Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
My parents had a Hillman Hunter. I still remember my childhood fascination of watching the tarmac whizz by under the car through the rusty holes in the floor.
We had Austin 1100’s in the seventies and I can remember my Dad applying ‘underseal’ to prevent rust and corrosion. To prevent that happening. My Hillman Imp had a leak so during heavy rain the footwell on the drivers side filled up with water. Happy memories.
Not sure how effective it was as it was a risk of being a moisture trap !
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
My parents had a Hillman Hunter. I still remember my childhood fascination of watching the tarmac whizz by under the car through the rusty holes in the floor.
Very off-topic, but does anyone have any boiler insurance recommendations? I am currently with Hometree and they are dreadful. After explaining to them I'm not available for the next two weeks I had a text from a previous gas engineer I told them explicitly I didn't ever want to visit again that he'd be here 'sometime tomorrow' but couldn't give a time as 'he has a busy day'.
(Last year he visited - said the boiler was all ok, then the boiler failed about 10 days later, Hometree said it was too late to claim, charged me to call out some other engineers, who pointed out the previous guy (as in the one I said I never want to visit who is now wanting to come tomorrow) had fecked the boiler and also missed a manufacturer recall on some of the parts as they were extremely dangerous).
No! You're annoyed!...
British Gas are running adverts on the radio at the moment saying that they will come at the same speed whether you are a member or not. So if you're insuring purely for fast service - rather than as a financial tool to spread costs - maybe you don't need it?
Interesting - thanks! I was with them many, many years ago and they were quite ... 'indifferent' to their customers. Seems times have changed!
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
Very off-topic, but does anyone have any boiler insurance recommendations? I am currently with Hometree and they are dreadful. After explaining to them I'm not available for the next two weeks I had a text from a previous gas engineer I told them explicitly I didn't ever want to visit again that he'd be here 'sometime tomorrow' but couldn't give a time as 'he has a busy day'.
(Last year he visited - said the boiler was all ok, then the boiler failed about 10 days later, Hometree said it was too late to claim, charged me to call out some other engineers, who pointed out the previous guy (as in the one I said I never want to visit who is now wanting to come tomorrow) had fecked the boiler and also missed a manufacturer recall on some of the parts as they were extremely dangerous).
No! You're annoyed!...
We use Gas Sure (James Frew), and are very happy with them.
We had a new combi boiler fitted earlier this year and it is amazing when compared with the one it replaced
We used to have homeserve, but found a local plumber who is excellent and far cheaper than homeserve and we can text him and he will attend very quickly not least as he lives 400 yards away
Same here. We have a great plumber a few doors down and use them to service the boiler and for any repairs. Having worked for a boiler manufacture I’m happy that they do give a good service and don’t rinse us, We’ve replaced the expansion vessel, the plate to plate and the thermostat in the last few years.
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
Very off-topic, but does anyone have any boiler insurance recommendations? I am currently with Hometree and they are dreadful. After explaining to them I'm not available for the next two weeks I had a text from a previous gas engineer I told them explicitly I didn't ever want to visit again that he'd be here 'sometime tomorrow' but couldn't give a time as 'he has a busy day'.
(Last year he visited - said the boiler was all ok, then the boiler failed about 10 days later, Hometree said it was too late to claim, charged me to call out some other engineers, who pointed out the previous guy (as in the one I said I never want to visit who is now wanting to come tomorrow) had fecked the boiler and also missed a manufacturer recall on some of the parts as they were extremely dangerous).
No! You're annoyed!...
We use Gas Sure (James Frew), and are very happy with them.
We had a new combi boiler fitted earlier this year and it is amazing when compared with the one it replaced
We used to have homeserve, but found a local plumber who is excellent and far cheaper than homeserve and we can text him and he will attend very quickly not least as he lives 400 yards away
Same here. We have a great plumber a few doors down and use them to service the boiler and for any repairs. Having worked for a boiler manufacture I’m happy that they do give a good service and don’t rinse us, We’ve replaced the expansion vessel, the plate to plate and the thermostat in the last few years.
He fitted our new boiler and much less than British Gas and others
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
He was their only meaningful celeb supporter. This Labour government is like some lurid farce where literally everything goes wrong
I seem to remember they had a quite well known author and Gazette journalist on-side. Maybe not up there with someone who makes fancy mashed potatoes, but still.
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
A future right-wing government should abolish PAYE. It would take an administrative and legal burden off businesses and make people more conscious of the amount of income tax they are paying.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
Very off-topic, but does anyone have any boiler insurance recommendations? I am currently with Hometree and they are dreadful. After explaining to them I'm not available for the next two weeks I had a text from a previous gas engineer I told them explicitly I didn't ever want to visit again that he'd be here 'sometime tomorrow' but couldn't give a time as 'he has a busy day'.
(Last year he visited - said the boiler was all ok, then the boiler failed about 10 days later, Hometree said it was too late to claim, charged me to call out some other engineers, who pointed out the previous guy (as in the one I said I never want to visit who is now wanting to come tomorrow) had fecked the boiler and also missed a manufacturer recall on some of the parts as they were extremely dangerous).
No! You're annoyed!...
We use Gas Sure (James Frew), and are very happy with them.
We had a new combi boiler fitted earlier this year and it is amazing when compared with the one it replaced
We used to have homeserve, but found a local plumber who is excellent and far cheaper than homeserve and we can text him and he will attend very quickly not least as he lives 400 yards away
Same here. We have a great plumber a few doors down and use them to service the boiler and for any repairs. Having worked for a boiler manufacture I’m happy that they do give a good service and don’t rinse us, We’ve replaced the expansion vessel, the plate to plate and the thermostat in the last few years.
I have a very good and attentive local plumber. (steady). I'm more paying for the cover on "ok, that's going to cost you £500 to fix" problems and the annual service.
A future right-wing government should abolish PAYE. It would take an administrative and legal burden off businesses and make people more conscious of the amount of income tax they are paying.
A future right-wing government should abolish PAYE. It would take an administrative and legal burden off businesses and make people more conscious of the amount of income tax they are paying.
You're just proposing more messing around for no particular purpose. Major administrative chance ought to have some justification other than pandering to a few prejudices.
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
I hate those stupid letter writing campaigns, but that business "leader" letter was rather telling, they couldn't actually get many current business leaders, it was padded with small businesses and people who aren't in business anymore (many of which are political) if I remember correctly, not one FTSE 100, might have been not one FTSE 250.
