Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
The social care issue has been kicked down the road since at least 1997. The Blair government set up the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care otherwise known as the Sutherland commission. Every government and PM has continued to kick the issue into touch.
Yes. What is intriguing is why. Dilnot (of the dust gathering Dilnot report into this) said just recently that the cost to the treasury of the plan was small - about 1 bn I think. It makes no obvious sense to annoy a few million voters over this. So something else is going on.
Further evidence that there is some unknown agenda is that none of the big three parties feature it much. There is a consensus to keep is low key.
So what is the real issue which prevents this reform for a quarter of a century and more?
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
In a time of rising prices, it's a big disincentive on people to move houses - much better to keep that valuation of 30 years ago. Also a huge penalty on people in the better areas of the country.
I think a local VAT is the way forward for local government finance. It can be added on to exisiting VAT and it would encourage healthy competition between boroughs to deliver the lowest rates.
Oh I cal tell you live in the US - that simply wouldn't work here as everything is based around a single national rate.
As for the keeping the old valuations that acts as a massive incentive not to move - as you watch the $2000 you currently pay become $14,000 because you moved home.
Better to have it rising with inflation so everyone in the neighbourhood is paying the same price...
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
The downside is moral hazard. Why save when those who haven't saved get the same treatment for free?
In which case you better fix the housing market quickly. Because if you are 40/50 years old there is zero point saving for a pension only to see the money disappear in rent..
Don't disagree.
The moral hazard is of course created by housing benefit which is the cause of many problems.
Perhaps it should be a fixed amount which would suffice to live in Redcar...
Sometimes I do wonder if the government actually wants people to spend all their money as fast as possible to keep the growth numbers up. And sod the future.
Do we have a rival here to synchronised swimming for the silliest Olympic sport?
There are a couple of older ladies at my local pool who practice synchronised swimming every so often. It's really impressive to see them do it; I can barely see any movement out of time. One of them has been doing it for forty years!
I'd also point out they seem to practice moves for ages before they go for a bit of a routine. It seems to be a bit like a jigsaw; the entire thing looks complex, but it comprises a whole host of simpler moves.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
You could use land value, but again it would have to be based on a local rather than a national scale, with each local authority deciding what %age of land value should be paid in tax.
Unless you want to make it impossible for anyone not earning six figures to live anywhere near London, by massively pumping rents and increase overcrowded living and HMOs.
Current land and house prices already make living anywhere near London challenging with exorbitantly high rents and land prices, which some people have an incentive to push ever higher.
What I propose is spreading that pain so that everyone in an area shoulders the cost of higher prices, not just those who've recently purchased or rent.
Okay, so what should the council tax on a 3-bed council house worth £1m be? £10k a year?
I believe 0.7% would be more than enough to eliminate both Stamp Duty and Council Tax, so £7k.
Which would give an incentive to people not to have their land double in value, as doing so doubles their taxes.
What is the rent on a £1m house? Or the mortgage?
And if we had this change and the result was a 10% fall in the value to £900k (so tax fell to £6,300) and the rent and mortgage costs fell commensurately for someone looking to rent or buy in the area, then what would be the net impact? Bearing in mind stamp duty is eliminated in this scheme too.
Essentially this is replacing a capped ~ 0.3% council tax (averaged over the country ish) + a very unevenly distributed national property tax that only falls on house buyers with a 0.3% council tax + a 0.4% property tax.
The only quibble I would add is that, if such a change is made, people who have recently moved should have their stamp duty counted as a prepayment of the property tax element for the relevant number of years. Otherwise it’s incredibly unfair to doubly tax people who have just moved who are almost certainly at the time in their lives when their finances are most stretched already.
Otherwise it’s clearly the economically correct thing to do & will push older people living in homes that are far too big to downsize which can only be a good thing.
That's a very reasonable point and amendment. Quite happy to agree to that, as a sensible transitional arrangement.
The other issues would be
1) single person discount - do you implement that with a discount on the council tax bit or just expect them to pay the full amount (with some transition relief) 2) empty / second home surcharges - do you keep them or remove them. I'm inclined to keep them..
Every year you get owners to self-value. The trick is they have to sell at that price if someone offers them the money…
isn't that what Donald Trump did?
I think he was coming up with different values depending on who asked.
While you are here, I think you might be interested in this, which is the entire text of one of my grandmother’s finals paper for her history degree. I found it while going though some of her old books.
ESSAYS. THE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER. HONOURS SCHOOL OF HISTORY. PART II. V. June 7th, 1929, 9-45-12-45. Write an Essay on one of the following subjects : Livery and Uniform. The Alps in History. Diplomacy: Historical Impartiality. Poetry and Politics.
Edited to delete an extraneous “l’m”.
Gosh. Three hours on one of those. Fun...
I think I'd go for 'historical impartiality' on the grounds that it's easy to demonstrate, contrary to Ranke's naivety, that it doesn't exist.
The Alps in history clearly has an elephant in the room.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
I'm sorry for that, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful but what had they hoped for? They couldn't surely be hoping to take it with them?
Why should those who are working very hard today, who don't have assets, be taxed to fund the protection of those who worked hard in the past?
Especially since most value in property "assets" especially weren't worked for and are the result of house prices rising. If that unearned gain is lost then it may not be what you hoped for, but nor is it what those who are working hard today should be getting taxed in order for anyone to avoid.
Sort of on topic, but I was reading today that one of the attacks the GOP are going to do on Harris is about her laughing. She laughs a lot which I have noticed. To me that is endearing and not a negative. It has also then been noted that Trump never laughs. Not something I have noted before, but thinking about it he doesn't. The best you ever get is a smile.
I think this is a very bad attack line indeed. All they will be highlighting is one candidate is happy and the other grumpy.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
"People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?"
What's wrong with it is the risk isn't spread. If you have assets and get lucky, as it were, and drop down dead without needing years of social care beforehand then your assets are protected and can be passed on. If you are unlucky then the whole lot - a lifetime's work and savings - can be gone.
It is effectively a 100% inheritance tax but only on estates where the person was unlucky enough to need a few years social care rather than NHS treatment.
At least with the Dilnot cap there is a limit to how brutally unlucky you can get.
(which also allows an insurance market to develop - which will allow more resources into the sector).
Sort of on topic, but I was reading today that one of the attacks the GOP are going to do on Harris is about her laughing. She laughs a lot which I have noticed. To me that is endearing and not a negative. It has also then been noted that Trump never laughs. Not something I have noted before, but thinking about it he doesn't. The best you ever get is a smile.
I think this is a very bad attack line indeed. All they will be highlighting is one candidate is happy and the other grumpy.
Trump is weird is looking like a really good attack line for the Dems.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
"People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?"
What's wrong with it is the risk isn't spread. If you have assets and get lucky, as it were, and drop down dead without needing years of social care beforehand then your assets are protected and can be passed on. If you are unlucky then the whole lot - a lifetime's work and savings - can be gone.
It is effectively a 100% inheritance tax but only on estates where the person was unlucky enough to need a few years social care rather than NHS treatment.
At least with the Dilnot cap there is a limit to how brutally unlucky you can get.
(which also allows an insurance market to develop - which will allow more resources into the sector).
So funding a Dilnot cap by ringfencing a new Inheritance Tax would equalise that risk then would it not?
Why should a Dilnot cap be funded out of general taxation, or worse a tax on people who work, many of whom do not have assets to "protect"?
Indeed many workers are quite possibly renting from the very same people who own the assets that are being let out for a profit but being sought to be protected by this tax. In what way is that reasonable?
The new government will never have more goodwill than they do now, a month into a large majority.
Yet they’ve actually been very timid with the annoucements, and made some basic errors such as cancelling infrastructure projects to pay for current spending, especially their old friends in the public sector unions.
The 22% raise for those who already earn well above average wage comes across as particularly egregious, and will no doubt inspire other unions to ask for the same. A 22% offer that’s been described as derisory by the union involved, the leader of which does his best to come across as Arthur Scargill with a stethoscope.
It's a curious set of infrastructure projects that have been cancelled because most of them were pie in sky crap (the restoring your railway ones) or could be argued to be ongoing expenditure (is it really investment if you are replacing an existing hospital)...
You then have the very contentious A303 Stonehenge tunnel and an A27 scheme which the locals seem to actively hate...
So I see a couple of political point scoring victories (A303,A27) hidden in the cost cutting there, a pile of populist crap (the restoring railways "projects") and a question over what is investment..
I don’t know about the A27, but the A303 has been top of the agenda for at least three decades now, and the HS2 link to Euston leaves a white elephant of a line that no-one actually going to London is going to use except with promotional fares, and adds more human congestion to the reduced number of trains on the legacy main lines. The Thames crossing has already spend a quarter of a billion on paperwork, and don’t start me on Heathrow’s third runway.
All of these should have been done a long, long time ago, and it’s disappointing to see a new government kick the can just as the last one did. And the one before that.
Heathrow's third runway isn't a money issue - that would be paid for by Heathrow.
As for HS2 - my opinion is that once it was designed it should have been built as is - but Euston should be being advertised as the 2/3 different projects it is so that people know where the money is going...
