually happen.
It’s one of Britain’s few globally outstanding industries.
It's going to happen.
This policy reminds me of Adam Curtis's "oh dearism" in policy-making. When the consequences are revealed those who supported this will scratch their heads accordingly.
There is method in [Ed Davey’s] malarkey. Much of the battle for the Lib Dems is persuading the national media to pay them any attention. If he has to play the good-for-a-laugh centrist dad to get himself on TV and in the newspapers, he reckons the pratfalls are a sacrifice worth making. He also looks like a man who is enjoying himself, which is more than can be said for the stolid electioneering of his rivals.
Sir Ed says there isn’t “a ceiling on our ambitions”, but there evidently is and it is self-imposed. The lesson he and other senior members of his party took away from their dismal showing at the last election was that they over-reached.
Team Davey believes that targeting senior Tories is good for attracting coverage, rustling up donations and attracting voters with the thought of punishing the Conservatives for the last 14 years by ejecting a cabinet name. It also presents a headache for Tory campaign planners by pinning down high-profile Conservatives in local struggles to save their skins.
The manner in which Labour and the Tories have begun their campaigns is encouraging for Sir Ed. Rishi Sunak’s desperate scattergun of promises…are designed to appeal to rightwing voters of advancing years. The Tory pitch is much less likely to appeal to liberal, centrist folk in relatively affluent seats. Voters there are most animated by issues that the Lib Dems are using as their campaign themes, strongest among them being the dilapidated state of public services and the befoulment of our waterways. As for Sir Keir, it has been safety first and don’t say anything that might frighten the swing voter from Labour. This suits the Lib Dems just fine.
What would a good result for the Lib Dems look like? Their primary ambition is to gain sufficient seats to supplant the SNP as the third largest grouping in the Commons, the position they held until 2015. To larger parties, this might not seem terribly ambitious. To the Lib Dems, being restored to the status of third party at Westminster would be ecstasy after so many years of agony. Sir Ed regards any number of silly stunts as a price well worth paying in pursuit of what would be a serious advance.
One silly thing about this country: how absolutely no-one will take a £50 note despite them being perfectly legal tender, and up to €500 euro notes being accepted in Germany.
£50 isn't even that much. It must be branding and reputation.
The above works ok for large legit businesses, but I don't think it works at all for small businesses, which make up the vast bulk of the economy.
On the first one. Lets say the authorities actually can expose this (they currently do a piss poor job of all the dodgy car washes and barbers laundering money and using illegal immigrants), what stops a small business just shutting up shop, rebrand, open again (perhaps with a different name above the door).
On the second we hear this time and time again. Then the industry lobby really hard and government back down. We had it with fruit pickers, with curry chefs, etc.
No they aren't but that's not the point I was making, mine was about the narrative which is strikingly similar to 1997.
There’s some truth in that, but I promise you Blair did “feel” much more liked in 1997. He had a touch of the “JFK factor” and Starmer is no where near that. Also the 97 manifesto was more radical than some pretend. Minimum wage. Windfall tax. Independent BoE. Lords reform.
But you’re right some of the respect for him came later. But he had advantages in that which Starmer won’t have. He spent 97-01 reaping the rewards of Major’s hard work, and winning popular wars, and as we moved into the 01 election he had loads of cash to shower everywhere. Starmer won’t have that.
I am under no doubt Blair was more liked than Starmer - but my point is that he wasn't universally loved in the way some people now say. That narrative developed post the election.
I do think the narrative is very similar. The "no love for Labour" sticks out to me, along with "the don't knows will save us", as was a Mail headline. And something I recall Labour supporters in 2019 (including me) saying. I don't buy it.
Like I say, I don’t 100% disagree but it did just feel a bit different. You’re right that some the press coverage is the same, but I’m talking more about the “real world” where the emotion was hope and relief, as opposed to today where I think it’s more muted. People were really happy to see Blair win, whereas with Starmer I don’t see it.
It only took 12 years but SKS has decided to pick up the Blue Labour movement that Ed Milliband temporarily tried.
This has to be a pitch to the Sun right?
There's something about SKS that's very insincere: like he knows he has to say all the right things to win, but does he actually believe them?
With Blair, you never had a doubt. With Sir Keir "I am a socialist" Starmer you simply don't know.
I actually think Starmer is more sincere than Blair was. These things are highly relative.
I also think Sunak more sincere than Starmer. It doesn't do him any good. He's probably just as weirdly hard right ideological as he appears to be. He genuinely thinks government is there to make billionaires like him even richer and doesn't understand why people might see that as a problem.
The criticisms of the UK have merit - high tax and poor infrastructure, bad public services, left wing propoganda everywhere. But it will change because the antithesis will emerge. It is very likely that Starmer will rapidly fail and the left will just implode. We will get our our own version of Trump in the next few years. Everyone will just forget about what they are saying at the moment. Look at what is happening in Europe. I can already sense it coming.
The criticisms of the UK have merit - high tax and poor infrastructure, bad public services, left wing propoganda everywhere. But it will change because the antithesis will emerge. It is very likely that Starmer will rapidly fail and the left will just implode. We will get our our own version of Trump in the next few years. Everyone will just forget about what they are saying at the moment. Look at what is happening in Europe. I can already sense it coming.
Left wing propaganda everywhere? What on Earth are you talking about?
The criticisms of the UK have merit - high tax and poor infrastructure, bad public services, left wing propoganda everywhere. But it will change because the antithesis will emerge. It is very likely that Starmer will rapidly fail and the left will just implode. We will get our our own version of Trump in the next few years. Everyone will just forget about what they are saying at the moment. Look at what is happening in Europe. I can already sense it coming.
On the first one. Lets say the authorities actually can expose this (they currently do a piss poor job of all the dodgy car washes and barbers laundering money and using illegal immigrants), what stops a small business just shutting up shop, rebrand, open again (perhaps with a different name above the door).
It would be the directors who are banned from doing so - there are already checks on shadow directors so it's not difficult to deploy that way..
My problem would be that very few companies actually don't pay the minimum wage it's well policed. And the companies who don't pay it either screw it up because of edge cases or wouldn't be able to employ immigrants because they don't pay enough...
Personally an extra X% (where it's significant say 10-20%) on employer NI where immigrants is employed would be a better approach, it would provide a clear incentive to employ and train people up...
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
What solution do you propose that would be consistent with the nation-state? You (and arguably Casino) can work abroad *regardless* of who forms HMG. I understand your point but I don't know what the solution is. We have too many old and sick to adopt a Singapore option and I don't think Singapore scales to a country anyway. So I'm stuck.
Question: does this mean the end of the nation-state as the organising entity? If the talent migrates to the lowest tax regime and sunniest weather, how does Britain survive?