The thing with the NI raise is it is so poorly targeted, if you employ 2-5 people its fine, but somebody like Kerridge has a bigger business empire than that and will be walloped, which not being the size of a mega-corp who can absorb it.
James Sinclair, who has a YouTube channel, and serial entrepreneur and employs 100s of people. He never normally does anything politics related, just talks about growing your business etc, but even he has gone this is going to cost me crazy sums of money, I am already going to close some of my visitor attractions outside of a peak times of the year as it doesn't make any financial sense.
Might remember I cornered Rwandan President Paul Kagame in January and asked if UK would get money back if no migrants were transferred to Rwanda… answer revealed today: Govt paid £715m so far until June of this year
Very off-topic, but does anyone have any boiler insurance recommendations? I am currently with Hometree and they are dreadful. After explaining to them I'm not available for the next two weeks I had a text from a previous gas engineer I told them explicitly I didn't ever want to visit again that he'd be here 'sometime tomorrow' but couldn't give a time as 'he has a busy day'.
(Last year he visited - said the boiler was all ok, then the boiler failed about 10 days later, Hometree said it was too late to claim, charged me to call out some other engineers, who pointed out the previous guy (as in the one I said I never want to visit who is now wanting to come tomorrow) had fecked the boiler and also missed a manufacturer recall on some of the parts as they were extremely dangerous).
No! You're annoyed!...
British Gas are running adverts on the radio at the moment saying that they will come at the same speed whether you are a member or not. So if you're insuring purely for fast service - rather than as a financial tool to spread costs - maybe you don't need it?
Interesting - thanks! I was with them many, many years ago and they were quite ... 'indifferent' to their customers. Seems times have changed!
Yes.
They now actively hate their customers.
Edit - on a serious point, Homeserve are OK on looking after stuff at my rental property, but not cheap.
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
I hate those stupid letter writing campaigns, but that business "leader" letter was rather telling, they couldn't actually get many current business leaders, it was padded with small businesses and people who aren't in business anymore (many of which are political) if I remember correctly, not one FTSE 100, might have been not one FTSE 250.
The thing with the NI raise is it is so poorly targeted, if you employ 2-5 people its fine, but somebody like Kerridge has a bigger business empire than that and will be walloped, which not being the size of a mega-corp who can absorb it.
James Sinclair, who has a YouTube channel, and serial entrepreneur and employs 100s of people. He never normally does anything politics related, just talks about growing your business etc, but even he has gone this is going to cost me crazy sums of money, I am already going to close some of my visitor attractions outside of a peak times of the year.
He says it will be worse for small businesses with only five or so staff.
They are exempt is my understanding if he is talking about employers NI increase.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
I hate those stupid letter writing campaigns, but that business "leader" letter was rather telling, they couldn't actually get many current business leaders, it was padded with small businesses and people who aren't in business anymore (many of which are political) if I remember correctly, not one FTSE 100, might have been not one FTSE 250.
The thing with the NI raise is it is so poorly targeted, if you employ 2-5 people its fine, but somebody like Kerridge has a bigger business empire than that and will be walloped, which not being the size of a mega-corp who can absorb it.
James Sinclair, who has a YouTube channel, and serial entrepreneur and employs 100s of people. He never normally does anything politics related, just talks about growing your business etc, but even he has gone this is going to cost me crazy sums of money, I am already going to close some of my visitor attractions outside of a peak times of the year as it doesn't make any financial sense.
Yes, that’s why Tom Kerridge stood out. He is a genuinely successful businessman and entrepreneur - as well as a celeb (and a likeable tv character). And now he’s turned on Labour
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
Mrs U did research on this years ago that has been seen by government departments, never been sorted.
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
I hate those stupid letter writing campaigns, but that business "leader" letter was rather telling, they couldn't actually get many current business leaders, it was padded with small businesses and people who aren't in business anymore (many of which are political) if I remember correctly, not one FTSE 100, might have been not one FTSE 250.
The thing with the NI raise is it is so poorly targeted, if you employ 2-5 people its fine, but somebody like Kerridge has a bigger business empire than that and will be walloped, which not being the size of a mega-corp who can absorb it.
James Sinclair, who has a YouTube channel, and serial entrepreneur and employs 100s of people. He never normally does anything politics related, just talks about growing your business etc, but even he has gone this is going to cost me crazy sums of money, I am already going to close some of my visitor attractions outside of a peak times of the year.
He says it will be worse for small businesses with only five or so staff.
They are exempt is my understanding if he is talking about employers NI increase.
If he is talking exclusively about NI, AFAIK he is wrong there, but of course there is higher minimum wage, higher business rates, improved workers rights (that the Resolution Foundation said would hit small businesses particularly hard and so were badly formulated).
I have no objections to their return or even some form of compromise
I replied to @Taz at the end of the last thread and repeat my comments here
In all honesty I did not expect a Starmer led government to sideline a Blair style government and go left with policies that seriously undermine business in favour of unions and public sector, nor declare war on pensioners, farmers, small businesses and even increase students fees
As I have commented previously the '14 year mantra' worked but the real problems we have today came from covid and the war in Ukraine which has seen most governments fall that were in office during that period
There is no doubt the conservatives were out of time, and whilst I did not expect great things from Starmer his performance together with Reeves since winning the election has been abject and is reflecting in public opinion and business surveys, not least with today's announcement in the fall in consumer spending in November
Furthermore, the IFS publicly rebuked both main parties before the election that they were not acknowledging the state of the economy, and whilst there was a deficit left to Labour nearly half of the 22 billion they repeat daily was a result from the above inflation pay rises to the doctors and train drivers
Starmer, like Sunak, is not a politician and no matter how many relaunches he comes up with, the electorate will not change their mind on him unless and until the changes he promises become apparent and as he says he wants 10 years his problem is the electorate want to see results far quicker
I would just say I do respect the Labour supporters on here who do acknowledge this has been an unexpected poor start and are not in denial, but hope that in time Starmer will be seen more favourable
However, in a few weeks everything is thrown up in the air with the arrival of Trump with unforceable consequences, not just for the UK, but all around the world
When I woke this morning to the news Biden had pardoned his son I just felt a great sense of despair for the US and integrity in politics which has all but vanished, and we will all lose from it
If I may pick up on one small part of that, that you did not expect the new government to "increase students fees". We had a period of significant inflation without student fees going up. Whoever won the election was going to have to bite the bullet on that one and either put up fees or (less likely) greatly increase direct state funding to universities. As it is, Labour put up student fees by a pretty small amount (well below inflation).