I'm less concerned about delaying the final part to Euston (a) because I think they will do it eventually and (b) it doesn't invalidate the rest of the line.
Much play is made that people don't want to journey to Old Oak Common. But they mostly don't want to go to Euston either. Almost everyone wants to go to a station in London and from there take local transport to their final destination. Old Oak Common fulfills that role as does Euston. A third of passengers would choose to get off at Old Oak Common anyway, it's marginal for many of the rest and almost everyone will make the trip to Old Oak Common if that's where the station is. The main effect is to overload the Elizabeth Line.
I'm a lot more concerned about the section to Crewe. If you don't put the capacity in to a similar specification as the southern part, it undermines the whole project.
edit - you already made both my points further down..
Isn't the Birmingham to Crewe bit the most economically viable part of the entire project?
After that I thought it was the HSb (Eastern Leg) and then the bit to Manchester?
Mm - define 'economically viable'.
Birmingham to Crewe is certainly the least costly. But I'd say 'economically viable' would be your balance of costs and benefits. So: a) what benefits does the economic case of the business case say it delivers? b) does it deliver those if the other sections are not delivered? c) what about the other non-quantified benefits (which are in all likelihood greater than those which have been quantified) - e.g. regeneration benefits, e.g. capacity relief, e.g. sections which deliver parts of other proposed investments?
Answer: it's complicated!
Its not that complicated.
If they don't build phase 2a to Crewe, six tracks (four Trent Valley and Two HS2) will converge on un grade separated Colwich Junction and two track Shugborough Tunnel.
It's a total clusterfuck. That is such a pinchpoint that an upgrade to bypass it all was already planned before being canned when HS2 came along.
Er, the Stone avoiding line diverges *before* Shugborough Tunnel. So it's four lines, not two, that operate there.
It would still be a pinch point but not quite as bad a one as you think.
Colwich is where the line to stoke on trent goes of and the WCML goes down to 2 track north of it through Shugborough Tunnel.
All it carries is two of the Euston to Manchesters per hour (down trains thereof also conflict with up trains from Stafford at Colwich).
If the "stone avoiding line" had a route back to the West Coast Main Line north of Stafford, you might have a point, but it dosent south of Crewe. Although the Stoke to Crewe Line being electrified in the last few years helps.
It carries far more than 2tph at peak periods. More like 8 (or four each way).
Also, if there were no crossover at Stone it couldn't carry trains to Stoke.
I agree it would be better if it were grade separated, but your earlier claim of 'six tracks going down to two tracks' was simply daft.
Eh?
You can't go Colwich - Stone Avoiding line - back to WCML (before Crewe and slowly at any rate)
It is basically a branch.
The WCML is four track, then two HS2 tracks will join it a few miles before it becomes 2 track through Shugborough Tunnel.
As to 4TPH in the peak service, to Stoke avoiding Stafford is still 2PH (3 tph from Manchester to Euton, but one goes via Wilmslow and Crewe).
There is an extra Manchester to Euston via Stoke in the morning peak, but that goes via Stafford and Birmingham, same as all the Crosscountries (as did the London Midland Euston to Crewe via Stafford and Stoke before they decided to bypass Stoke and send it fast from Stafford to Crewe).
Rail planning is one of those areas in which it is quite astonishing how many really quite knowledgeable people there are on here.
Although they don't include that particular poster, who not only doesn't know the track layout but describes a line as 'basically a branch' before noting it takes fast services...
Yeah, what the fuck would I know after a lifetime spent in the industry.
Suggest you look up some easy to access publically available resources like then one below before talking out of the back of your head.
Or I could do what I do fairly frequently, living only a few miles away, and go and look at the track...
Given your very strange pronouncements on the MML and HS2 I'm inclined to say the answer to your first question is 'not a lot,' if I'm honest.
Looking at the track from the ground isn't particularly helpful in understanding how a complex layout like Colwich works, nor the usefulness and traffic density of the various routes from it.
A look at Whitehouse Junction (where the two tracks through Shugborough Tunnel widen back to four) and Hixon (on what you call the Stone Avoiding Line (actually it is no such thing - it passes through Stone Station on seaparate tracks where the platforms were demolished in the '60s)) on real time trains will show you that all bar a very small number of the large number of passenger and freight trains passing through Colwich Junction run through the two track bottleneck that is Shugborough Tunnel.
The site will show you that of the 27 trains that run south from or two Colwich Junction, passing either Whitehouse Jct or Hixon between 9 AM and 10 AM:
* 23 pass through Shugborough Tunnel and Whitehouse Junction between 9AM and 10AM.
* Just 4 pass through Hixon on your so called Stone avoiding Line between 9AM and 10AM .
Shall we run through how this conversation started?
You complained that with HS2 coming into the WCML at Lichfield (actually Handsacre) there would be a major bottleneck where 'six tracks go into two' at Shugborough.
I pointed out that there is a double track line from Colwich to Stone so this statement was incorrect.
You then said that didn't count as it only had two trains per hour on it.
I pointed out this was also not correct as there were more than this (up to four each way) at peak times (and I was using RealTimeTrains for data - feel free to expand it to the whole day) which you rather grudgingly accepted although you now seem to have rowed back on that.
You then said it only took a couple of expresses per hour and was, in effect, a branch line, which I pointed out was a logical contradiction.
You then got very agitated but never actually managed to explain why that wasn't a contradiction.
On your substantive point, nobody disputes the junctions are badly laid out, causing restrictions on traffic, and need sorting if the line's to be used properly. That's been a constant thing since it was electrified (arguably before). Grade separated junctions easily accessed for traffic going both ways would be needed and are not as simple as waving a wand. And that also applies wherever the DfT run HS2 to.
But the line *is* there and therefore your claim that six tracks go into two was mathematically and factually incorrect. It's your stubborn refusal to accept this that's getting you into the tangle you seem to be in.
Whether six tracks going into four is much better is another question. I'd say not, but then, I've always advocated building HS2 right the way to Manchester and Leeds. If the government are too cheeseparing to do that then at least up to Crewe would be far better than Handsacre.
To give my qualifications, I am a lifelong rail enthusiast and used to drive steam trains on a heritage railway.
Having a couple of expresses per hour on a branch line is not in any way a logical contradiction. By describing it as such you are demonstrating your lack of knowledge.
A branch line is any line that is connected to a main line and has its own services. It is engineered for lower speeds than a main line. There may also be other restrictions that you wouldn't find on a main line, e.g. weight and loading gauge.
An express is any train that goes from its origin to its destination with few or no stops.
So if a line coming off the main line at A runs to point B with 10 intermediate stops and is engineered for top speeds of, say, 50mph, it is a branch line. If there is a train originating at A and running to B without stopping at the intermediate stops, it is an express. Indeed, an express train from London to B would run along the branch line. It doesn't stop the express being an express, nor does it stop the branch line being a branch line.
I love your suggestion that going and looking at the track means you know what you are talking about. I've looked at a hospital. That doesn't make me a medical expert.
If you were talking to a group of rail enthusiasts with the posts you have made here, you would be quietly advised to stop making a fool of yourself.
I appear to have a similar background to you (except on track, rather than driving...), and I'm actually more on @ydoethur 's side on this. For instance, I don't think the linespeed on Stone to Colwich is 50 MPH? I'm pretty sure it can't really be classed as a branch line; more of a subsidiary/secondary main line.
To be fair, I was referring to his comments suggesting that a branch line can't have expresses and that looking at the track means he knows what he is talking about. Re this route, I agree that it is probably a secondary rather than strictly a branch, but one can argue all day about definitions here. The LMS would have classed it as secondary. BR would have had it as class B or class C.
I think we're entering the third straight day of this conversation. Heroic stuff from all concerned.
It's fine for those with the relevant domain expertise but I find it intimidating. I sit here, fidgety, on mute, wanting to contribute something but unable to. Not such a great feeling.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
I'm sorry for that, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful but what had they hoped for? They couldn't surely be hoping to take it with them?
Why should those who are working very hard today, who don't have assets, be taxed to fund the protection of those who worked hard in the past?
Especially since most value in property "assets" especially weren't worked for and are the result of house prices rising. If that unearned gain is lost then it may not be what you hoped for, but nor is it what those who are working hard today should be getting taxed in order for anyone to avoid.
I have to admit that I feel very sorry for the person twin A bought her house from. The money is going to end up going on care home fees while the daughter was getting daily calls from the council asking when the house sale would be completed.
Given the pressure the daughter was being placed under a crueler person would have insisted on a discount on the day of exchange..
And that money really isn't going to last very long given what we paid (at full agreed price) and the care home fees.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
"People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?"
What's wrong with it is the risk isn't spread. If you have assets and get lucky, as it were, and drop down dead without needing years of social care beforehand then your assets are protected and can be passed on. If you are unlucky then the whole lot - a lifetime's work and savings - can be gone.
It is effectively a 100% inheritance tax but only on estates where the person was unlucky enough to need a few years social care rather than NHS treatment.
At least with the Dilnot cap there is a limit to how brutally unlucky you can get.