It's a very real question and it is one no party seems to even consider. Remote working plus digital visas plus English language universality means Britain is quite fucked, and politicians seem intent on fucking it up even more by importing millions of people who transform the safe, tolerant, secular culture of the country, which is one of the few things that makes people want to stay
Britain is probably doomed
There is of course a massive unmentioned elephant in the room here, which could potentially change all of this, but I'm not allowed to mention it
I don’t go for the same hyperbole, but it’s certainly true that the number of people now able to work from anywhere, often well-paid positions in creative or consultancy industries, does represent something of a threat to many developed Western countries.
That many governments of second-tier economies, are now going out of their way to sell this remote working to the global mobile, including with generous tax breaks, should be concerning to Western governments. When it’s a few hundred people no-one notices, but a trickle can quickly turn into a flood if global companies start encouraging it. £100k to live in London, or £80k to live on a beach in Thailand, is an easy decision to make for many.
The digital tax exile decision was easier when it was nice nearby places like the Netherlands and Portugal. As they close their schemes, the difference to home becomes harder to overcome. E.g. educating your kids in Greece or Thailand. Not unfeasible, just much more like emigration. And, of course, global companies know they do not need to pay £80k if the job ends up in Thailand.
Portugal has not ended their digital nomad scheme, they've ended the golden visa thing. Buy a property = get a passport = that's over. Not the nomad stuff
Digital nomad visas are in fact expanding as safe countries with nice climates realise they have a great advantage in a much more mobile world with everyone linked on t'interweb. Rainy ageing high latitude countries with bad demographics and punishing taxes are, by contrast, in a seriously perilous position, especially if they have insane immigration which no one asked for
Let’s hope the predictions of a 30% decline in independent sector don’t actually happen.
It’s one of Britain’s few globally outstanding industries.
Hopefully a 100% decline.
In 2022 it contributed over 14 billion to the economy
Utter nonsense of a comment
Well yes but no. Not if the motivation is ideological. At least Sandy is being honest, though such a view is indicative of a dislike of our very system of liberal democracy, a dislike which has evidently become much more commonly revealed and could also be seen emerging during the pandemic.
No they aren't but that's not the point I was making, mine was about the narrative which is strikingly similar to 1997.
There’s some truth in that, but I promise you Blair did “feel” much more liked in 1997. He had a touch of the “JFK factor” and Starmer is no where near that. Also the 97 manifesto was more radical than some pretend. Minimum wage. Windfall tax. Independent BoE. Lords reform.
But you’re right some of the respect for him came later. But he had advantages in that which Starmer won’t have. He spent 97-01 reaping the rewards of Major’s hard work, and winning popular wars, and as we moved into the 01 election he had loads of cash to shower everywhere. Starmer won’t have that.
I am under no doubt Blair was more liked than Starmer - but my point is that he wasn't universally loved in the way some people now say. That narrative developed post the election.
I do think the narrative is very similar. The "no love for Labour" sticks out to me, along with "the don't knows will save us", as was a Mail headline. And something I recall Labour supporters in 2019 (including me) saying. I don't buy it.
Like I say, I don’t 100% disagree but it did just feel a bit different. You’re right that some the press coverage is the same, but I’m talking more about the “real world” where the emotion was hope and relief, as opposed to today where I think it’s more muted. People were really happy to see Blair win, whereas with Starmer I don’t see it.
I can think of at least one person who will be highly delighted.
The criticisms of the UK have merit - high tax and poor infrastructure, bad public services, left wing propoganda everywhere. But it will change because the antithesis will emerge. It is very likely that Starmer will rapidly fail and the left will just implode. We will get our our own version of Trump in the next few years. Everyone will just forget about what they are saying at the moment. Look at what is happening in Europe. I can already sense it coming.
Indeed so, but will there be anything left to save by then?
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
It is, you absolute and total fucking moron.
It's exactly what killed it off. Pupil numbers dived for next year because parents weren't willing to subscribe to the school with that sort of price increase hanging over their head. It's not a hugely wealthy area here. The letter from the Trustees specifically highlighted these political factors pushing the school roll into unviability.
I know you don't want to accept this because it means accepting that your nasty little policy has nasty real-world effects. But it's thrown my son out of his school, lost the community an important educational institution, and lost his teachers their jobs- many of whom are family friends. I hate Labour for it.
So fuck off, there's a good chap.
Reading todays Telegraph, Labour have now already killed a second one 😢
And the anti aspirational, class war, anti Tory not governing for all the country, no such thing as a family it’s just you and the state government - arn’t even IN YET!
Just look at Streeting’s reply on QT. And BJO comments this morning, nearly tempting him back, The state of it.
I went to a private boarding school in North Wales at the age of eight. There were lots of them dotted around. You had to go that young if you wanted to go onto Public School which took you at thirteen. I don't know a single person who followed that route who wouldn't have loved a government to come in and price their parents out of sending them!
I was educated in the state sector, and I said to my mum, why didn’t you send me to a private school with all the money you have? And she said it was a school with a very good reputation, so there was no need to spend money on a private education.
So it’s not about how much money in the household, but the type of thinking. She wasn’t bothered whatever I ended up doing in life, muck spreader, air hostess like herself, bar maid.
I’m not sure I would think the same, without ambition if I had children.
As a parent, I've experienced both and come to the general conclusion that it is better to retain the money for the child's future rather spending it on the upgrade to private school.
I should say that both my children ended their school years at separate state schools. Both state schools are highly regarded, particularly the school my youngest goes to (she's in her last year). It is so good that it equals the private schools I am familiar with in most respects (i.e. except class size) and she has a much better social life as it is a much bigger school. So the state school postcode lottery and luck in application really come into it.
Edit: worth adding that if VAT was on the fees we would never have entertained private schools at all.
That sounds good advice, dependent of post code lottery, don’t spend the money on private school but on supporting higher education and leaving home.
The social life aspect is very important part of going to school. And all the soft skills and communication skills you pick up from social life - that are not taught but are so important to the rest of your life. Friends I made passed exams and went away to university, and I worked in a local pub. That was a big change moment in my life. Having never done any homework and lots of bunking off, I then felt I was missing out. So I got proper medical depressed.
One silly thing about this country: how absolutely no-one will take a £50 note despite them being perfectly legal tender, and up to €500 euro notes being accepted in Germany.
£50 isn't even that much. It must be branding and reputation.
Germany / Austria is very different to other parts of Europe. Getting anyone to accept a €200 note when I flew from Austria into Rome was not exactly easy...
What was worse is I only went to the cashpoint because I wanted some cash for a bottle of water - given the choice of providing €198.40 change or accepting my card the shop assistant took my card payment.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
I genuinely hope not as this is a wonderful country with lots of good things to be proud off and living abroad does not guarantee happiness anyway
I like @Casino_Royale and admire his resolute defence of his positions though he does go a wee bit over the top at times
This forum needs lots of views and at present conservative views are really irrelevant but it will not be long before the focus will turn to Labour and we will see just how they cope in very difficult times
Is Britain still a wonderful country? Compared to others? These days I am not entirely sure, and that grieves me
Compared to most of the world it is still a more developed country and wealthy country yes (and the sun is even making a rare appearance today).