Might remember I cornered Rwandan President Paul Kagame in January and asked if UK would get money back if no migrants were transferred to Rwanda… answer revealed today: Govt paid £715m so far until June of this year
“not recoverable under the terms of the Treaty”
Why oh why did we not pay Kagame £715 million and get him to negotiate Brexit for us?
A future right-wing government should abolish PAYE. It would take an administrative and legal burden off businesses and make people more conscious of the amount of income tax they are paying.
I can see where you are going with this, William. You imagine a triumphant return for a certain Mary Elizabeth - let’s call her TRUSS. She will ride in with a mandate to reform. PAYE will be vanquished. Income tax will be left to individuals. VAT will be charged at the till - by local authorities. The NHS will be abolished in favour of a network of small private providers. It will be a time of seminal change, under a leader and believer.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
A future right-wing government should abolish PAYE. It would take an administrative and legal burden off businesses and make people more conscious of the amount of income tax they are paying.
I can see where you are going with this, William. You imagine a triumphant return for a certain Mary Elizabeth - let’s call her TRUSS. She will ride in with a mandate to reform. PAYE will be vanquished. Income tax will be left to individuals. VAT will be charged at the till - by local authorities. The NHS will be abolished in favour of a network of small private providers. It will be a time of seminal change, under a leader and believer.
Is that a metaphor, a figure of speech or a Damascene conversion?
About time. Every other major sport has realised that the black out doesn't reduce attendance as you can't replicate the feel of a live game, but with it shown in every other country it is trivial to find a restream of it on the tinterweb.
Isn't the argument that have the Premier League live at 3pm would reduce lower-league gates (rather than gates for the Premier League) as people would stay at home to watch Man United rather than Stockport, Liverpool rather than Tranmere, and Forest rather than Mansfield etc etc?
Given it is trivial to find a restream on tinterweb now, its an irrelevant argument now. Also, if I remember correctly particularly non-league attendances are doing well after COVID.
Internet streams are notoriously time-lagged, unreliable and often of poor quality. I do realise there are illegal firesticks around although they are being cracked down on.
Except they really aren't these days. As for the firestick crackdown, its like saying they are cracking down on drug dealers, they rarely get anywhere near the people who behind the IPTV services. And even when they do find and seize the servers, its whack a mole, just like raiding a trap house.
What you have to do is like Spotify, make a great app / service at a reasonable price that provides all the games and nobody bothers with the dodgy stuff.
Even if this were true, they would still need to fix streaming's fatal flaw: the lag. It is so far behind live that it a) ruins the group experience of watching sport and b) makes betting on sport impossible.
That is why I said service, as Sky / TNT can certainly do that job (although they are increasingly pushing their own IP based streaming services rather than via a dish), and live broadcasts with commentators go out for every game already, just not to the UK.
Also the lag factor might be a big issue for you, but in the US, most of the major sports have the ability to buy a legitimate season pass of all or nearly all the games via an app. That doesn't seem to bother people there.
The lag is a real problem for streaming. Anyone with LiveSports on their phone can 'see' the goals before they are shown on screen. It ruins the group experience (i.e. in the pub) and indeed makes streaming useless for betting. Hence why I have stuck with cable and avoided the likes of Sky Glass.
In play betting is a mugs game regardless of over the air or streaming. Its like trying to day trade from a home internet. I used to make a decent chunk of my income from in-play betting of cricket totals, but as soon as I found out about court-siding syndicates, absolutely not going near it.
My mate makes a fair living from in-running betting on the horses, but not the six-figure sums boasted of by the drone users. I have another friend who made a few quid on football but there is not the volume of events to make it more than a leisure activity (for him at least).
Betting on football full stop is a fools errand. Tony Bloom, compete with 100+ PhDs and the best mathematical models in the business, supposedly makes an ROI of ~2% in a good year....it is a highly efficient market.
Haralabos Voulgaris is a great guy to listen to about the reality of being a top level sports sharp. His insights were so advanced in the end he got hired by an NBA to show them all the things they do wrong.
How do either of them do with political betting? Serious question
A future right-wing government should abolish PAYE. It would take an administrative and legal burden off businesses and make people more conscious of the amount of income tax they are paying.
I can see where you are going with this, William. You imagine a triumphant return for a certain Mary Elizabeth - let’s call her TRUSS. She will ride in with a mandate to reform. PAYE will be vanquished. Income tax will be left to individuals. VAT will be charged at the till - by local authorities. The NHS will be abolished in favour of a network of small private providers. It will be a time of seminal change, under a leader and believer.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
Not the worst car?
When did you buy a Jaaaag?
I have never had a Jag, but at about that time my dad had an XJ12, which went like shit off a shovel until my brother and I blew a radiator hose. It's a plumbers nightmare to work on water pipes on those, the whole front end needs to come apart.
I had an Opel that wouldn't go into reverse, but was otherwise fine. You just had to park carefully, facing up hill, so able to back out in neutral under the weight of the car. I also had a bile green Alfa Romeo that was a dream to drive but literally broke in the middle when I had to jack it up due to terminal rust.
Perhaps worst was a Rover P6 3500 that had a weird fault where under emergency braking it would spin in the carriageway, seemingly braking only one side, though mostly worked if you braked slowly. Lovely leather interior and walnut dash.
I used to buy old bangers and sell them on after a couple of months whilst at Uni, it was a useful income, but anything truly rubbish I ditched at Southamton car auction. I really offloaded some clunkers there.
About time. Every other major sport has realised that the black out doesn't reduce attendance as you can't replicate the feel of a live game, but with it shown in every other country it is trivial to find a restream of it on the tinterweb.
Isn't the argument that have the Premier League live at 3pm would reduce lower-league gates (rather than gates for the Premier League) as people would stay at home to watch Man United rather than Stockport, Liverpool rather than Tranmere, and Forest rather than Mansfield etc etc?
Given it is trivial to find a restream on tinterweb now, its an irrelevant argument now. Also, if I remember correctly particularly non-league attendances are doing well after COVID.