(which also allows an insurance market to develop - which will allow more resources into the sector).
The question then becomes - why does the insurance market not already exist...
Title: Poetry and Politics: An Exploration of Their Interplay
Abstract: Poetry and politics have a long and intricate relationship. This essay delves into the ways in which poetry intersects with political discourse, shaping ideologies, challenging power structures, and reflecting societal changes. We’ll explore historical examples, analyze contemporary poets, and discuss the impact of poetic expression on political movements.
Introduction: Begin by introducing the significance of poetry and politics. Highlight how poets have historically engaged with political themes, from ancient epics to modern spoken word performances. Mention the power of language and its ability to influence public opinion.
Body:
Historical Context: Discuss ancient poets like Homer, whose epics conveyed political ideals. Explore the role of poetry during the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods. Analyze how Romantic poets responded to social and political upheaval.
Poetry as Protest: Investigate poets who challenged authority, such as Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” Examine the Civil Rights Movement and the impact of Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. Consider contemporary poets addressing issues like climate change and inequality.
Political Themes in Poetry: Explore recurring themes: power, justice, freedom, and identity. Discuss how poets use metaphor, symbolism, and allegory to convey political messages. Compare different poetic forms (sonnets, haikus, free verse) and their political implications.
Poetry and Political Movements: Analyze the role of poetry in revolutions (e.g., Pablo Neruda during the Chilean coup). Discuss the Arab Spring and the use of poetry as a tool for change. Reflect on the impact of spoken word poetry in contemporary activism.
Contemporary Poets: Highlight poets like Audre Lorde, Derek Walcott, and Seamus Heaney. Explore their engagement with political issues and their unique styles.
Challenges and Criticisms: Address critiques of political poetry (e.g., oversimplification, didacticism). Discuss the tension between artistic expression and advocacy.
Conclusion: Summarize the essay’s key points, emphasizing the enduring connection between poetry and politics. Acknowledge the complexities and nuances of this relationship.
Remember that this is an outline, and you’ll need to expand each section with evidence, analysis, and citations. Good luck with your essay! 📝🌟
For further inspiration, you can explore free 10,000-word essay samples on various topics1.2 If you have any specific questions or need additional guidance, feel free to ask! 😊
Sort of on topic, but I was reading today that one of the attacks the GOP are going to do on Harris is about her laughing. She laughs a lot which I have noticed. To me that is endearing and not a negative. It has also then been noted that Trump never laughs. Not something I have noted before, but thinking about it he doesn't. The best you ever get is a smile.
I think this is a very bad attack line indeed. All they will be highlighting is one candidate is happy and the other grumpy.
I like the one that she hates Jewish people which he keeps repeating. So much so that she has been married to a practising Jew for the last 10 years. Trump justifies this by claiming her husband is a “crappy Jew” and “a horrible Jew.” It's the way he tells them.
Housing - Lower is better (Average completions per year for the prior 10 years/ population) - for reference sub 192 would enable Labour to hit their 1.5 M housebuilding target:
Worst authorities *lim ->∞ Isles of Scilly 1954 Brighton and Hove 1630 Kingston upon Thames 1578 Richmond upon Thames 1441 Eastbourne 1358 Adur 1251 Leicester 1221 Norwich 1169 Southend-on-Sea 1136 Birmingham
Best/Qualifying areas.
190 Tower Hamlets 189 Wychavon 188 Wokingham 185 East Devon 184 West Oxfordshire 182 South Cambridgeshire 182 Central Bedfordshire 179 Maidstone 177 Mid Suffolk 173 South Norfolk 171 Telford and Wrekin 165 Milton Keynes 163 Cherwell 162 North West Leicestershire 160 Dartford 155 Ribble Valley 155 Tewkesbury 153 Vale of White Horse 149 Harborough 132 Stratford-on-Avon 126 South Derbyshire
Out of interest where is Durham. There does seem to be quite a bit of housebuilding round here.
Your first problem with Durham is exactly what is your definition of Durham - because the City itself will have different figures to the villages around it..
In this case it is the Local Authority area.
I would prefer to know for Chester-Le-Street/North Durham area. I am not sure that level of detail is available.
I suspect the data is available but it will be on the VOA website (based on date council tax started - so difficult to access and technically for personal use only.
Especially as it is more for my personal interest. Anecdotally I know of several new builds completed recently or ongoing but that is only a part of the picture.
oh it's useful data to have but it's a right faff to collect.
Mind you I should get back off my arse and slurp the data because I was planning to use it to match council tax band to last sale prices as I suspect that would reveal the scale of the mess the Government will have revaluing council tax houses and bands..
After all if they use an England wide set of bands - every house in London is going to be band F and above, most houses around here will be band A.
Which of course is why each local authority sets its own tax rates for the bands. Anything done with a national scale of current house prices will make most of SE England totally unaffordable for those who currently live there. Even worse, it gives government a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as posible, as we see with stamp duty at the moment.
Not really - it sets a value for Band D and the other bands are based on percentages of that Band D valuation
If we have a national banding scheme what we will have is councils up north with a Band D valuation of £4000 (because their houses are now in bands A-C) while down south its £2000 because all the houses are in Band E and above.
Ideally we skip all that and just go £x of the current market value because that information is at hand thanks to the reporting of purchase price..
But the Band D property in London looks very different to a Band D property in Yorkshire. The comparison shouldn’t be between properties in the same band, but between properties of the same size. The average 2-bed flat, or 4-bed house, would likely pay similar council tax in both places.
Which means that those who own a property outright in an expensive area pay relatively peanuts and gain a load from prices rising. With inevitable consequences.
Make tax a percentage of house prices/land value. For those who are renting/buying it will be comparable to what they're paying anyway for the main cost (the rent or purchase) but it will mean those who own outright aren't immunised from the costs of exorbitant land costs.
You could call it "Rates"
Nope rates is based on land value which is a faff to calculate. Sold house price (with a reckoner to calculate current value) is readily available and a reasonable substitute given what you are trying to achieve...
Land value is better.
People developing land or people leaving land undeveloped should pay the same tax.
If someone is improving land they should make the gain from that, by themselves. If someone wants to bank land they should pay every penny as much tax as all the houses that could be built on that land if it weren't being banked.
You could use land value, but again it would have to be based on a local rather than a national scale, with each local authority deciding what %age of land value should be paid in tax.
Unless you want to make it impossible for anyone not earning six figures to live anywhere near London, by massively pumping rents and increase overcrowded living and HMOs.
Current land and house prices already make living anywhere near London challenging with exorbitantly high rents and land prices, which some people have an incentive to push ever higher.
What I propose is spreading that pain so that everyone in an area shoulders the cost of higher prices, not just those who've recently purchased or rent.
Your suggestion would make living anywhere near London significantly more expensive than it is already.
Okay, so what should the council tax on a 3-bed council house worth £1m be? £10k a year?
Why not - provided we provide a solution that allows those unable to pay it immediately to pay it later when the house was sold.
We've argued over the need to have a wealth tax for years and the only sane way to do that is to attach it to an item that isn't particularly mobile (i.e. property).
Someone living in a council house is paying little rent themselves, and can’t roll over a £7k per year tax to the future because they’re by definition among the poorest in society.
@Sandpit buying a £1m property requires £41k of Stamp Duty alone. To be paid up-front along with a deposit.
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
I said council house. Using occupied by key workers in London, and whose income bears no relation to the value of the property they occupy.
@Sandpit buying a £1m property requires £41k of Stamp Duty alone. To be paid up-front along with a deposit.
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
I said council house. Using occupied by key workers in London, and whose income bears no relation to the value of the property they occupy.
In which case they'll be getting benefits to support already, so that just nets out already from rebalancing taxes as you'd give fewer benefits to those who no longer need them, and more to those who do, but it will net out at no change.
Indeed if the level of housing benefit required to pay for that million pound house comes down as it ceases to be a million pounds and rents and mortgages come down when people no longer have an incentive to artificially inflate prices, then the amount of benefit going out there might be reduced.
But for those who do own a property and want to inflate property prices by objecting to construction lest it hurt their property price - why should they not face the consequences of their choices in the tax system? Why should only their neighbours pay higher costs while they reap the rewards?
Why should someone mobile (or simply young) moving into a million pound house face £41k up-front on top of their deposit, while those who are sitting there pay £0?
Do we have a rival here to synchronised swimming for the silliest Olympic sport?
There are a couple of older ladies at my local pool who practice synchronised swimming every so often. It's really impressive to see them do it; I can barely see any movement out of time. One of them has been doing it for forty years!
I'd also point out they seem to practice moves for ages before they go for a bit of a routine. It seems to be a bit like a jigsaw; the entire thing looks complex, but it comprises a whole host of simpler moves.
It may look silly, but it's impressive.
Nobody is arguing otherwise, but Sport? An Olympic Sport?
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
I'm sorry for that, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful but what had they hoped for? They couldn't surely be hoping to take it with them?
Why should those who are working very hard today, who don't have assets, be taxed to fund the protection of those who worked hard in the past?
Especially since most value in property "assets" especially weren't worked for and are the result of house prices rising. If that unearned gain is lost then it may not be what you hoped for, but nor is it what those who are working hard today should be getting taxed in order for anyone to avoid.