Compared to Singapore, Australia, Canada, NZ, parts of the US, Monaco, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Dubai though even Ireland there are reasons to move to get a higher income and often with lower tax and better weather.
Though if you go to Singapore or the UAE be sure to follow the strict drugs and morality laws otherwise you could spend a lengthy time in jail
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
What solution do you propose that would be consistent with the nation-state? You (and arguably Casino) can work abroad *regardless* of who forms HMG. I understand your point but I don't know what the solution is. We have too many old and sick to adopt a Singapore option and I don't think Singapore scales to a country anyway. So I'm stuck.
Question: does this mean the end of the nation-state as the organising entity? If the talent migrates to the lowest tax regime and sunniest weather, how does Britain survive?
It's a very real question and it is one no party seems to even consider. Remote working plus digital visas plus English language universality means Britain is quite fucked, and politicians seem intent on fucking it up even more by importing millions of people who transform the safe, tolerant, secular culture of the country, which is one of the few things that makes people want to stay
Britain is probably doomed
There is of course a massive unmentioned elephant in the room here, which could potentially change all of this, but I'm not allowed to mention it
I don’t go for the same hyperbole, but it’s certainly true that the number of people now able to work from anywhere, often well-paid positions in creative or consultancy industries, does represent something of a threat to many developed Western countries.
That many governments of second-tier economies, are now going out of their way to sell this remote working to the global mobile, including with generous tax breaks, should be concerning to Western governments. When it’s a few hundred people no-one notices, but a trickle can quickly turn into a flood if global companies start encouraging it. £100k to live in London, or £80k to live on a beach in Thailand, is an easy decision to make for many.
The digital tax exile decision was easier when it was nice nearby places like the Netherlands and Portugal. As they close their schemes, the difference to home becomes harder to overcome. E.g. educating your kids in Greece or Thailand. Not unfeasible, just much more like emigration. And, of course, global companies know they do not need to pay £80k if the job ends up in Thailand.
Portugal has not ended their digital nomad scheme, they've ended the golden visa thing. Buy a property = get a passport = that's over. Not the nomad stuff
Digital nomad visas are in fact expanding as safe countries with nice climates realise they have a great advantage in a much more mobile world with everyone linked on t'interweb. Rainy ageing high latitude countries with bad demographics and punishing taxes are, by contrast, in a seriously perilous position, especially if they have insane immigration which no one asked for
Portugal haven't even fully closed their golden visa, they just changed it away from property, as all it was doing was bumping up house prices in the Algarve. You can still do things like invest in a business or a non-profit and receive it.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump, enraged by his conviction on 34 felony counts by a New York jury, flooded pro-Trump websites with calls for riots, revolution and violent retribution.
Some called for attacks on jurors, the execution of the judge, Justice Juan Merchan, or outright civil war and armed insurrection.
“Someone in NY with nothing to lose needs to take care of Merchan,” wrote one commentator on Patriots.Win. “Hopefully he gets met with illegals with a machete,” the post said in reference to illegal immigrants.
As for Merchant, he seems to me to be an exemplary judge (FWIW). Trump probably could have mustered just enough reasonable doubt for a hung jury, had his defence not been so blatantly dishonest, and his lawyers so lacking in either competence, or the ability to persuade their client what was best for him.
How is this any different from Tories for Nick Palmer that famously didn't do him any good in the end?
I must have missed that - was that in 2015?
Tories for Palmer made their first appearance 2005-10. He was very narrowly defeated in that election.
Crickey was it that far back.
I might be missing something, but what was the story? I don't quite get what's going on in High Peak either.
It should be a nonstory, but the plod have got involved because a Tory MP has been posting on Facebook saying Labour voters for him (but it still clearly says Tory Party ad). Nick Palmer basically had the same at during previous elections. He got a bit of stick on here at the time do you need one taxi or two for them all to fit in.
Its really just the equivalent of the testimonials that we see time and time again, i am a life long (insert party) but this time i will vote for (insert other party). Labour got caught last week doing it. Sunak has had his i am just an ordinary bloke in a yellow vest asking a helpful question.
I wouldn't say it was a none story - he's misrepresenting the party he is standing for...
It's obvious what he's up to. Clear attempt to impersonate the Labour candidate when you consider the average attention span of a voter
and the fact I saw the image nowhere near the accompanying tweet..
"With almost all the votes in from Wednesday's poll, the ANC is on 40% - down from 58% at the previous election."
Clearly a disaster for the ANC - they should have FPTP! 40% gets you a massive majority here. Hopefully the unfairness of the Tories getting not many seats with 25% of the vote will reawaken need for PR here.
One silly thing about this country: how absolutely no-one will take a £50 note despite them being perfectly legal tender, and up to €500 euro notes being accepted in Germany.
£50 isn't even that much. It must be branding and reputation.
We regularly found fakes in our tills when I worked in retail. It was easier for us to blanket refuse them than have someone on the floor call me up to check the notes/boot the customer out, with all the risks associated with that.
It's a big cost of cash that some don't recognise on here, especially high value transactions >£1000 in an independent specialist.
None of the parties are actually addressing the key issues.
1) Productivity is piss poor. Even sodding France who take all of August off and are on strike every other week, have better productivity. Yes I know those stats can be skewed by having a very large state sector, as per Rob did a good video a few years.
2) High income wealthy generators are freer than ever to move around. And the stupid cliff edges we have at £60k and £100k. Particularly people on around £100k, they are in positions that should be responsible for driving companies, if they only do 4 days week or take 5-6 weeks holidays, and stay on £99k, rather than get paid £120k, thats terrible for productivity. And its also less money in the tax man's pocket.
3) Impact of AI on particularly the lower end of white collar jobs.
You can bang on about getting growth all your like, but if you don't tackle the root causes you will never see any. It is why Truss was wrong, we don't have low growth because of high taxes, we have high taxes because of low growth, due to piss poor productivity.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
I genuinely hope not as this is a wonderful country with lots of good things to be proud off and living abroad does not guarantee happiness anyway
I like @Casino_Royale and admire his resolute defence of his positions though he does go a wee bit over the top at times
This forum needs lots of views and at present conservative views are really irrelevant but it will not be long before the focus will turn to Labour and we will see just how they cope in very difficult times
Is Britain still a wonderful country? Compared to others? These days I am not entirely sure, and that grieves me
Compared to most of the world it is still a more developed country and wealthy country yes (and the sun is even making a rare appearance today).
Compared to Singapore, Australia, Canada, NZ, parts of the US, Monaco, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Dubai though even Ireland there are reasons to move to get a higher income and often with lower tax and better weather.
Though if you go to Singapore or the UAE be sure to follow the strict drugs and morality laws otherwise you could spend a lengthy time in jail
We all want different things. I have absolutely NO desire to live in NZ, Ireland, Germany, Holland, Dubai, Canada (except just maybe BC)
Personally, my list would be Spain, Thailand, Cambodia, possibly Oz, perhaps Italy or Portugal (all on nomad visas or similar), maybe Greece if they fix their toilets (I'm serious). America is seductive in ways - the sun! - but the guns, the drugs, the politics, they are too bleak. France also, if they ever do the nomad visa thing
I'm not saying these countries are better/worse than the UK, these are simply the places that entice me, and which I am seriously considering (tho whatever I do I want to keep travelling as long as my bones can hack it)
None of the parties are actually addressing the key issues.