Internet streams are notoriously time-lagged, unreliable and often of poor quality. I do realise there are illegal firesticks around although they are being cracked down on.
Except they really aren't these days. As for the firestick crackdown, its like saying they are cracking down on drug dealers, they rarely get anywhere near the people who behind the IPTV services. And even when they do find and seize the servers, its whack a mole, just like raiding a trap house.
What you have to do is like Spotify, make a great app / service at a reasonable price that provides all the games and nobody bothers with the dodgy stuff.
Even if this were true, they would still need to fix streaming's fatal flaw: the lag. It is so far behind live that it a) ruins the group experience of watching sport and b) makes betting on sport impossible.
That is why I said service, as Sky / TNT can certainly do that job (although they are increasingly pushing their own IP based streaming services rather than via a dish), and live broadcasts with commentators go out for every game already, just not to the UK.
Also the lag factor might be a big issue for you, but in the US, most of the major sports have the ability to buy a legitimate season pass of all or nearly all the games via an app. That doesn't seem to bother people there.
The lag is a real problem for streaming. Anyone with LiveSports on their phone can 'see' the goals before they are shown on screen. It ruins the group experience (i.e. in the pub) and indeed makes streaming useless for betting. Hence why I have stuck with cable and avoided the likes of Sky Glass.
In play betting is a mugs game regardless of over the air or streaming. Its like trying to day trade from a home internet. I used to make a decent chunk of my income from in-play betting of cricket totals, but as soon as I found out about court-siding syndicates, absolutely not going near it.
My mate makes a fair living from in-running betting on the horses, but not the six-figure sums boasted of by the drone users. I have another friend who made a few quid on football but there is not the volume of events to make it more than a leisure activity (for him at least).
Betting on football full stop is a fools errand. Tony Bloom, compete with 100+ PhDs and the best mathematical models in the business, supposedly makes an ROI of ~2% in a good year....it is a highly efficient market.
Haralabos Voulgaris is a great guy to listen to about the reality of being a top level sports sharp. His insights were so advanced in the end he got hired by an NBA to show them all the things they do wrong.
How do either of them do with political betting? Serious question
I don't think they do any.
Bloom bets only Asian Handicap on football scores and Haralabos bet NBA total points. They find an inefficient niche and exploit it.
Somebody like Billy Walters was known for betting a range of opportunities, but he methods were shall we say a lot more "old school" * mixed with some of the modern insights.
* multiple FBI investigations and eventually banged up for insider trading.
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
I hate those stupid letter writing campaigns, but that business "leader" letter was rather telling, they couldn't actually get many current business leaders, it was padded with small businesses and people who aren't in business anymore (many of which are political) if I remember correctly, not one FTSE 100, might have been not one FTSE 250.
The thing with the NI raise is it is so poorly targeted, if you employ 2-5 people its fine, but somebody like Kerridge has a bigger business empire than that and will be walloped, which not being the size of a mega-corp who can absorb it.
James Sinclair, who has a YouTube channel, and serial entrepreneur and employs 100s of people. He never normally does anything politics related, just talks about growing your business etc, but even he has gone this is going to cost me crazy sums of money, I am already going to close some of my visitor attractions outside of a peak times of the year as it doesn't make any financial sense.
Yes, that’s why Tom Kerridge stood out. He is a genuinely successful businessman and entrepreneur - as well as a celeb (and a likeable tv character). And now he’s turned on Labour
He’s a great chef but has an unpleasant side on social media whether it being part of a pile on by chefs on a food blogger for daring to not be North Korean enough in their joy about a meal or angrily going at someone who dared to criticise his £35 fish and chips.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
Grim. That was an era of truly crap cars with terrible bodywork, clunky manual gearboxes and dire build quality.
A future right-wing government should abolish PAYE. It would take an administrative and legal burden off businesses and make people more conscious of the amount of income tax they are paying.
I can see where you are going with this, William. You imagine a triumphant return for a certain Mary Elizabeth - let’s call her TRUSS. She will ride in with a mandate to reform. PAYE will be vanquished. Income tax will be left to individuals. VAT will be charged at the till - by local authorities. The NHS will be abolished in favour of a network of small private providers. It will be a time of seminal change, under a leader and believer.
Is that a metaphor, a figure of speech or a Damascene conversion?
A new Truss government will embrace the white-heat of technology.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
Mrs U did research on this years ago that has been seen by government departments, never been sorted.
I read that initially as Man U and was thinking they’re supposed to be a soccer team !
I have no objections to their return or even some form of compromise
I replied to @Taz at the end of the last thread and repeat my comments here
In all honesty I did not expect a Starmer led government to sideline a Blair style government and go left with policies that seriously undermine business in favour of unions and public sector, nor declare war on pensioners, farmers, small businesses and even increase students fees
As I have commented previously the '14 year mantra' worked but the real problems we have today came from covid and the war in Ukraine which has seen most governments fall that were in office during that period
There is no doubt the conservatives were out of time, and whilst I did not expect great things from Starmer his performance together with Reeves since winning the election has been abject and is reflecting in public opinion and business surveys, not least with today's announcement in the fall in consumer spending in November
Furthermore, the IFS publicly rebuked both main parties before the election that they were not acknowledging the state of the economy, and whilst there was a deficit left to Labour nearly half of the 22 billion they repeat daily was a result from the above inflation pay rises to the doctors and train drivers
Starmer, like Sunak, is not a politician and no matter how many relaunches he comes up with, the electorate will not change their mind on him unless and until the changes he promises become apparent and as he says he wants 10 years his problem is the electorate want to see results far quicker
I would just say I do respect the Labour supporters on here who do acknowledge this has been an unexpected poor start and are not in denial, but hope that in time Starmer will be seen more favourable
However, in a few weeks everything is thrown up in the air with the arrival of Trump with unforceable consequences, not just for the UK, but all around the world
When I woke this morning to the news Biden had pardoned his son I just felt a great sense of despair for the US and integrity in politics which has all but vanished, and we will all lose from it
If I may pick up on one small part of that, that you did not expect the new government to "increase students fees". We had a period of significant inflation without student fees going up. Whoever won the election was going to have to bite the bullet on that one and either put up fees or (less likely) greatly increase direct state funding to universities. As it is, Labour put up student fees by a pretty small amount (well below inflation).
On the Biden pardon.
Trump’s transgressions with money in politics are that he steals the wrong way.