I have to admit that I feel very sorry for the person twin A bought her house from. The money is going to end up going on care home fees while the daughter was getting daily calls from the council asking when the house sale would be completed.
Given the pressure the daughter was being placed under a crueler person would have insisted on a discount on the day of exchange..
And that money really isn't going to last very long given what we paid (at full agreed price) and the care home fees.
I have sympathy too.
But sympathy isn't a reason to tax people to protect other people's assets.
@Sandpit buying a £1m property requires £41k of Stamp Duty alone. To be paid up-front along with a deposit.
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
I said council house. Using occupied by key workers in London, and whose income bears no relation to the value of the property they occupy.
In which case they are paying the 0.3% percentage council band part and that's it.
There will be a known market value for the flat and while it may be more than the current council tax I actually doubt it's that much different - would need to hunt down a suitable location and find out what the current band is...
Sort of on topic, but I was reading today that one of the attacks the GOP are going to do on Harris is about her laughing. She laughs a lot which I have noticed. To me that is endearing and not a negative. It has also then been noted that Trump never laughs. Not something I have noted before, but thinking about it he doesn't. The best you ever get is a smile.
I think this is a very bad attack line indeed. All they will be highlighting is one candidate is happy and the other grumpy.
On this point it's something that's always struck me about Donald Trump (and in fact the whole MAGA thing around him). They supposedly have a GSOH in contrast to those po-faced woke DEMs but it's quite the opposite. They are incredibly thin-skinned, take offence at the drop of a hat, and their 'humour', such as it is, is invariably crass and snide and mean-spirited. The sort of stuff that lends itself to a snigger not a laugh. And if you watch Trump when he's being what passes for amusing in that world that is what you'll see - a lot of gurning and sniggering. It's quite unpleasant. I actually prefer it when he's just doing the hyperbole and bare-faced lying and infantile boasting.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
I'm sorry for that, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful but what had they hoped for? They couldn't surely be hoping to take it with them?
Why should those who are working very hard today, who don't have assets, be taxed to fund the protection of those who worked hard in the past?
Especially since most value in property "assets" especially weren't worked for and are the result of house prices rising. If that unearned gain is lost then it may not be what you hoped for, but nor is it what those who are working hard today should be getting taxed in order for anyone to avoid.
I have to admit that I feel very sorry for the person twin A bought her house from. The money is going to end up going on care home fees while the daughter was getting daily calls from the council asking when the house sale would be completed.
Given the pressure the daughter was being placed under a crueler person would have insisted on a discount on the day of exchange..
And that money really isn't going to last very long given what we paid (at full agreed price) and the care home fees.
I have sympathy too.
But sympathy isn't a reason to tax people to protect other people's assets.
What right exactly do you or the state have to my assets? I thought you were a right winger, what happened to the goal of reducing the size of the client state rather than sitting around all day dreaming up new ways of funding it?
@Sandpit buying a £1m property requires £41k of Stamp Duty alone. To be paid up-front along with a deposit.
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
I said council house. Using occupied by key workers in London, and whose income bears no relation to the value of the property they occupy.
In which case they'll be getting benefits to support already, so that just nets out already from rebalancing taxes as you'd give fewer benefits to those who no longer need them, and more to those who do, but it will net out at no change.
Indeed if the level of housing benefit required to pay for that million pound house comes down as it ceases to be a million pounds and rents and mortgages come down when people no longer have an incentive to artificially inflate prices, then the amount of benefit going out there might be reduced.
But for those who do own a property and want to inflate property prices by objecting to construction lest it hurt their property price - why should they not face the consequences of their choices in the tax system? Why should only their neighbours pay higher costs while they reap the rewards?
Why should someone mobile (or simply young) moving into a million pound house face £41k up-front on top of their deposit, while those who are sitting there pay £0?
All of the incentives to which you’ve referred still work on a local basis of valuation, without upsetting everyone living south of Birmingham who would then probably vote for Nick Griffin or Jeremy Corbyn if they promised to repeal the change. Let each council decide how much their property tax needs to be, in order to make their budget.
Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Peru have refused to recognise the result too.
They're not all in hock to the Kremlin, which has recognised it.
Oil producing countries trying to annex their neighbours while led by bellicose and corrupt failures must stick together, according to Putin.
Brazil looks set to reject the result too. If Maduro has driven Lula to co-operate with Biden he will have screwed up more than UvdL did over vaccines.
The missile that killed Hamas leader in Tehran on Wednesday morning was launched from within Iranian territory, according to Israeli Channel 12.
The report, which didn’t cite any sources, also claimed that the leader of Islamic Jihad, Ziyad Nakhalah, was in the same apartment as Ishmail Haniyeh at the time of the attack but that he survived the assassination attempt.
Got to ask - when can he be returned to his country of origin - because it seems pretty pointless paying for him to be in a UK jail only to deport him afterwards.
The Huw Edwards case is quite strange. He deleted the images, it is claimed he didn't ask for the illegal ones, i understand strict liability but is it that he continued to interact with the person or something else? And he has pled guilty. It feels like there is context / more to it.
Do we have a rival here to synchronised swimming for the silliest Olympic sport?
There are a couple of older ladies at my local pool who practice synchronised swimming every so often. It's really impressive to see them do it; I can barely see any movement out of time. One of them has been doing it for forty years!
I'd also point out they seem to practice moves for ages before they go for a bit of a routine. It seems to be a bit like a jigsaw; the entire thing looks complex, but it comprises a whole host of simpler moves.
It may look silly, but it's impressive.
Nobody is arguing otherwise, but Sport? An Olympic Sport?
It doesn't meet my criteria for a sport - having a metric that can be measured. It meets @SandyRentool 's - as you cannot smoke a ciggie whilst doing it.
The more you read of it, the more weird it becomes.
If I were to guess at the sequence of events, they arrested a pornographer who was sending pictures to a load of people, one of whom was Edwards, who just happens to have attracted all the attention because he’s otherwise famous. Despite the fact his own devices were clean when the police found him, the evidence was on the other guy’s phone, and Edwards didn’t think to switch to a burner as the material got more and more dodgy.
Got to ask - when can he be returned to his country of origin - because it seems pretty pointless paying for him to be in a UK jail only to deport him afterwards.
The UK has been doing that with some nationalities e.g. Albanians. I doubt however we ever get a Kurd on a plane as will claim persecution and this is the problem ever western country faces.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
I'm sorry for that, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful but what had they hoped for? They couldn't surely be hoping to take it with them?
Why should those who are working very hard today, who don't have assets, be taxed to fund the protection of those who worked hard in the past?
Especially since most value in property "assets" especially weren't worked for and are the result of house prices rising. If that unearned gain is lost then it may not be what you hoped for, but nor is it what those who are working hard today should be getting taxed in order for anyone to avoid.
I have to admit that I feel very sorry for the person twin A bought her house from. The money is going to end up going on care home fees while the daughter was getting daily calls from the council asking when the house sale would be completed.
Given the pressure the daughter was being placed under a crueler person would have insisted on a discount on the day of exchange..
And that money really isn't going to last very long given what we paid (at full agreed price) and the care home fees.
I have sympathy too.
But sympathy isn't a reason to tax people to protect other people's assets.
What right exactly do you or the state have to my assets? I thought you were a right winger, what happened to the goal of reducing the size of the client state rather than sitting around all day dreaming up new ways of funding it?
The untaxed part is yours, the rest belongs to the government. Same as with income.
The missile that killed Hamas leader in Tehran on Wednesday morning was launched from within Iranian territory, according to Israeli Channel 12.
The report, which didn’t cite any sources, also claimed that the leader of Islamic Jihad, Ziyad Nakhalah, was in the same apartment as Ishmail Haniyeh at the time of the attack but that he survived the assassination attempt.
The more you read of it, the more weird it becomes.
If I were to guess at the sequence of events, they arrested a pornographer who was sending pictures to a load of people, one of whom was Edwards, who just happens to have attracted all the attention because he’s otherwise famous. Despite the fact his own devices were clean when the police found him, the evidence was on the other guy’s phone.
Given the rise of the big streaming sites, you’d have to be into something pretty “niche” to need some guy to collate and WhatsApp you pornography.
The missile that killed Hamas leader in Tehran on Wednesday morning was launched from within Iranian territory, according to Israeli Channel 12.
The report, which didn’t cite any sources, also claimed that the leader of Islamic Jihad, Ziyad Nakhalah, was in the same apartment as Ishmail Haniyeh at the time of the attack but that he survived the assassination attempt.
The missile that killed Hamas leader in Tehran on Wednesday morning was launched from within Iranian territory, according to Israeli Channel 12.
The report, which didn’t cite any sources, also claimed that the leader of Islamic Jihad, Ziyad Nakhalah, was in the same apartment as Ishmail Haniyeh at the time of the attack but that he survived the assassination attempt.
The more you read of it, the more weird it becomes.