1) Productivity is piss poor. Even sodding France who take all of August off and are on strike every other week, have better productivity. Yes I know those stats can be skewed by having a very large state sector, as per Rob did a good video a few years.
2) High income wealthy generators are freer than ever to move around.
3) Impact of AI on particularly the lower end of white collar jobs.
You can bag on about getting growth all your like, but if you don't tackle the root causes you will never see any. It is why Truss was wrong, we don't have low growth because of high taxes, we have high taxes because of low growth, due to piss poor productivity.
It only took 12 years but SKS has decided to pick up the Blue Labour movement that Ed Milliband temporarily tried.
This has to be a pitch to the Sun right?
There's something about SKS that's very insincere: like he knows he has to say all the right things to win, but does he actually believe them?
With Blair, you never had a doubt. With Sir Keir "I am a socialist" Starmer you simply don't know.
I kind of feel again this is a bit telling the story after the event. I posted the other day a load of things from 1997 that said Blair didn't believe in anything, there was no enthusiasm for Labour etc.
Have a look at how high Blair's leadership ratings were in 1997.
Blair's weren't quite that high before the election - he was on +22 in the last poll before, but you're absolutely right that's it's still still MUCH higher than Starmer is now, as he's well into negative figures.
I wonder though if there's been an overall drop in satisfaction/respect for politicians since then. The Ipsos figures aren't as easy to compare as they have used a nice graphic since 2010, but prior to that it was all tables.
Major was on -27, against those Blair figures, whereas Sunak is on -54 and even Johnson was on -20 in the same polling just a few days before he won by a landslide.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
What solution do you propose that would be consistent with the nation-state? You (and arguably Casino) can work abroad *regardless* of who forms HMG. I understand your point but I don't know what the solution is. We have too many old and sick to adopt a Singapore option and I don't think Singapore scales to a country anyway. So I'm stuck.
Question: does this mean the end of the nation-state as the organising entity? If the talent migrates to the lowest tax regime and sunniest weather, how does Britain survive?
It's a very real question and it is one no party seems to even consider. Remote working plus digital visas plus English language universality means Britain is quite fucked, and politicians seem intent on fucking it up even more by importing millions of people who transform the safe, tolerant, secular culture of the country, which is one of the few things that makes people want to stay
Britain is probably doomed
There is of course a massive unmentioned elephant in the room here, which could potentially change all of this, but I'm not allowed to mention it
It's happening on a very minor scale in Scotland, with people WFH from Northumberland for Scottish banks and so on. You pay tax based on where you are resident, so you get a better deal in England... Also some edge cases with the military getting uplifts if they are based in Scotland. Again a very small effect but you can start to get a feel for it.
I assume there must be one or two civil servants in that position, which is interesting if they are enacting policy than does not affect where they live. Nothing wrong in principle with that, but it does make me uneasy.
I would guess we will move from residency based income taxation to something else. The social contract between taxation/services feels vulnerable.
What I never understood about the military was HMG were only worried about the officers and higher NCOs in Scotland. Not the lower ranks in rUK. No payment to them for being so unfortunate as to be sent to live in, say, Catterick rather than Redford, and so pay more tax.
Ha. Never thought of that!
It's not in itself an unreasonable principle, if one is sent to different parts of the UK, if it is done fairly. But the Tory emphasis is rather blatant here.
Well there was that attempt at a court case that argued being forced to live in Edinburgh was against human rights.
From a services person?
There have been cases from immigrants sent to this and that town by HMG HO, but that was more because they wanted to live near other immigrants who spoke the same language.
None of the parties are actually addressing the key issues.
1) Productivity is piss poor. Even sodding France who take all of August off and are on strike every other week, have better productivity. Yes I know those stats can be skewed by having a very large state sector, as per Rob did a good video a few years.
2) High income wealthy generators are freer than ever to move around. And the stupid cliff edges we have at £60k and £100k. Particularly people on around £100k, they are in positions that should be responsible for driving companies, if they only do 4 days week or take 5-6 weeks holidays, and stay on £99k, rather than get paid £120k, thats terrible for productivity. And its also less money in the tax man's pocket.
3) Impact of AI on particularly the lower end of white collar jobs.
You can bag on about getting growth all your like, but if you don't tackle the root causes you will never see any. It is why Truss was wrong, we don't have low growth because of high taxes, we have high taxes because of low growth, due to piss poor productivity.
FYI, between 2020 and 2022, the UK was on strike more than France. Let me know if you've got more up to date data. https://www.etui.org/strikes-map
Obviously I was sort of joking. But over the longer terms that can't be true. And this productivity issue is not since COVID, this has been 20+ years.
One argument I have heard people make is that after 2008 (and during COVID) companies were incentivized by the government not to make people redundant. Rather make pay cuts across the board (and of course furlough). Although its in the short term rising unemployment is painful personally and nationally, it causes inefficient businesses to either modernise or go bust. Furlough went on too long and loads of businesses were able to stagger on for another 2-3 years on the back of furlough + bounce back loans etc.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
I genuinely hope not as this is a wonderful country with lots of good things to be proud off and living abroad does not guarantee happiness anyway
I like @Casino_Royale and admire his resolute defence of his positions though he does go a wee bit over the top at times
This forum needs lots of views and at present conservative views are really irrelevant but it will not be long before the focus will turn to Labour and we will see just how they cope in very difficult times
Is Britain still a wonderful country? Compared to others? These days I am not entirely sure, and that grieves me
Compared to most of the world it is still a more developed country and wealthy country yes (and the sun is even making a rare appearance today).
Compared to Singapore, Australia, Canada, NZ, parts of the US, Monaco, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Dubai though even Ireland there are reasons to move to get a higher income and often with lower tax and better weather.
Though if you go to Singapore or the UAE be sure to follow the strict drugs and morality laws otherwise you could spend a lengthy time in jail
We all want different things. I have absolutely NO desire to live in NZ, Ireland, Germany, Holland, Dubai, Canada (except just maybe BC)
Personally, my list would be Spain, Thailand, Cambodia, possibly Oz, perhaps Italy or Portugal (all on nomad visas or similar), maybe Greece if they fix their toilets (I'm serious). America is seductive in ways - the sun! - but the guns, the drugs, the politics, they are too bleak. France also, if they ever do the nomad visa thing
I'm not saying these countries are better/worse than the UK, these are simply the places that entice me, and which I am seriously considering (tho whatever I do I want to keep travelling as long as my bones can hack it)
If you are only in the UK 20% of the time, haven’t you already essentially “moved”?
If I were you I’d be looking to domicile in the most tax effective place. It might be Dubai. I’d also never want to actually live there but if you’re never actually *there*?