If he “followed the rules” he could easily make many millions.
Which is part of why the MAGA cult laughs off the various convictions - to them, he’s being prosecuted by crooks.
Have a look at the share options - which the modern way of shovelling money at your favourite politicians.
A future right-wing government should abolish PAYE. It would take an administrative and legal burden off businesses and make people more conscious of the amount of income tax they are paying.
I can see where you are going with this, William. You imagine a triumphant return for a certain Mary Elizabeth - let’s call her TRUSS. She will ride in with a mandate to reform. PAYE will be vanquished. Income tax will be left to individuals. VAT will be charged at the till - by local authorities. The NHS will be abolished in favour of a network of small private providers. It will be a time of seminal change, under a leader and believer.
Come to think of it, VAT is terribly European. We need to replace it with an Australian-style sales tax.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act rationally and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
A future right-wing government should abolish PAYE. It would take an administrative and legal burden off businesses and make people more conscious of the amount of income tax they are paying.
I can see where you are going with this, William. You imagine a triumphant return for a certain Mary Elizabeth - let’s call her TRUSS. She will ride in with a mandate to reform. PAYE will be vanquished. Income tax will be left to individuals. VAT will be charged at the till - by local authorities. The NHS will be abolished in favour of a network of small private providers. It will be a time of seminal change, under a leader and believer.
Is that a metaphor, a figure of speech or a Damascene conversion?
A new Truss government will embrace the white-heat of technology.
The previous Truss government embraced the white hat of surrender...
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
I hate those stupid letter writing campaigns, but that business "leader" letter was rather telling, they couldn't actually get many current business leaders, it was padded with small businesses and people who aren't in business anymore (many of which are political) if I remember correctly, not one FTSE 100, might have been not one FTSE 250.
The thing with the NI raise is it is so poorly targeted, if you employ 2-5 people its fine, but somebody like Kerridge has a bigger business empire than that and will be walloped, which not being the size of a mega-corp who can absorb it.
James Sinclair, who has a YouTube channel, and serial entrepreneur and employs 100s of people. He never normally does anything politics related, just talks about growing your business etc, but even he has gone this is going to cost me crazy sums of money, I am already going to close some of my visitor attractions outside of a peak times of the year as it doesn't make any financial sense.
Yes, that’s why Tom Kerridge stood out. He is a genuinely successful businessman and entrepreneur - as well as a celeb (and a likeable tv character). And now he’s turned on Labour
He’s a great chef but has an unpleasant side on social media whether it being part of a pile on by chefs on a food blogger for daring to not be North Korean enough in their joy about a meal or angrily going at someone who dared to criticise his £35 fish and chips.
Seems to have a thin skin.
All great chefs are a bit mad
This is, by the way, literally true: levels of ADHD, neurodivergence, bipolarity, addictive behaviour - are notably higher in successful chefs compared to the norm. Studies have been done
A future right-wing government should abolish PAYE. It would take an administrative and legal burden off businesses and make people more conscious of the amount of income tax they are paying.
I can see where you are going with this, William. You imagine a triumphant return for a certain Mary Elizabeth - let’s call her TRUSS. She will ride in with a mandate to reform. PAYE will be vanquished. Income tax will be left to individuals. VAT will be charged at the till - by local authorities. The NHS will be abolished in favour of a network of small private providers. It will be a time of seminal change, under a leader and believer.
Is that a metaphor, a figure of speech or a Damascene conversion?
A new Truss government will embrace the white-heat of technology.
And then fifteen seconds later, she will be baffled as to why all her clothes have caught fire.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
My first car, cost me £100
I remember being dead chuffed that it’s number plate was in the same letter range (LPH xxx D) as One of Linda Thorsons in The Avengers.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act rationally and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
The problem is that to reduce that marginal rate you would end up with some people earning £45,000 while still getting benefits.
Which isn't in itself a problem until you realise you've just brought people earning £44,000 into the tax credit regime with all the extra costs in benefits that it occurs.
Hence the 86% marginal rate is too high but it's very, very expensive to fix it..
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act rationally and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
Although you are presuming that what marginal tax rate is acceptable is constant across income levels, when it may not be.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
Grim. That was an era of truly crap cars with terrible bodywork, clunky manual gearboxes and dire build quality.
Yes but they were very cheap to buy, and fairly easy to bodge into a runner. Simple engines and gearboxes to take apart, and easy to find parts in scrapyards. Sure, I always had my tool box with me, but loads of fun times, and great bonding with my dad. He was of like mind and we had something on ramps in the driveway most weekends, so spent happy hours figuring out how to replace brake pipes on a 2CV etc (they are inside the rear axle!).
My mother was very tolerant and fueled us with hot drinks. I learnt a lot of diagnosis that way, though cars are easier than people. Or maybe no longer as we can scrap people now when they fail their MOT.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act rationally and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
The problem is that to reduce that marginal rate you would end up with some people earning £45,000 while still getting benefits.
Which isn't in itself a problem until you realise you've just brought people earning £44,000 into the tax credit regime with all the extra costs in benefits that it occurs.
Hence the 86% marginal rate is too high but it's very, very expensive to fix it..
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act rationally and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
Trouble is that the answer involves the means testing of benefits becoming less of a brutal cliff-edge by giving more money to poor people.
Even if that works out as a net benefit for society and the state, some opinion formers would have a problem with that.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
Grim. That was an era of truly crap cars with terrible bodywork, clunky manual gearboxes and dire build quality.
Yes but they were very cheap to buy, and fairly easy to bodge into a runner. Simple engines and gearboxes to take apart, and easy to find parts in scrapyards. Sure, I always had my tool box with me, but loads of fun times, and great bonding with my dad. He was of like mind and we had something on ramps in the driveway most weekends, so spent happy hours figuring out how to replace brake pipes on a 2CV etc (they are inside the rear axle!).
My mother was very tolerant and fueled us with hot drinks. I learnt a lot of diagnosis that way, though cars are easier than people. Or maybe no longer as we can scrap people now when they fail their MOT.
Our 1972 mini clubman estate is embarrassingly simple in design. There are about five wires, some tyres, a bit of metal, lots of rust and some paint. We are not particularly mechanical ourselves and have had a few AA call outs over the years. The older AA chaps learned on old minis and often loved to come to our aid. My favourite was one who had carried a small piece of radiator hose for years - our car finally was the one that needed it…
so spent happy hours figuring out how to replace brake pipes on a 2CV etc
I saw a 2CV 'in the wild' this weekend.