If I were to guess at the sequence of events, they arrested a pornographer who was sending pictures to a load of people, one of whom was Edwards, who just happens to have attracted all the attention because he’s otherwise famous. Despite the fact his own devices were clean when the police found him, the evidence was on the other guy’s phone.
Given the rise of the big streaming sites, you’d have to be into something pretty “niche” to need some guy to collate and WhatsApp you pornography.
I'm assuming the fact they haven't named the other man means his trial is still to occur and more details will come out then.
It's one thing to say "please don't send me anything underage" but given one of the images was apparently of a 7 year old a) it should have been obvious that they were underage and b) at the very, very, very least blocking them was surely a wise thing to do at that point, not giggle and say "oh you scallyway, do behave"
The Huw Edwards case is quite strange. He deleted the images, it is claimed he didn't ask for the illegal ones, i understand strict liability but is it that he continued to interact with the person or something else? And he has pled guilty. It feels like there is context / more to it.
And now here we go ... It should become clear with the sentencing.
The more you read of it, the more weird it becomes.
If I were to guess at the sequence of events, they arrested a pornographer who was sending pictures to a load of people, one of whom was Edwards, who just happens to have attracted all the attention because he’s otherwise famous. Despite the fact his own devices were clean when the police found him, the evidence was on the other guy’s phone.
Given the rise of the big streaming sites, you’d have to be into something pretty “niche” to need some guy to collate and WhatsApp you pornography.
Well quite. It’s not as if there isn’t a whole internet of pr0n, much of which is free to access.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
I'm sorry for that, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful but what had they hoped for? They couldn't surely be hoping to take it with them?
Why should those who are working very hard today, who don't have assets, be taxed to fund the protection of those who worked hard in the past?
Especially since most value in property "assets" especially weren't worked for and are the result of house prices rising. If that unearned gain is lost then it may not be what you hoped for, but nor is it what those who are working hard today should be getting taxed in order for anyone to avoid.
I have to admit that I feel very sorry for the person twin A bought her house from. The money is going to end up going on care home fees while the daughter was getting daily calls from the council asking when the house sale would be completed.
Given the pressure the daughter was being placed under a crueler person would have insisted on a discount on the day of exchange..
And that money really isn't going to last very long given what we paid (at full agreed price) and the care home fees.
I have sympathy too.
But sympathy isn't a reason to tax people to protect other people's assets.
What right exactly do you or the state have to my assets? I thought you were a right winger, what happened to the goal of reducing the size of the client state rather than sitting around all day dreaming up new ways of funding it?
No one is "taking" your assets.
If you spend them, you spend them.
I'm precisely opposing an expansion of the client state that some want care paid for by taxpayers rather than funding it themselves out of their own assets.
Sort of on topic, but I was reading today that one of the attacks the GOP are going to do on Harris is about her laughing. She laughs a lot which I have noticed. To me that is endearing and not a negative. It has also then been noted that Trump never laughs. Not something I have noted before, but thinking about it he doesn't. The best you ever get is a smile.
I think this is a very bad attack line indeed. All they will be highlighting is one candidate is happy and the other grumpy.
Trump is weird is looking like a really good attack line for the Dems.
"We're not going back" is a positive related message.
@Sandpit buying a £1m property requires £41k of Stamp Duty alone. To be paid up-front along with a deposit.
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
I said council house. Using occupied by key workers in London, and whose income bears no relation to the value of the property they occupy.
In which case they'll be getting benefits to support already, so that just nets out already from rebalancing taxes as you'd give fewer benefits to those who no longer need them, and more to those who do, but it will net out at no change.
Indeed if the level of housing benefit required to pay for that million pound house comes down as it ceases to be a million pounds and rents and mortgages come down when people no longer have an incentive to artificially inflate prices, then the amount of benefit going out there might be reduced.
But for those who do own a property and want to inflate property prices by objecting to construction lest it hurt their property price - why should they not face the consequences of their choices in the tax system? Why should only their neighbours pay higher costs while they reap the rewards?
Why should someone mobile (or simply young) moving into a million pound house face £41k up-front on top of their deposit, while those who are sitting there pay £0?
All of the incentives to which you’ve referred still work on a local basis of valuation, without upsetting everyone living south of Birmingham who would then probably vote for Nick Griffin or Jeremy Corbyn if they promised to repeal the change. Let each council decide how much their property tax needs to be, in order to make their budget.
If people are upset they're upset but that's not an argument against what's being proposed.
Especially since it is central government that has decreed most of local Council expenditure. Funding care, SEN, etc are all demanded by central government so why should it not pay for it via national taxes like a nationally levied land value tax?
@Sandpit buying a £1m property requires £41k of Stamp Duty alone. To be paid up-front along with a deposit.
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
I said council house. Using occupied by key workers in London, and whose income bears no relation to the value of the property they occupy.
In which case they'll be getting benefits to support already, so that just nets out already from rebalancing taxes as you'd give fewer benefits to those who no longer need them, and more to those who do, but it will net out at no change.
Indeed if the level of housing benefit required to pay for that million pound house comes down as it ceases to be a million pounds and rents and mortgages come down when people no longer have an incentive to artificially inflate prices, then the amount of benefit going out there might be reduced.
But for those who do own a property and want to inflate property prices by objecting to construction lest it hurt their property price - why should they not face the consequences of their choices in the tax system? Why should only their neighbours pay higher costs while they reap the rewards?
Why should someone mobile (or simply young) moving into a million pound house face £41k up-front on top of their deposit, while those who are sitting there pay £0?
All of the incentives to which you’ve referred still work on a local basis of valuation, without upsetting everyone living south of Birmingham who would then probably vote for Nick Griffin or Jeremy Corbyn if they promised to repeal the change. Let each council decide how much their property tax needs to be, in order to make their budget.
If people are upset they're upset but that's not an argument against what's being proposed.
Especially since it is central government that has decreed most of local Council expenditure. Funding care, SEN, etc are all demanded by central government so why should it not pay for it via national taxes like a nationally levied land value tax?
Yes there's one thing that's really not on for local gov't to my mind, having centrally mandated requirements outwith centrally mandated funding to match said requirements.
@Sandpit buying a £1m property requires £41k of Stamp Duty alone. To be paid up-front along with a deposit.
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
I said council house. Using occupied by key workers in London, and whose income bears no relation to the value of the property they occupy.
In which case they'll be getting benefits to support already, so that just nets out already from rebalancing taxes as you'd give fewer benefits to those who no longer need them, and more to those who do, but it will net out at no change.
Indeed if the level of housing benefit required to pay for that million pound house comes down as it ceases to be a million pounds and rents and mortgages come down when people no longer have an incentive to artificially inflate prices, then the amount of benefit going out there might be reduced.
But for those who do own a property and want to inflate property prices by objecting to construction lest it hurt their property price - why should they not face the consequences of their choices in the tax system? Why should only their neighbours pay higher costs while they reap the rewards?
Why should someone mobile (or simply young) moving into a million pound house face £41k up-front on top of their deposit, while those who are sitting there pay £0?
All of the incentives to which you’ve referred still work on a local basis of valuation, without upsetting everyone living south of Birmingham who would then probably vote for Nick Griffin or Jeremy Corbyn if they promised to repeal the change. Let each council decide how much their property tax needs to be, in order to make their budget.
If people are upset they're upset but that's not an argument against what's being proposed.
Especially since it is central government that has decreed most of local Council expenditure. Funding care, SEN, etc are all demanded by central government so why should it not pay for it via national taxes like a nationally levied land value tax?
Because it’s politically impossible to do so. You’d be doubling, tripling, or more, the property takes paid by ordinary people who just happen to be living in the South East, raising rents significantly in those areas (with knock-on for housing benefit) and make it impossible to live in many areas unless you’re a high-rate taxpayer.
Where does the cleaner of an office block in the City live? What does their accommodation look like? Under your proposals, they’re living six to a room in a dodgy HMO a couple of miles walk from the end of the Tube line.
The poorest people in the biggest cities would be totally fcuked, but more importantly so would tens of millions of voters in the Home Counties.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
I'm sorry for that, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful but what had they hoped for? They couldn't surely be hoping to take it with them?
Why should those who are working very hard today, who don't have assets, be taxed to fund the protection of those who worked hard in the past?
Especially since most value in property "assets" especially weren't worked for and are the result of house prices rising. If that unearned gain is lost then it may not be what you hoped for, but nor is it what those who are working hard today should be getting taxed in order for anyone to avoid.
Generally people with means should fund their own care.
There should be support for the less well off
But equally catastrophe insurance is reasonable for the government to provide through tax.
Let’s say someone worked hard all their life and saved £500,000k for their retirement. That should be encouraged. But then their partner gets an expensive care requirement earlier than expected - all their funds go on caring for their partner and they have no benefit from their prudence. It would have been better to waste it all during their life.
Better to have a number above which the government makes a contribution to preserve the incentive to save
@Sandpit buying a £1m property requires £41k of Stamp Duty alone. To be paid up-front along with a deposit.
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
I said council house. Using occupied by key workers in London, and whose income bears no relation to the value of the property they occupy.
In which case they'll be getting benefits to support already, so that just nets out already from rebalancing taxes as you'd give fewer benefits to those who no longer need them, and more to those who do, but it will net out at no change.