None of the parties are actually addressing the key issues.
1) Productivity is piss poor. Even sodding France who take all of August off and are on strike every other week, have better productivity. Yes I know those stats can be skewed by having a very large state sector, as per Rob did a good video a few years.
2) High income wealthy generators are freer than ever to move around. And the stupid cliff edges we have at £60k and £100k. Particularly people on around £100k, they are in positions that should be responsible for driving companies, if they only do 4 days week or take 5-6 weeks holidays, and stay on £99k, rather than get paid £120k, thats terrible for productivity. And its also less money in the tax man's pocket.
3) Impact of AI on particularly the lower end of white collar jobs.
You can bang on about getting growth all your like, but if you don't tackle the root causes you will never see any. It is why Truss was wrong, we don't have low growth because of high taxes, we have high taxes because of low growth, due to piss poor productivity.
The biggest incentive to increase productivity is having to live within your means.
Thereby the only way to increase income is to increase productivity.
Whereas the best way to increase income in this country is to demand that the government gives you more.
The second biggest incentive to increase productivity is to benefit from so doing.
If instead all the gains of increasing your productivity go to the executive oligarchy or to increased taxation (as you mentioned) then why bother making an effort rather than just taking it easy.
These dates were all before private school fees blew up on the doorsteps.
Have we done this poll?
Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if some private schools have to close because they cannot afford to operate if their VAT tax breaks are withdrawn? The public are divided:
I was told “Isaac Levido sees this election as a courts case. Opening arguments. Present case. Closing arguments”. Before opening arguments the voters were leaning 9-3 towards sending the Tories to the chair. After opening arguments it’s now 11-1.
Though if the Tories got 30% voteshare at the general election they would bite your hand off for that on current polls.
Shows Sunak is still more popular than his party and Starmer no more popular than his party, so the head to head debates between the 2 could narrow the gap a bit
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
I genuinely hope not as this is a wonderful country with lots of good things to be proud off and living abroad does not guarantee happiness anyway
I like @Casino_Royale and admire his resolute defence of his positions though he does go a wee bit over the top at times
This forum needs lots of views and at present conservative views are really irrelevant but it will not be long before the focus will turn to Labour and we will see just how they cope in very difficult times
Is Britain still a wonderful country? Compared to others? These days I am not entirely sure, and that grieves me
Compared to most of the world it is still a more developed country and wealthy country yes (and the sun is even making a rare appearance today).
Compared to Singapore, Australia, Canada, NZ, parts of the US, Monaco, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Dubai though even Ireland there are reasons to move to get a higher income and often with lower tax and better weather.
Though if you go to Singapore or the UAE be sure to follow the strict drugs and morality laws otherwise you could spend a lengthy time in jail
We all want different things. I have absolutely NO desire to live in NZ, Ireland, Germany, Holland, Dubai, Canada (except just maybe BC)
Personally, my list would be Spain, Thailand, Cambodia, possibly Oz, perhaps Italy or Portugal (all on nomad visas or similar), maybe Greece if they fix their toilets (I'm serious). America is seductive in ways - the sun! - but the guns, the drugs, the politics, they are too bleak. France also, if they ever do the nomad visa thing
I'm not saying these countries are better/worse than the UK, these are simply the places that entice me, and which I am seriously considering (tho whatever I do I want to keep travelling as long as my bones can hack it)
If you are only in the UK 20% of the time, haven’t you already essentially “moved”?
If I were you I’d be looking to domicile in the most tax effective place. It might be Dubai. I’d also never want to actually live there but if you’re never actually *there*?
I do feel like I have already moved in some ways, yes. I just haven't moved to anywhere ELSE
It turns out I like being a nomad! It suits my restless brain
Interesting point re Dubai! Thankyou. Will look into it
How do you cope with the depressing poltiics of America? It feels relentlessly bleak to me, and I couldn't hack it permanently. Likewise the tipping culture and the guns. And the drugs
it's a damn shame because there is much that I really love about the States - the sense of dynamism and freedom (albeit diminished) under those diamond clear skies!- I love it
Gosh, Crofty sure has a hard on against Rayner. I wasn't aware hypocrisy was a chargeable offence, but if it is a billionaire expat tax avoider using mutiple platforms to have a go at someone about their residency and financial affairs shouldn't be leading the charge.
'Hypocrisy was always the charge against Angela Rayner, not tax-avoidance… And the stain will dog her for years to come'
I think it's done Rayner a lot of good. It's raised her profile and most I would guess see her as you do .....an underdog being being hounded by a bunch of hypocrites.
Indeed. The Raynergate obsessives are just weirdos: pure and simple. She has been cleared, now they accuse her of hypocrisy despite the fact that Labour supports the right to buy. Rayner opposes the mega-discount but she didn’t benefit from that anyway.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
Our son holds a senior management position in our local private school and the imposition of vat, certain now Starmer is going to be PM in a few weeks , is having an effect on their school numbers and across the industry
It is also seriously worrying teachers in these schools and to suggest because Starmer is not in power it is not the cause of disruption in the industry is simply not borne out by those actually working in private schools
Yes, please see the article I just posted.
This policy is starting to kill off multiple small prep and community schools in that help children with special needs, like Dowdham Prep and Alton School (Convent).
It's not the Etons and Winchesters that will be hurt by it. It's the little guys.
Charging £18,000 per year. That's 140% higher than state school funding. And higher than average for private schools.
Alton School said in a statement: This proposal is based on a continued decline in pupil numbers, to the extent that the school has now become unviable
oh
Indeed. a 20% price shock on top of a cost of living crisis (the GFC was responsible for 30,000 pupils leaving private education and 30 schools closing), is not good news.
As someone who doesn't have kids and already pays taxes to educate other people's kids, I quite like it when parents reduce the tax burden on me by paying for their own kids.
That was in July 2023 and before the policy became inevitable and immediate and the live consequences of this policy are now coming into sharp focus as reality kicks in and private schools see declining numbers for September term onwards
As I have said before the actual cost in children having to join the state sector and lost teaching jobs will be available in September and I genuinely expect labour to be shocked at the outcome
You think the IFS estimate is completely wrong?
But if children leaving the private sector are properly dispersed, then that means only two or three extra children for each state-sector school. Why is that an extra cost for the system?
And similarly teachers. There is currently a shortage of teachers in the state system, apparently. No problem then... any teacher now in the private sector can work in the state sector instead. No threat of unemployment there.
In the example cited, numbers have fallen from before covid until now. Remind me please.... Precisely when was this proposal of Labour's announced to the public? And if numbers were falling even before then, might not other factors have been at work?
You can't move seamlessly from private to state teacher. You need a couple of years teacher training.
I think. Doubtless ydoethur will correct or confirm
As far as I am aware different pension schemes as well
Mostly not:
If you’re employed in a teaching capacity aged between 16 and under 75 then you’re automatically a member of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme. As long as you’re employed in one of the following types of establishments:
a school maintained by a Local Authority; an Academy; a Further or Higher Education establishment; an Independent School that has been accepted into the Scheme by a Function Provider (a company awarded a contract to perform functions on behalf of a local authority
There are some unpleasantnesses with some indy schools trying to opt out of TPS into something cheaper for them.