I had forgotten how tiny they are
I went on a camping road trip in France with 3 others in one. We even picked up a hitchhiker. There's loads of room if you travel light. Bit slow over the Massive Central fully loaded I accept.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
Grim. That was an era of truly crap cars with terrible bodywork, clunky manual gearboxes and dire build quality.
Yes but they were very cheap to buy, and fairly easy to bodge into a runner. Simple engines and gearboxes to take apart, and easy to find parts in scrapyards. Sure, I always had my tool box with me, but loads of fun times, and great bonding with my dad. He was of like mind and we had something on ramps in the driveway most weekends, so spent happy hours figuring out how to replace brake pipes on a 2CV etc (they are inside the rear axle!).
My mother was very tolerant and fueled us with hot drinks. I learnt a lot of diagnosis that way, though cars are easier than people. Or maybe no longer as we can scrap people now when they fail their MOT.
Our 1972 mini clubman estate is embarrassingly simple in design. There are about five wires, some tyres, a bit of metal, lots of rust and some paint. We are not particularly mechanical ourselves and have had a few AA call outs over the years. The older AA chaps learned on old minis and often loved to come to our aid. My favourite was one who had carried a small piece of radiator hose for years - our car finally was the one that needed it…
Many happy hydrolastic memories about Minis! Very easy to work on too.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act reasonably and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher and the benefits paid might be lower to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
It's not the tax rate it's benefit cut-off. The issue with reducing that cut-off rate (currently 55% btw) is that you would be paying Universal Credit to many more working people.
The other issue affecting the people in the original article is that you get additional benefit (416.19 pm) if you are unable to seek work due to illness (the eloquently titled 'Limited Capability for Work Related Activity' or LCWRA). However, you're allowed to work as much as you want/can but... chances are when you are reassessed you'll lose the LCWRA rating at the assessment. Which many would say is fair enough - how can you be unable to work and, er, working.
I entirely agree that it needs reforming but it's nothing to do with the Laffer Curve.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
Grim. That was an era of truly crap cars with terrible bodywork, clunky manual gearboxes and dire build quality.
Yes but they were very cheap to buy, and fairly easy to bodge into a runner. Simple engines and gearboxes to take apart, and easy to find parts in scrapyards. Sure, I always had my tool box with me, but loads of fun times, and great bonding with my dad. He was of like mind and we had something on ramps in the driveway most weekends, so spent happy hours figuring out how to replace brake pipes on a 2CV etc (they are inside the rear axle!).
My mother was very tolerant and fueled us with hot drinks. I learnt a lot of diagnosis that way, though cars are easier than people. Or maybe no longer as we can scrap people now when they fail their MOT.
Our 1972 mini clubman estate is embarrassingly simple in design. There are about five wires, some tyres, a bit of metal, lots of rust and some paint. We are not particularly mechanical ourselves and have had a few AA call outs over the years. The older AA chaps learned on old minis and often loved to come to our aid. My favourite was one who had carried a small piece of radiator hose for years - our car finally was the one that needed it…
Many happy hydrolastic memories about Minis! Very easy to work on too.
Pop the bonnet on your mini at a mini meet up and watch old guys converge like sharks with a sniff of blood.
At some point we are hoping for a full rebuild, but it needs a fair chunk of cash. You can’t beat the thrill and jeopardy of driving it though.
Celebrity Chef and TV cookery show presenter, Tom Kerridge, who was one of 120 people who signed a letter of support for labour prior to the election finds life comes at you fast.
I hate those stupid letter writing campaigns, but that business "leader" letter was rather telling, they couldn't actually get many current business leaders, it was padded with small businesses and people who aren't in business anymore (many of which are political) if I remember correctly, not one FTSE 100, might have been not one FTSE 250.
The thing with the NI raise is it is so poorly targeted, if you employ 2-5 people its fine, but somebody like Kerridge has a bigger business empire than that and will be walloped, which not being the size of a mega-corp who can absorb it.
James Sinclair, who has a YouTube channel, and serial entrepreneur and employs 100s of people. He never normally does anything politics related, just talks about growing your business etc, but even he has gone this is going to cost me crazy sums of money, I am already going to close some of my visitor attractions outside of a peak times of the year as it doesn't make any financial sense.
Yes, that’s why Tom Kerridge stood out. He is a genuinely successful businessman and entrepreneur - as well as a celeb (and a likeable tv character). And now he’s turned on Labour
He’s a great chef but has an unpleasant side on social media whether it being part of a pile on by chefs on a food blogger for daring to not be North Korean enough in their joy about a meal or angrily going at someone who dared to criticise his £35 fish and chips.
Seems to have a thin skin.
All great chefs are a bit mad
This is, by the way, literally true: levels of ADHD, neurodivergence, bipolarity, addictive behaviour - are notably higher in successful chefs compared to the norm. Studies have been done
Our grandson has just been accepted into college for next September to study cookery with a career as a chef his ambition
Not sure about neurodivercity but he is a genius on online computer games
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
so spent happy hours figuring out how to replace brake pipes on a 2CV etc
I saw a 2CV 'in the wild' this weekend.
I had forgotten how tiny they are
I went on a camping road trip in France with 3 others in one. We even picked up a hitchhiker. There's loads of room if you travel light. Bit slow over the Massive Central fully loaded I accept.
Possibly a bit faster if you take the road though?
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
Knackered old Ford Taunus coupe was probably my worst car. A trip of over 100miles was a real adventure.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
My parents had a Hillman Hunter. I still remember my childhood fascination of watching the tarmac whizz by under the car through the rusty holes in the floor.
We had Austin 1100’s in the seventies and I can remember my Dad applying ‘underseal’ to prevent rust and corrosion. To prevent that happening. My Hillman Imp had a leak so during heavy rain the footwell on the drivers side filled up with water. Happy memories.
Not sure how effective it was as it was a risk of being a moisture trap !
Ah ! Waxoyl
(Or you could get stuff like the barrels of rubberised tar for paint on dampproof courses to protect a floor, before you put the tiles or similar on top. It was lovely stuff as long as you did not drop it anywhere sensitive.)
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act rationally and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
The problem is that to reduce that marginal rate you would end up with some people earning £45,000 while still getting benefits.