Indeed if the level of housing benefit required to pay for that million pound house comes down as it ceases to be a million pounds and rents and mortgages come down when people no longer have an incentive to artificially inflate prices, then the amount of benefit going out there might be reduced.
But for those who do own a property and want to inflate property prices by objecting to construction lest it hurt their property price - why should they not face the consequences of their choices in the tax system? Why should only their neighbours pay higher costs while they reap the rewards?
Why should someone mobile (or simply young) moving into a million pound house face £41k up-front on top of their deposit, while those who are sitting there pay £0?
All of the incentives to which you’ve referred still work on a local basis of valuation, without upsetting everyone living south of Birmingham who would then probably vote for Nick Griffin or Jeremy Corbyn if they promised to repeal the change. Let each council decide how much their property tax needs to be, in order to make their budget.
If people are upset they're upset but that's not an argument against what's being proposed.
Especially since it is central government that has decreed most of local Council expenditure. Funding care, SEN, etc are all demanded by central government so why should it not pay for it via national taxes like a nationally levied land value tax?
Because it’s politically impossible to do so. You’d be doubling, tripling, or more, the property takes paid by ordinary people who just happen to be living in the South East, raising rents significantly in those areas (with knock-on for housing benefit) and make it impossible to live in many areas unless you’re a high-rate taxpayer.
Where does the cleaner of an office block in the City live? What does their accommodation look like? Under your proposals, they’re living six to a room in a dodgy HMO a couple of miles walk from the end of the Tube line.
The poorest people in the biggest cities would be totally fcuked, but more importantly so would tens of millions of voters in the Home Counties.
Escalating prices already double, triple the rents or prices anyway. Which utterly dwarfs property taxes which are small change in comparison.
Under current policy people are living in HMOs in London because prices have risen too much already.
Price rises fuelled by people with a fiscal incentive to cause the price rises, an incentive this reform would neutralise.
If instead of ever-escalating prices we see rents go down because property prices go down then your cleaner might be better off, even if property taxes go up.
Do we have a rival here to synchronised swimming for the silliest Olympic sport?
There are a couple of older ladies at my local pool who practice synchronised swimming every so often. It's really impressive to see them do it; I can barely see any movement out of time. One of them has been doing it for forty years!
I'd also point out they seem to practice moves for ages before they go for a bit of a routine. It seems to be a bit like a jigsaw; the entire thing looks complex, but it comprises a whole host of simpler moves.
It may look silly, but it's impressive.
Nobody is arguing otherwise, but Sport? An Olympic Sport?
Uber is partnering with BYD to bring 100,000 EVs to the platform globally. Partnership in Europe, LatAm and later other markets. NOT the U.S. Driver financing incentives, lease terms, charging discounts and insurance help. https://x.com/EdLudlow/status/1818602826358026747
@Sandpit buying a £1m property requires £41k of Stamp Duty alone. To be paid up-front along with a deposit.
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
I said council house. Using occupied by key workers in London, and whose income bears no relation to the value of the property they occupy.
In which case they'll be getting benefits to support already, so that just nets out already from rebalancing taxes as you'd give fewer benefits to those who no longer need them, and more to those who do, but it will net out at no change.
Indeed if the level of housing benefit required to pay for that million pound house comes down as it ceases to be a million pounds and rents and mortgages come down when people no longer have an incentive to artificially inflate prices, then the amount of benefit going out there might be reduced.
But for those who do own a property and want to inflate property prices by objecting to construction lest it hurt their property price - why should they not face the consequences of their choices in the tax system? Why should only their neighbours pay higher costs while they reap the rewards?
Why should someone mobile (or simply young) moving into a million pound house face £41k up-front on top of their deposit, while those who are sitting there pay £0?
All of the incentives to which you’ve referred still work on a local basis of valuation, without upsetting everyone living south of Birmingham who would then probably vote for Nick Griffin or Jeremy Corbyn if they promised to repeal the change. Let each council decide how much their property tax needs to be, in order to make their budget.
If people are upset they're upset but that's not an argument against what's being proposed.
Especially since it is central government that has decreed most of local Council expenditure. Funding care, SEN, etc are all demanded by central government so why should it not pay for it via national taxes like a nationally levied land value tax?
Because it’s politically impossible to do so. You’d be doubling, tripling, or more, the property takes paid by ordinary people who just happen to be living in the South East, raising rents significantly in those areas (with knock-on for housing benefit) and make it impossible to live in many areas unless you’re a high-rate taxpayer.
Where does the cleaner of an office block in the City live? What does their accommodation look like? Under your proposals, they’re living six to a room in a dodgy HMO a couple of miles walk from the end of the Tube line.
The poorest people in the biggest cities would be totally fcuked, but more importantly so would tens of millions of voters in the Home Counties.
Escalating prices already double, triple the rents or prices anyway. Which utterly dwarfs property taxes which are small change in comparison.
Under current policy people are living in HMOs in London because prices have risen too much already.
Price rises fuelled by people with a fiscal incentive to cause the price rises, an incentive this reform would neutralise.
If instead of ever-escalating prices we see rents go down because property prices go down then your cleaner might be better off, even if property taxes go up.
Yes, high rents and dodgy accommodation are already a big problem in London - which your proposals would make a whole load worse in the short (c.10-20 years) term.
Rachel Reeves has argued that the social care cap, set in motion by the Boris Johnson administration, is unaffordable, but her decision to scrap it represents yet another abnegation of responsibility by a government unwilling to grapple with this slow motion disaster. There ought to be a proper insurance scheme enabling people to protect themselves and their assets against the catastrophic costs of longtime social care. For various reasons, the market is unwilling to provide this, so it must fall to the Government to provide solutions. Instead, we get sticking plasters.
Remember what happened to the last Party Leader who tried to fix Social care, she went from a reasonable majority to a coalition with the DUP to remain in power.
Social care is sadly in the too complex, no upside, blooming expensive box which means the can will continue to be kicked down the road...
It also should be low priority.
People with assets paying for their own care at the end of their life - what's wrong with that?
People with a "rainy day fund" paying for their own care when they have a rainy day - what's wrong with that?
If the only downside is people get less of an inheritance, then taxpayers money should not be there to fund your inheritance. Get a job instead.
Well maybe the same could be said for people requiring medical care? No? Why shouldn't they use their assets to pay for those expensive operations? What, really, is the difference?
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
I'm sorry for that, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful but what had they hoped for? They couldn't surely be hoping to take it with them?
Why should those who are working very hard today, who don't have assets, be taxed to fund the protection of those who worked hard in the past?
Especially since most value in property "assets" especially weren't worked for and are the result of house prices rising. If that unearned gain is lost then it may not be what you hoped for, but nor is it what those who are working hard today should be getting taxed in order for anyone to avoid.
What had they hoped for?
To pass on at least some of the assets they had built up over 40+ years of pretty demanding employment to their nearest and dearest family members.
It's actually a fairly common human instinct. And arguably helps to promote responsibility and a sense that we owe something to the future. Not to be despised.
Uber is partnering with BYD to bring 100,000 EVs to the platform globally. Partnership in Europe, LatAm and later other markets. NOT the U.S. Driver financing incentives, lease terms, charging discounts and insurance help. https://x.com/EdLudlow/status/1818602826358026747
Prestige win for Chinese car manufacturing.
More evidence of Uber being one of the scummiest tech companies.
They’re #2 on my list, behind Airbnb.
Hope the Chinese EVs destined for Uber get a 100% tarrif applied, this is a clearly an attempt by the Chinese company to get Uber’s Western lawyers and lobbyists fighting their cause.
@Sandpit buying a £1m property requires £41k of Stamp Duty alone. To be paid up-front along with a deposit.
So yes, even if you made the annual rate £10k per annum, it would still be cheaper to move there than it is currently for the first four years or so.
Lumping all our taxes on those who are mobile, and ensuring only those mobile pay the cost of higher prices, just incentivises those who are immobile to seek to extract higher prices they are immune to.
Ending that immunity is a good thing and makes things cheaper for those who are mobile. Especially if prices subsequently fall as suddenly everyone now pays for high costs not just the mobile.
I said council house. Using occupied by key workers in London, and whose income bears no relation to the value of the property they occupy.
In which case they'll be getting benefits to support already, so that just nets out already from rebalancing taxes as you'd give fewer benefits to those who no longer need them, and more to those who do, but it will net out at no change.
Indeed if the level of housing benefit required to pay for that million pound house comes down as it ceases to be a million pounds and rents and mortgages come down when people no longer have an incentive to artificially inflate prices, then the amount of benefit going out there might be reduced.
But for those who do own a property and want to inflate property prices by objecting to construction lest it hurt their property price - why should they not face the consequences of their choices in the tax system? Why should only their neighbours pay higher costs while they reap the rewards?
Why should someone mobile (or simply young) moving into a million pound house face £41k up-front on top of their deposit, while those who are sitting there pay £0?
All of the incentives to which you’ve referred still work on a local basis of valuation, without upsetting everyone living south of Birmingham who would then probably vote for Nick Griffin or Jeremy Corbyn if they promised to repeal the change. Let each council decide how much their property tax needs to be, in order to make their budget.