As for teaching qualifications, many teachers in independent schools already have PGCE and QTS. As for those who don't, academies don't have to require them, and there are certification routes to allow experienced teachers to get the status without further training.
I understand that independent schools would much rather not have to deal with VAT. But the arguments I'm seeing are what those on the right like to call 'shroud waving ' or 'stump wielding' when they're used by those awful unions to argue against public spending cuts.
Two have moved to America One has moved to France One moved to America but is now moving to Spain One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
*cough*BREXIT*cough*
What ARE you talking about? None of them quit for reasons due to Brexit. Two got job offers, two went for taxes/finances, one for his wife, and all five cited the British climate as a further reason
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
I genuinely hope not as this is a wonderful country with lots of good things to be proud off and living abroad does not guarantee happiness anyway
I like @Casino_Royale and admire his resolute defence of his positions though he does go a wee bit over the top at times
This forum needs lots of views and at present conservative views are really irrelevant but it will not be long before the focus will turn to Labour and we will see just how they cope in very difficult times
Is Britain still a wonderful country? Compared to others? These days I am not entirely sure, and that grieves me
Compared to most of the world it is still a more developed country and wealthy country yes (and the sun is even making a rare appearance today).
Compared to Singapore, Australia, Canada, NZ, parts of the US, Monaco, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Dubai though even Ireland there are reasons to move to get a higher income and often with lower tax and better weather.
Though if you go to Singapore or the UAE be sure to follow the strict drugs and morality laws otherwise you could spend a lengthy time in jail
We all want different things. I have absolutely NO desire to live in NZ, Ireland, Germany, Holland, Dubai, Canada (except just maybe BC)
Personally, my list would be Spain, Thailand, Cambodia, possibly Oz, perhaps Italy or Portugal (all on nomad visas or similar), maybe Greece if they fix their toilets (I'm serious). America is seductive in ways - the sun! - but the guns, the drugs, the politics, they are too bleak. France also, if they ever do the nomad visa thing
I'm not saying these countries are better/worse than the UK, these are simply the places that entice me, and which I am seriously considering (tho whatever I do I want to keep travelling as long as my bones can hack it)
If you have plenty of money anyway like you do then yes better climate (provided relatively low crime too) is probably your biggest factor
Sadiq Khan wants to have bays to park the rental bikes in from Lime etc.
I am conflicted about this. I like the convenience but I can't doubt that people just dump them all over the place.
Are any of those companies actually profitable?
About as profitable as all the food delivery app companies.
I just can't get my heard around any of the food delivery app model.
Its highly inefficient to do single order deliveries from different locations to different locations. The app company takes 20-30% of each order, that is added on by the restaurant to standard menu price that they charge the customer. The customer then pays an additional £5+ of fees.
Because its super inefficient the drivers / riders spend ages pissing about waiting for an order, taking an order etc, and the hourly is not actually that good. And after all of that, the delivery company after taking 30% from one side and £5+ from the other, still can't make money, as they have to spend crazy amounts on advertising as barrier to entry is so low.
Why people use food delivery apps regularly, its so expensive (especially as takeaways have already gone through the roof because of inflation). Why people do the delivery when your income is all over the place. And how do these companies ever become profitable?
None of the parties are actually addressing the key issues.
1) Productivity is piss poor. Even sodding France who take all of August off and are on strike every other week, have better productivity. Yes I know those stats can be skewed by having a very large state sector, as per Rob did a good video a few years.
2) High income wealthy generators are freer than ever to move around.
3) Impact of AI on particularly the lower end of white collar jobs.
You can bag on about getting growth all your like, but if you don't tackle the root causes you will never see any. It is why Truss was wrong, we don't have low growth because of high taxes, we have high taxes because of low growth, due to piss poor productivity.
What are your personal top remedies?
Here's a very cheap one:
A loading bay/trades bay every 50m or so on residential streets. There are so many parked cars now (doubled since the 1980s), workers spend about half the time just looking for a place to park. And then have to shift loads of stuff by hand/trolley miles to your house.
Very much a city problem but it's hundreds of small, incremental things like that that boost productivity over the long term.
Comments
It's funny to see the three remaining Corbyn supporters though saying that they hate factionalism when they tied up the NEC and selections themselves. They chose rubbish candidates, the difference is that the candidates SKS has "imposed" seem like actually quite sensible people.
I feel like I'm arguing against democracy here - but I wonder if it's just worth accepting that a political party can't really operate in a truly democratic way.
At least in 2010 all parties rolled the pitch on the needs for cuts, and we had a bit of debate about WHICH cuts. This year no one wants to mention it.
He was a quality banterman and a good rugby coach.
Its really just the equivalent of the testimonials that we see time and time again, i am a life long (insert party) but this time i will vote for (insert other party). Labour got caught last week doing it. Sunak has had his i am just an ordinary bloke in a yellow vest asking a helpful question.
* https://www.legalcheek.com/2022/06/5-times-the-johnson-government-complained-about-lefty-lawyers/amp/
I have several other friends considering it. The fact is Britain is a high tax country with mediocre public services, mass migration is fast transforming the nation in a way many don't like, and the weather is shite. You can say the people leaving are greedy racist fucks overworried by rain, but they are leaving
More pertinently, technology and allied changes make working elsewhere MUCH more feasible, and the people that are tempted to go tend to be high income earners with skilled cognitive jobs. It's not cab drivers or check out girls
We are going to lose our crucial higher bracket taxpayers, like @Casino_Royale
It’s one of Britain’s few globally outstanding industries.
We will expand opportunities for people in Britain, training more UK workers and protecting working conditions.
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1797171939154198731
It only took 12 years but SKS has decided to pick up the Blue Labour movement that Ed Milliband temporarily tried.
This has to be a pitch to the Sun right?
https://www.libdems.org.uk/plan
But that wasn’t the point of the post was it?
Or this tracker poll also from Yougov, which depending on how you interpret the three way question* gives a five to one advantage to those wanting to remove the tax break.
* On the basis that the "tax break only if private schools support state schools more" option is in practice "remove" because (a) they don't and (b) it doesn't make the school fees cheaper for those that can afford them so it won't make any difference to schools closing.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/should-uk-private-schoold-be-exempt-from-tax
With Blair, you never had a doubt. With Sir Keir "I am a socialist" Starmer you simply don't know.
I think tax break can be interpreted in a negative way but putting a tax on can be interpreted positively. I.e. tax the rich always seems to score highly in polling.
So it’s not about how much money in the household, but the type of thinking and parenting. I don’t think she had ever bothered a thought toward whatever I ended up doing in life, muck spreader, air hostess like herself, bar maid.
I’m not sure I would think the same, without ambition if I had children.
I have benefited from heaps of family money though when I went to college in London. So that’s alright then.