Which isn't in itself a problem until you realise you've just brought people earning £44,000 into the tax credit regime with all the extra costs in benefits that it occurs.
Hence the 86% marginal rate is too high but it's very, very expensive to fix it..
So frigging what!?
UC merged 6 benefits into one, the real transformation is to do a treble merger now of UC, NI and Income Tax into one.
So what if people on 45k get UC? What frigging difference does it make? All that matters is that the tax rate isn't draconian, nobody should be on over 50% let alone 85% or so.
A future right-wing government should abolish PAYE. It would take an administrative and legal burden off businesses and make people more conscious of the amount of income tax they are paying.
I can see where you are going with this, William. You imagine a triumphant return for a certain Mary Elizabeth - let’s call her TRUSS. She will ride in with a mandate to reform. PAYE will be vanquished. Income tax will be left to individuals. VAT will be charged at the till - by local authorities. The NHS will be abolished in favour of a network of small private providers. It will be a time of seminal change, under a leader and believer.
Come to think of it, VAT is terribly European. We need to replace it with an Australian-style sales tax.
We don't need to do any such thing. You just fancy the idea.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act rationally and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
The problem is that to reduce that marginal rate you would end up with some people earning £45,000 while still getting benefits.
Which isn't in itself a problem until you realise you've just brought people earning £44,000 into the tax credit regime with all the extra costs in benefits that it occurs.
Hence the 86% marginal rate is too high but it's very, very expensive to fix it..
It's 55% but still both a) too high and b) difficult to fix.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act rationally and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
The problem is that to reduce that marginal rate you would end up with some people earning £45,000 while still getting benefits.
Which isn't in itself a problem until you realise you've just brought people earning £44,000 into the tax credit regime with all the extra costs in benefits that it occurs.
Hence the 86% marginal rate is too high but it's very, very expensive to fix it..
It's 55% but still both a) too high and b) difficult to fix.
No it is not.
That 55% is on top of, not instead of, income tax and national insurance, both employees and employers. And Student Loan payments potentially too.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
This.
This.
A millions times this.
But what’s the solution?
Merge UC, NI and Income Tax into a single system with smooth tax rates and no cliff edges.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act rationally and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
Trouble is that the answer involves the means testing of benefits becoming less of a brutal cliff-edge by giving more money to poor people.
Even if that works out as a net benefit for society and the state, some opinion formers would have a problem with that.
The cliff edges are less important (in they affect fewer people than you might expect) than the overall "marginal effective tax rate" that applies to most households on benefits, by my reckoning. Not that they aren't an important perversion in the system.
This stuff is also complicated by household composition, with different levels of allowances, rates and cutoffs applying for different types of household and LHA area - and then you have the additional payments available in Scotland, and then also the low uptake of some passported benefits like Free School Meals.
Do you do your calculations based on 100% uptake of everything? That can make a marked difference to your conclusions.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act rationally and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
The problem is that to reduce that marginal rate you would end up with some people earning £45,000 while still getting benefits.
Which isn't in itself a problem until you realise you've just brought people earning £44,000 into the tax credit regime with all the extra costs in benefits that it occurs.
Hence the 86% marginal rate is too high but it's very, very expensive to fix it..
So frigging what!?
UC merged 6 benefits into one, the real transformation is to do a treble merger now of UC, NI and Income Tax into one.
So what if people on 45k get UC? What frigging difference does it make? All that matters is that the tax rate isn't draconian, nobody should be on over 50% let alone 85% or so.
The difference it makes is it costs lots of money. Which might be worth it, but can't be easily dismissed as a trifle.
"Behind London’s King’s Cross Station on the Caledonian Road lies the Yellow Bittern, a restaurant-cum-bookshop that opened this autumn. It has just three members of staff – Hugh Corcoran, the chef and face of the venture, and his co-owners, Oisín Davies and Frances Armstrong-Jones – seats 18 people and is only open for lunch, Monday to Friday.
It has no website and no social media presence. Bookings can be made by phone, in person or – such is its founders’ abhorrence for the digital age – hand-written postcard. Only two timeslots are available to book: one at noon, the other at 2pm.
The menu is chalked on a blackboard; the mains, at the time of writing, were just two, neither of which was vegetarian. There is no printed wine list (as the restaurant critic Jay Rayner notes, “it is all in Hugh’s head”), and it is cash-only."
There needs to be a smooth low rate of transition from benefits through to taxation whereby no one loses more than (say) 20% of each additional £ of income as they increase their work, with more progressive rates only applying to above average earnings.
I doubt anyone disagrees with that idea. Implementing it seems to be hard though.
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act reasonably and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher and the benefits paid might be lower to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
It's not the tax rate it's benefit cut-off. The issue with reducing that cut-off rate (currently 55% btw) is that you would be paying Universal Credit to many more working people.
The other issue affecting the people in the original article is that you get additional benefit (416.19 pm) if you are unable to seek work due to illness (the eloquently titled 'Limited Capability for Work Related Activity' or LCWRA). However, you're allowed to work as much as you want/can but... chances are when you are reassessed you'll lose the LCWRA rating at the assessment. Which many would say is fair enough - how can you be unable to work and, er, working.
I entirely agree that it needs reforming but it's nothing to do with the Laffer Curve.
The benefit cut off is part of their real marginal tax rate. So it is the Laffer Curve.
Faced with a real tax rate of 80% plus people choose not to work, so benefits are paid out and taxes not taken in.
Tommy Banks, who runs award-winning restaurants in North Yorkshire, says "nearly a tonne" of pies, worth £25,000 in total, were taken after the van was driven away from Barker Business Park in Melmerby on Sunday night.
"Behind London’s King’s Cross Station on the Caledonian Road lies the Yellow Bittern, a restaurant-cum-bookshop that opened this autumn. It has just three members of staff – Hugh Corcoran, the chef and face of the venture, and his co-owners, Oisín Davies and Frances Armstrong-Jones – seats 18 people and is only open for lunch, Monday to Friday.
It has no website and no social media presence. Bookings can be made by phone, in person or – such is its founders’ abhorrence for the digital age – hand-written postcard. Only two timeslots are available to book: one at noon, the other at 2pm.
The menu is chalked on a blackboard; the mains, at the time of writing, were just two, neither of which was vegetarian. There is no printed wine list (as the restaurant critic Jay Rayner notes, “it is all in Hugh’s head”), and it is cash-only."