If people are upset they're upset but that's not an argument against what's being proposed.
Especially since it is central government that has decreed most of local Council expenditure. Funding care, SEN, etc are all demanded by central government so why should it not pay for it via national taxes like a nationally levied land value tax?
Because it’s politically impossible to do so. You’d be doubling, tripling, or more, the property takes paid by ordinary people who just happen to be living in the South East, raising rents significantly in those areas (with knock-on for housing benefit) and make it impossible to live in many areas unless you’re a high-rate taxpayer.
Where does the cleaner of an office block in the City live? What does their accommodation look like? Under your proposals, they’re living six to a room in a dodgy HMO a couple of miles walk from the end of the Tube line.
The poorest people in the biggest cities would be totally fcuked, but more importantly so would tens of millions of voters in the Home Counties.
And - we have nothing left apart from wealth that isn't taxed to the hilt.
And the Government needs more money so it's now a matter at looking at what else can be taxed. That takes us to wealth (as it has done multiple times in the past) and residential property is the easiest thing to hit.
Yes London will take a hit but with some incentives (Crossrail 2 funding....) I really don't see where the issue is...
Do we have a rival here to synchronised swimming for the silliest Olympic sport?
There are a couple of older ladies at my local pool who practice synchronised swimming every so often. It's really impressive to see them do it; I can barely see any movement out of time. One of them has been doing it for forty years!
I'd also point out they seem to practice moves for ages before they go for a bit of a routine. It seems to be a bit like a jigsaw; the entire thing looks complex, but it comprises a whole host of simpler moves.
It may look silly, but it's impressive.
It's not a sport, and nor are many of the pointless exercises that appear in the 'Olympics' – a grossly overinflated event composed of non-sports that nobody cares about and Mickey Mouse competitions of those that people do care about.
This Northerner welcomes more houses in the North.
And as we discussed last night, house prices in Redcar are extremely expensive and unaffordable. That average price is over 5x the median income of £32k.
A 3x income to price ratio would mean that prices in Redcar should be circa £96k not £164k. A 2x income to price ratio, which would be even better and what it was when some on this site bought their first home, would make prices £64k.
Cutting London's target is wrong. Increasing targets in Redcar or anywhere else* in the North is not.
* According to the ONS the only place in the entire country with a sub-3x affordability ratio is Copeland. Though even in Copeland its only just affordable at 2.9x . . . the rest of the country, even the more relatively 'affordable' bits like Redcar are 5x plus.
Houses in Redcar are not expensive at all relative to London. Indeed a couple both earning average wage in Redcar would find the average house price there was less than 3 times their combined salary.
The average house price in London though is over 6 times the combined salary of even a couple each earning average London salary
"Relative to London" is irrelevant.
Houses in Redcar are very expensive relative to Redcar.
Check the ONS chart. House price to income ratio in Redcar has reached a record high of unaffordability, for Redcar.
3x a couple's combined salary is extremely expensive and not what we should be aiming for, 3x median salary is the ratio houses used to be and what we should get house price ratios back down to. Anywhere higher than 3x median salary needs massively more construction until houses are affordable once more.
Everyone working full time should be able to afford a house of their own.
3x combined salary is what we should be aiming for while most couples both work.
If mothers (or indeed a few more fathers) mainly stayed at home with the children and did the housework and cooked dinner and dropped the kids off at school 1950s style while their spouse or partner went to work then 3x individual median salary as was normal in the 1950s is what we should be aiming for but that is not the situation now and that also inflates house prices
No, 3x median salary is what we should be aiming for.
If both members of a couple are working then the second income ought to be able to go on affording improving quality of life, luxuries like holidays etc, not just inflate the cost of houses.
No it is not, for starters as it is unachievable as long as more women are in the workplace and not housewives. It was only achievable decades ago as only the husband tended to be the wage earner, now you have both partners and spouses in a couple working and that also pushes up salaries.
If both members of a couple are working then obviously they mainly use that extra income to buy a bigger house but in reality all it does is add further pressure on house prices.
If they want to improve quality of life or have a bit extra for luxuries the wife (or indeed husband if they are the preferred stay at home partner) can just get a local part time job and spend the rest of the time looking after the home and children. They don't both need full time paid jobs
It doesn't add pressure on houses, unless there is a limit of housing supply.
With unlimited housing supply, then houses will reach an equilibrium and become more affordable.
Yes people want homes. They also want TVs and other things. TV prices have come down, not up, because competition has driven them down.
Eliminate restrictions on housing and competition can do the same for housing and second salaries can be used to improve quality of life, not just make up for inflation.
The biggest reason that prices of TVs keep dropping is advancements in technology.
So we also need to look at new construction methods, offsite assembly, modular housing, even container-based housing, anything that makes building houses cheaper and can quickly increase supply.
The whole area needs to be “Yes and” though, so this is in addition to everything else.
The main cost of a house is the land on which it sits, otherwise house prices would be roughly the same all over the country.
The biggest disaster is the 1948 Town Planning Act (and successors).
Prior to 1948 the price of land was 2-3% of the price of a house.
Today the price of land is typically one third or more of house prices.
While land gaining consent today adds 0's to the value of that land.
Abolish planning, revert back to a pre-1948 situation, give everyone permission automatically on all land (outside AONBs) and 0s would be knocked back off the price of land with permission as it equalises the value of land. Get back to land being 2-3% of the price of the house and house prices would come down accordingly.
You ignored my question about whether or not achieving your desired outcome would make the country more attractive as a destination for immigration. It seems obvious that the answer is that it would, in which case you need to explain what level you expect the population to reach before all the non-AONBs are built on.
Yes I think it would.
So what? That's a good thing is it not?
Making the country a shit, expensive place to live where people can't afford homes isn't the way to deal with migration.
We should welcome making the country a great, affordable place to live.
So what level do you think the population can reasonably reach?
Well its not going to happen, but in extremis if say England had the same population density of Hong Kong we would have a population of 820 million people.
Now since that's well over 10% of the planets population, that's clearly not going to happen.
Getting back to reality, currently about 5% of our land goes on housing (including open spaces, gardens, parks etc not just the bricks and mortar). We have plenty of space, even if we made that 6, 7 or 8% of land it would barely make a dent in our "green and pleasant land".
But you also want to increase housing density, so let's be conservative and say we end up with 8% of land built on at a 20% higher density. That would mean doubling the population. Do you really think that would have no other knock on effects on the environment beyond the additional land that was built on?
No it wouldn't mean doubling population, since if we increase the supply of housing and demand scales upwards, then housing pressure would not be alleviated at all.
I want to see the supply of housing increased such that supply exceeds demand, so prices fall, and nobody is forced to live in a run down home as there are better/cheaper options available to choose from instead.
A minimum of 10% of properties should at any one time be vacant, both to have a natural churn as people move, and to ensure the worst homes aren't moved into and instead are sold (at rock bottom prices) only to those who desire to refurbish them.
Supply needs to grow more than demand. So laying all supply growth down with a commensurate demand growth is a fallacy.
It's close enough. If you double the amount of housing with 10% vacant then you have the best part of double the population.
A minimum of 10% vacant, not a maximum.
And I've not advocated doubling housing, I've consistently advocated 10 million new homes for starters (which would bring us roughly in parity with the number of homes France has, for the same population as us).
Once we get closer to that, would reassess.
Plus as Sandpit says, alleviating our housing shortage would enable people in overcrowded homes to move into a home of their own. Everyone who wants one should be able to get a home of their own.
Or people could with sufficient construction have second homes. Which there's nothing wrong with, if there's no shortage for people's first homes.
So if Edwards asked for no underage images why is he the one who is guilty? Is it because he possessed the images and the law doesn't take into account whether someone intended to possess pics of underage children?
Because they were on his device. End of.
When the thing is sent to his device a copy of the file is made in his devices memory. In law that is deemed making such an image because he is the "driver" of the device
That is the way the law works.
Read, take note and understand. Especially if you are a parent and have to deal with/advise teenagers.
This is also means, for example, that if you automatically back up photos to a home server, and your teenager were to take a revealing selfie of themselves (which was never sent to anyone, and which you had no knowledge of), you would also be guilty of an offence.
Interesting. We back up to a home server (using syncthing) from the mobiles and, given we have young kids, there are pictures on there - no doubt - of them in a state of undress (bath time, probably some in the paddling pool although they're normally clothed). Am I guilty?
But, presumably just as guilty for taking said images in the first place and making them on to the phone. Or is there some common sense exceptions in law for parents' pics of their own little kids?
My law A-Level, admittedly some time ago, suggested crimes needed Mens Rea. I assume this in not the case anymore?
It's a "strict liability" offence, and therefore that does not apply.
What other strict liability offences are there? Is there no permissible defence or mitigation? Might this be construed as a touch oppressive?
The big area for strict liability is traffic offences.
Wait, so if I have naked baby pics of myself and brother saves on my phone I could be arrested?! Who wrote such a law?