Because Murdoch always has to claim the winner so he can claim the glory....
In my opinion the problem in both cases is lack of accountability. Imo all power requires accountability and that isn't happening
Imo all public services basically need to be dismantled and rebuilt from scratch in an accountable way. NHS -> continental European insurance style system. Voucher based education system where successful profitable schools can expand and take over/replace unsuccessful ones. Other services -> as localised as possible
Both main political parties have their vested interests that stand in the way of this but if a political leader is willing to be brave and face those down, and take their long term political success from an electorate they have enriched with an amazing country that works and provides good quality of life, at a lower tax cost, then I'd love to see that. Can't see it happening with these two. Not in a million years
I will move heaven and earth not to disrupt my children’s education mid phase (though judging by the class whatsapp group, a few self employed parents will be forced into the switch). But it’s not hard to see how intakes for the year starting Sept 2025 are going to stretch the admissions process to breaking point, to the detriment of all children.
Then we get to the secondary phase. I live in a Grammar country, the admissions process for which already leads to a fairly socially engineered intake. With Starmer’s tax, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s going to happen to average household incomes of state grammars from next year.
Such a poor policy. And of course discriminatory given it impacts a specific age group (namely 5-18) but not younger or older.
I like @Casino_Royale and admire his resolute defence of his positions though he does go a wee bit over the top at times
This forum needs lots of views and at present conservative views are really irrelevant but it will not be long before the focus will turn to Labour and we will see just how they cope in very difficult times
Is SKS anywhere close?
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Blairs-leadership-satisfaction-ratings-1997-2007-Source-IPSOS-MORI-2022_fig1_361982713
"What you are personally experiencing is a lie, and you are wrong, you are not experiencing this"
it is quite impressive to witness
FWIW, I do see the other side to the argument and my calculations are based on fairly limited data, the GFC being a two or three year blip at most, with long term predictions over the next decade becoming more guesswork - but my guess is, as it has repeatedly been, that this policy will end up costing the taxpayer and reduce educational outcomes for thousands of children over the long run.
That many governments of second-tier economies, are now going out of their way to sell this remote working to the global mobile, including with generous tax breaks, should be concerning to Western governments. When it’s a few hundred people no-one notices, but a trickle can quickly turn into a flood if global companies start encouraging it. £100k to live in London, or £80k to live on a beach in Thailand, is an easy decision to make for many.
I should say that both my children ended their school years at separate state schools. Both state schools are highly regarded, particularly the school my youngest goes to (she's in her last year). It is so good that it equals the private schools I am familiar with in most respects (i.e. except class size) and she has a much better social life as it is a much bigger school. So the state school postcode lottery and luck in application really come into it.
Edit: worth adding that if VAT was on the fees we would never have entertained private schools at all.
Bad bosses who break employment law — for example by failing to pay their staff the minimum wage — will be banned from hiring workers from abroad.
Training will also be linked to immigration, so sectors applying for foreign worker visas must first train Brits to do the jobs.
https://archive.md/55Gtt#selection-1121.0-1125.85
But you’re right some of the respect for him came later. But he had advantages in that which Starmer won’t have. He spent 97-01 reaping the rewards of Major’s hard work, and winning popular wars, and as we moved into the 01 election he had loads of cash to shower everywhere. Starmer won’t have that.
I do think the narrative is very similar. The "no love for Labour" sticks out to me, along with "the don't knows will save us", as was a Mail headline. And something I recall Labour supporters in 2019 (including me) saying. I don't buy it.
This policy reminds me of Adam Curtis's "oh dearism" in policy-making. When the consequences are revealed those who supported this will scratch their heads accordingly.
Or is this going to be bullshitted - “our garment industry will collapse if we enforce minimum minimum wage, so no inspections.”?
There is method in [Ed Davey’s] malarkey. Much of the battle for the Lib Dems is persuading the national media to pay them any attention. If he has to play the good-for-a-laugh centrist dad to get himself on TV and in the newspapers, he reckons the pratfalls are a sacrifice worth making. He also looks like a man who is enjoying himself, which is more than can be said for the stolid electioneering of his rivals.
Sir Ed says there isn’t “a ceiling on our ambitions”, but there evidently is and it is self-imposed. The lesson he and other senior members of his party took away from their dismal showing at the last election was that they over-reached.
Team Davey believes that targeting senior Tories is good for attracting coverage, rustling up donations and attracting voters with the thought of punishing the Conservatives for the last 14 years by ejecting a cabinet name. It also presents a headache for Tory campaign planners by pinning down high-profile Conservatives in local struggles to save their skins.
The manner in which Labour and the Tories have begun their campaigns is encouraging for Sir Ed. Rishi Sunak’s desperate scattergun of promises…are designed to appeal to rightwing voters of advancing years. The Tory pitch is much less likely to appeal to liberal, centrist folk in relatively affluent seats. Voters there are most animated by issues that the Lib Dems are using as their campaign themes, strongest among them being the dilapidated state of public services and the befoulment of our waterways. As for Sir Keir, it has been safety first and don’t say anything that might frighten the swing voter from Labour. This suits the Lib Dems just fine.
What would a good result for the Lib Dems look like? Their primary ambition is to gain sufficient seats to supplant the SNP as the third largest grouping in the Commons, the position they held until 2015. To larger parties, this might not seem terribly ambitious. To the Lib Dems, being restored to the status of third party at Westminster would be ecstasy after so many years of agony. Sir Ed regards any number of silly stunts as a price well worth paying in pursuit of what would be a serious advance.
£50 isn't even that much. It must be branding and reputation.
On the first one. Lets say the authorities actually can expose this (they currently do a piss poor job of all the dodgy car washes and barbers laundering money and using illegal immigrants), what stops a small business just shutting up shop, rebrand, open again (perhaps with a different name above the door).
On the second we hear this time and time again. Then the industry lobby really hard and government back down. We had it with fruit pickers, with curry chefs, etc.
I also think Sunak more sincere than Starmer. It doesn't do him any good. He's probably just as weirdly hard right ideological as he appears to be. He genuinely thinks government is there to make billionaires like him even richer and doesn't understand why people might see that as a problem.
Utter nonsense of a comment
My problem would be that very few companies actually don't pay the minimum wage it's well policed. And the companies who don't pay it either screw it up because of edge cases or wouldn't be able to employ immigrants because they don't pay enough...
Personally an extra X% (where it's significant say 10-20%) on employer NI where immigrants is employed would be a better approach, it would provide a clear incentive to employ and train people up...
Digital nomad visas are in fact expanding as safe countries with nice climates realise they have a great advantage in a much more mobile world with everyone linked on t'interweb. Rainy ageing high latitude countries with bad demographics and punishing taxes are, by contrast, in a seriously perilous position, especially if they have insane immigration which no one asked for
https://globalresidenceindex.com/portugal-digital-nomad-visa/
The social life aspect is very important part of going to school. And all the soft skills and communication skills you pick up from social life - that are not taught but are so important to the rest of your life. Friends I made passed exams and went away to university, and I worked in a local pub. That was a big change moment in my life. Having never done any homework and lots of bunking off, I then felt I was missing out. So I got proper medical depressed.