Politicians naturally...the clueless writing laws for things they dont actually understand but believe they do because they are eductated lawyers
Comments
(Declaration. My family has seen £500k go out to pay for two grandmothers, so far. Not what the very hard-working grandfathers had hoped for.).
Further evidence that there is some unknown agenda is that none of the big three parties feature it much. There is a consensus to keep is low key.
So what is the real issue which prevents this reform for a quarter of a century and more?
As for the keeping the old valuations that acts as a massive incentive not to move - as you watch the $2000 you currently pay become $14,000 because you moved home.
Better to have it rising with inflation so everyone in the neighbourhood is paying the same price...
The moral hazard is of course created by housing benefit which is the cause of many problems.
Perhaps it should be a fixed amount which would suffice to live in Redcar...
Sometimes I do wonder if the government actually wants people to spend all their money as fast as possible to keep the growth numbers up. And sod the future.
I'd also point out they seem to practice moves for ages before they go for a bit of a routine. It seems to be a bit like a jigsaw; the entire thing looks complex, but it comprises a whole host of simpler moves.
It may look silly, but it's impressive.
1) single person discount - do you implement that with a discount on the council tax bit or just expect them to pay the full amount (with some transition relief)
2) empty / second home surcharges - do you keep them or remove them. I'm inclined to keep them..
They couldn't surely be hoping to take it with them?
Why should those who are working very hard today, who don't have assets, be taxed to fund the protection of those who worked hard in the past?
Especially since most value in property "assets" especially weren't worked for and are the result of house prices rising. If that unearned gain is lost then it may not be what you hoped for, but nor is it what those who are working hard today should be getting taxed in order for anyone to avoid.
No doubt I will achieve the same vicarious benefit from BMXG
I think this is a very bad attack line indeed. All they will be highlighting is one candidate is happy and the other grumpy.
What's wrong with it is the risk isn't spread. If you have assets and get lucky, as it were, and drop down dead without needing years of social care beforehand then your assets are protected and can be passed on. If you are unlucky then the whole lot - a lifetime's work and savings - can be gone.
It is effectively a 100% inheritance tax but only on estates where the person was unlucky enough to need a few years social care rather than NHS treatment.
At least with the Dilnot cap there is a limit to how brutally unlucky you can get.
(which also allows an insurance market to develop - which will allow more resources into the sector).
Why should a Dilnot cap be funded out of general taxation, or worse a tax on people who work, many of whom do not have assets to "protect"?
Indeed many workers are quite possibly renting from the very same people who own the assets that are being let out for a profit but being sought to be protected by this tax. In what way is that reasonable?
Given the pressure the daughter was being placed under a crueler person would have insisted on a discount on the day of exchange..
And that money really isn't going to last very long given what we paid (at full agreed price) and the care home fees.
Title: Poetry and Politics: An Exploration of Their Interplay
Abstract: Poetry and politics have a long and intricate relationship. This essay delves into the ways in which poetry intersects with political discourse, shaping ideologies, challenging power structures, and reflecting societal changes. We’ll explore historical examples, analyze contemporary poets, and discuss the impact of poetic expression on political movements.
Introduction: Begin by introducing the significance of poetry and politics. Highlight how poets have historically engaged with political themes, from ancient epics to modern spoken word performances. Mention the power of language and its ability to influence public opinion.
Body:
Historical Context:
Discuss ancient poets like Homer, whose epics conveyed political ideals.
Explore the role of poetry during the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods.
Analyze how Romantic poets responded to social and political upheaval.
Poetry as Protest:
Investigate poets who challenged authority, such as Shelley’s “Ozymandias.”
Examine the Civil Rights Movement and the impact of Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou.
Consider contemporary poets addressing issues like climate change and inequality.
Political Themes in Poetry:
Explore recurring themes: power, justice, freedom, and identity.
Discuss how poets use metaphor, symbolism, and allegory to convey political messages.
Compare different poetic forms (sonnets, haikus, free verse) and their political implications.
Poetry and Political Movements:
Analyze the role of poetry in revolutions (e.g., Pablo Neruda during the Chilean coup).
Discuss the Arab Spring and the use of poetry as a tool for change.
Reflect on the impact of spoken word poetry in contemporary activism.
Contemporary Poets:
Highlight poets like Audre Lorde, Derek Walcott, and Seamus Heaney.
Explore their engagement with political issues and their unique styles.
Challenges and Criticisms:
Address critiques of political poetry (e.g., oversimplification, didacticism).
Discuss the tension between artistic expression and advocacy.
Conclusion: Summarize the essay’s key points, emphasizing the enduring connection between poetry and politics. Acknowledge the complexities and nuances of this relationship.
Remember that this is an outline, and you’ll need to expand each section with evidence, analysis, and citations. Good luck with your essay! 📝🌟
For further inspiration, you can explore free 10,000-word essay samples on various topics1.2 If you have any specific questions or need additional guidance, feel free to ask! 😊
It's the way he tells them.
Indeed if the level of housing benefit required to pay for that million pound house comes down as it ceases to be a million pounds and rents and mortgages come down when people no longer have an incentive to artificially inflate prices, then the amount of benefit going out there might be reduced.
But for those who do own a property and want to inflate property prices by objecting to construction lest it hurt their property price - why should they not face the consequences of their choices in the tax system? Why should only their neighbours pay higher costs while they reap the rewards?
Why should someone mobile (or simply young) moving into a million pound house face £41k up-front on top of their deposit, while those who are sitting there pay £0?
But sympathy isn't a reason to tax people to protect other people's assets.
There will be a known market value for the flat and while it may be more than the current council tax I actually doubt it's that much different - would need to hunt down a suitable location and find out what the current band is...
"Tube pusher found guilty of attempted murder"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnl0419eykjo
Oil producing countries trying to annex their neighbours while led by bellicose and corrupt failures must stick together, according to Putin.
Brazil looks set to reject the result too. If Maduro has driven Lula to co-operate with Biden he will have screwed up more than UvdL did over vaccines.
The report, which didn’t cite any sources, also claimed that the leader of Islamic Jihad, Ziyad Nakhalah, was in the same apartment as Ishmail Haniyeh at the time of the attack but that he survived the assassination attempt.
It meets @SandyRentool 's - as you cannot smoke a ciggie whilst doing it.
If I were to guess at the sequence of events, they arrested a pornographer who was sending pictures to a load of people, one of whom was Edwards, who just happens to have attracted all the attention because he’s otherwise famous. Despite the fact his own devices were clean when the police found him, the evidence was on the other guy’s phone, and Edwards didn’t think to switch to a burner as the material got more and more dodgy.
Their update today crashes the app if you attempt to use a Bluetooth device as the output. Don’t update it if you haven’t already.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tech/spotify-down-bug-outage-music-app-crash-bluetooth-b1173921.html
It's one thing to say "please don't send me anything underage" but given one of the images was apparently of a 7 year old a) it should have been obvious that they were underage and b) at the very, very, very least blocking them was surely a wise thing to do at that point, not giggle and say "oh you scallyway, do behave"
(talk about your lightening fingers!)
If you spend them, you spend them.
I'm precisely opposing an expansion of the client state that some want care paid for by taxpayers rather than funding it themselves out of their own assets.
Especially since it is central government that has decreed most of local Council expenditure. Funding care, SEN, etc are all demanded by central government so why should it not pay for it via national taxes like a nationally levied land value tax?
Where does the cleaner of an office block in the City live? What does their accommodation look like? Under your proposals, they’re living six to a room in a dodgy HMO a couple of miles walk from the end of the Tube line.
The poorest people in the biggest cities would be totally fcuked, but more importantly so would tens of millions of voters in the Home Counties.
There should be support for the less well off
But equally catastrophe insurance is reasonable for the government to provide through tax.
Let’s say someone worked hard all their life and saved £500,000k for their retirement. That should be encouraged. But then their partner gets an expensive care requirement earlier than expected - all their funds go on caring for their partner and they have no benefit from their prudence. It would have been better to waste it all during their life.
Better to have a number above which the government makes a contribution to preserve the incentive to save
Under current policy people are living in HMOs in London because prices have risen too much already.
Price rises fuelled by people with a fiscal incentive to cause the price rises, an incentive this reform would neutralise.
If instead of ever-escalating prices we see rents go down because property prices go down then your cleaner might be better off, even if property taxes go up.
NEW THREAD
https://x.com/EdLudlow/status/1818602826358026747
Prestige win for Chinese car manufacturing.
To pass on at least some of the assets they had built up over 40+ years of pretty demanding employment to their nearest and dearest family members.
It's actually a fairly common human instinct. And arguably helps to promote responsibility and a sense that we owe something to the future. Not to be despised.
They’re #2 on my list, behind Airbnb.
Hope the Chinese EVs destined for Uber get a 100% tarrif applied, this is a clearly an attempt by the Chinese company to get Uber’s Western lawyers and lobbyists fighting their cause.
And the Government needs more money so it's now a matter at looking at what else can be taxed. That takes us to wealth (as it has done multiple times in the past) and residential property is the easiest thing to hit.
Yes London will take a hit but with some incentives (Crossrail 2 funding....) I really don't see where the issue is...