What was worse is I only went to the cashpoint because I wanted some cash for a bottle of water - given the choice of providing €198.40 change or accepting my card the shop assistant took my card payment.
Compared to Singapore, Australia, Canada, NZ, parts of the US, Monaco, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Dubai though even Ireland there are reasons to move to get a higher income and often with lower tax and better weather.
Though if you go to Singapore or the UAE be sure to follow the strict drugs and morality laws otherwise you could spend a lengthy time in jail
I am conflicted about this. I like the convenience but I can't doubt that people just dump them all over the place.
At the beginning of the Trump administration.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/06/02/swept-up-the-russian-payments-that-led-to-trumps-felony-conviction/
As for Merchant, he seems to me to be an exemplary judge (FWIW). Trump probably could have mustered just enough reasonable doubt for a hung jury, had his defence not been so blatantly dishonest, and his lawyers so lacking in either competence, or the ability to persuade their client what was best for him.
Clearly a disaster for the ANC - they should have FPTP! 40% gets you a massive majority here. Hopefully the unfairness of the Tories getting not many seats with 25% of the vote will reawaken need for PR here.
Having said that, Trump “10% tariffs on all imports” may blow up the global economy.
It's a big cost of cash that some don't recognise on here, especially high value transactions >£1000 in an independent specialist.
1) Productivity is piss poor. Even sodding France who take all of August off and are on strike every other week, have better productivity. Yes I know those stats can be skewed by having a very large state sector, as per Rob did a good video a few years.
2) High income wealthy generators are freer than ever to move around. And the stupid cliff edges we have at £60k and £100k. Particularly people on around £100k, they are in positions that should be responsible for driving companies, if they only do 4 days week or take 5-6 weeks holidays, and stay on £99k, rather than get paid £120k, thats terrible for productivity. And its also less money in the tax man's pocket.
3) Impact of AI on particularly the lower end of white collar jobs.
You can bang on about getting growth all your like, but if you don't tackle the root causes you will never see any. It is why Truss was wrong, we don't have low growth because of high taxes, we have high taxes because of low growth, due to piss poor productivity.
Personally, my list would be Spain, Thailand, Cambodia, possibly Oz, perhaps Italy or Portugal (all on nomad visas or similar), maybe Greece if they fix their toilets (I'm serious). America is seductive in ways - the sun! - but the guns, the drugs, the politics, they are too bleak. France also, if they ever do the nomad visa thing
I'm not saying these countries are better/worse than the UK, these are simply the places that entice me, and which I am seriously considering (tho whatever I do I want to keep travelling as long as my bones can hack it)
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1988-1997
I wonder though if there's been an overall drop in satisfaction/respect for politicians since then. The Ipsos figures aren't as easy to compare as they have used a nice graphic since 2010, but prior to that it was all tables.
Major was on -27, against those Blair figures, whereas Sunak is on -54 and even Johnson was on -20 in the same polling just a few days before he won by a landslide.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present
That graph showing the ratings of pm/opposition since 2010 makes particularly depressing reading.
There have been cases from immigrants sent to this and that town by HMG HO, but that was more because they wanted to live near other immigrants who spoke the same language.
One argument I have heard people make is that after 2008 (and during COVID) companies were incentivized by the government not to make people redundant. Rather make pay cuts across the board (and of course furlough). Although its in the short term rising unemployment is painful personally and nationally, it causes inefficient businesses to either modernise or go bust. Furlough went on too long and loads of businesses were able to stagger on for another 2-3 years on the back of furlough + bounce back loans etc.
If I were you I’d be looking to domicile in the most tax effective place. It might be Dubai. I’d also never want to actually live there but if you’re never actually *there*?
Thereby the only way to increase income is to increase productivity.
Whereas the best way to increase income in this country is to demand that the government gives you more.
The second biggest incentive to increase productivity is to benefit from so doing.
If instead all the gains of increasing your productivity go to the executive oligarchy or to increased taxation (as you mentioned) then why bother making an effort rather than just taking it easy.
41% of Labour voters say a good thing and 13% a bad thing. 45% of Conservative voters a bad thing and 14% a good thing.
33% of LD voters say neither, with 27% a good thing and 25% a bad thing
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1796569827886154153
Has taken a lot of market share in dodgy money from London post-Ukraine.
A lot of Africa and certainly India look to Dubai now as the place to store, transact, and spend. Just ten years ago many would have looked to London.
Shows Sunak is still more popular than his party and Starmer no more popular than his party, so the head to head debates between the 2 could narrow the gap a bit
It turns out I like being a nomad! It suits my restless brain
Interesting point re Dubai! Thankyou. Will look into it
How do you cope with the depressing poltiics of America? It feels relentlessly bleak to me, and I couldn't hack it permanently. Likewise the tipping culture and the guns. And the drugs
it's a damn shame because there is much that I really love about the States - the sense of dynamism and freedom (albeit diminished) under those diamond clear skies!- I love it
anyway.
If you’re employed in a teaching capacity aged between 16 and under 75 then you’re automatically a member of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme. As long as you’re employed in one of the following types of establishments:
a school maintained by a Local Authority;
an Academy;
a Further or Higher Education establishment;
an Independent School that has been accepted into the Scheme
by a Function Provider (a company awarded a contract to perform functions on behalf of a local authority
https://www.teacherspensions.co.uk/members/faqs/scheme-membership/your-scheme.aspx
There are some unpleasantnesses with some indy schools trying to opt out of TPS into something cheaper for them.
As for teaching qualifications, many teachers in independent schools already have PGCE and QTS. As for those who don't, academies don't have to require them, and there are certification routes to allow experienced teachers to get the status without further training.
I understand that independent schools would much rather not have to deal with VAT. But the arguments I'm seeing are what those on the right like to call 'shroud waving ' or 'stump wielding' when they're used by those awful unions to argue against public spending cuts.
Its highly inefficient to do single order deliveries from different locations to different locations. The app company takes 20-30% of each order, that is added on by the restaurant to standard menu price that they charge the customer. The customer then pays an additional £5+ of fees.
Because its super inefficient the drivers / riders spend ages pissing about waiting for an order, taking an order etc, and the hourly is not actually that good. And after all of that, the delivery company after taking 30% from one side and £5+ from the other, still can't make money, as they have to spend crazy amounts on advertising as barrier to entry is so low.
Why people use food delivery apps regularly, its so expensive (especially as takeaways have already gone through the roof because of inflation). Why people do the delivery when your income is all over the place. And how do these companies ever become profitable?
A loading bay/trades bay every 50m or so on residential streets. There are so many parked cars now (doubled since the 1980s), workers spend about half the time just looking for a place to park. And then have to shift loads of stuff by hand/trolley miles to your house.
Very much a city problem but it's hundreds of small, incremental things like that that boost productivity over the long term.