Tommy Banks, who runs award-winning restaurants in North Yorkshire, says "nearly a tonne" of pies, worth £25,000 in total, were taken after the van was driven away from Barker Business Park in Melmerby on Sunday night.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
Grim. That was an era of truly crap cars with terrible bodywork, clunky manual gearboxes and dire build quality.
Yes but they were very cheap to buy, and fairly easy to bodge into a runner. Simple engines and gearboxes to take apart, and easy to find parts in scrapyards. Sure, I always had my tool box with me, but loads of fun times, and great bonding with my dad. He was of like mind and we had something on ramps in the driveway most weekends, so spent happy hours figuring out how to replace brake pipes on a 2CV etc (they are inside the rear axle!).
My mother was very tolerant and fueled us with hot drinks. I learnt a lot of diagnosis that way, though cars are easier than people. Or maybe no longer as we can scrap people now when they fail their MOT.
Sure, but cars in those days were flimsy and dangerous. It’s not an era one should be nostalgic for.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
My parents had a Hillman Hunter. I still remember my childhood fascination of watching the tarmac whizz by under the car through the rusty holes in the floor.
My Dad bought a job lot of Naylor TFs at one point. Man they were fun!
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act rationally and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
The problem is that to reduce that marginal rate you would end up with some people earning £45,000 while still getting benefits.
Which isn't in itself a problem until you realise you've just brought people earning £44,000 into the tax credit regime with all the extra costs in benefits that it occurs.
Hence the 86% marginal rate is too high but it's very, very expensive to fix it..
It's 55% but still both a) too high and b) difficult to fix.
No it is not.
That 55% is on top of, not instead of, income tax and national insurance, both employees and employers. And Student Loan payments potentially too.
Actually that's a fair point. It used to be that people affected by the benefit cut-off weren't paying ICT or NI but... fiscal drag is catching them now.
I'm not so sure that they have. Dress it up in pink and it's striking, and it's only ever going to look better in other colours.
At 130k the engineering is going to have to be the best in the world though. I don't think they can deliver that, but I guess they get to have a go.
I agree
I was on a long drive yesterday and was struck (again) by just how ugly Tesla's are.
The jaG is not ugly
The Tesla Cybertruck is the most beautiful vehicle ever constructed and I want one.
Nothing compares to the Hillman Imp, even with the design flaws.
Takes me down memory lane. I had a Hillman Imp when I was first dating Mrs Foxy. I paid £45 for it with half a tank of petrol and no MOT, using the tactic of the previous weeks small ads. The idea was that anyone still with the vehicle a week later would be desperate to sell.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
Knackered old Ford Taunus coupe was probably my worst car. A trip of over 100miles was a real adventure.
Many years ago my wife had a NSU with a bag of solidified concrete under the front bonnet to help stop it jumping up and down !!
"Over the past few weeks, I’ve been making a documentary about this for Channel 4. Britain’s Benefits Scandal hears from some of those affected – people who are often missing from the debate. We have 3.2 million trapped in a system in which they are given a decent payout – some I spoke to said about £1,300 a month, some significantly more – but who want to get back to work. Yet they risk losing everything if they attempt to do so. Even training for a new trade puts you at risk of being reassessed."
There was a really interested thread on my local reddit recently. Someone asking if others struggled to move up the job ladder.
Lots of comments from people struggling to get off benefits for fear of losing roof over their heads, people who had to give up jobs because of transport costs (or non-existent/unreliable public transport), or people who couldn't take up better jobs for the same. People wanting to work a second job, but finding they would be poorer due to tax/transport, wanting to retrain/re-educate - similar.
Over and over - people wanting to do better, but one way or another being tripped up by processes and systems outwith their control.
It was quite disheartening. Especially knowing that they'll just be bundled into the 'low productivity! what can possibly be done with the feckless!?' pile.
I’ve sat across the table from people who are on 16 hours. Trapped by benefit cliffs. We want them to work more. They would be fine with working more - except they wouldn’t get much more money for doubling their hours.
Laffer Curve in action.
How is that the Laffer Curve? It's nothing to do with tax rates or total tax take.
The marginal tax rate is so high that these people act reasonably and don't take on extra work, the government misses out on extra tax and keeps on paying lots of tax credits and housing benefit.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher and the benefits paid might be lower to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
It's not the tax rate it's benefit cut-off. The issue with reducing that cut-off rate (currently 55% btw) is that you would be paying Universal Credit to many more working people.
The other issue affecting the people in the original article is that you get additional benefit (416.19 pm) if you are unable to seek work due to illness (the eloquently titled 'Limited Capability for Work Related Activity' or LCWRA). However, you're allowed to work as much as you want/can but... chances are when you are reassessed you'll lose the LCWRA rating at the assessment. Which many would say is fair enough - how can you be unable to work and, er, working.
I entirely agree that it needs reforming but it's nothing to do with the Laffer Curve.
The benefit cut off is part of their real marginal tax rate. So it is the Laffer Curve.
Faced with a real tax rate of 80% plus people choose not to work, so benefits are paid out and taxes not taken in.
Yup
Try this sales pitch - “I want you to work for £2 per hour, take home money”
Comments
Not sure how effective it was as it was a risk of being a moisture trap !
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/helsing-unveils-ai-enabled-hx-2-drone/
Oxford and Munich, apparently.
Resistant to electronic warfare thanks to AI, - German Helsing declassified the HX-2 (mini-Taurus) drone for Ukraine.
❗️4,000 drones will be sent to Ukraine. HX-2 hits armored vehicles, artillery and military targets. Weight - 12 kg, Speed - 220 km/h.
https://x.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1863624940731220334
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tesla-adds-sixth-recall-cybertruck-164438941.html
Laffer Curve in action.
Major administrative chance ought to have some justification other than pandering to a few prejudices.
The thing with the NI raise is it is so poorly targeted, if you employ 2-5 people its fine, but somebody like Kerridge has a bigger business empire than that and will be walloped, which not being the size of a mega-corp who can absorb it.
James Sinclair, who has a YouTube channel, and serial entrepreneur and employs 100s of people. He never normally does anything politics related, just talks about growing your business etc, but even he has gone this is going to cost me crazy sums of money, I am already going to close some of my visitor attractions outside of a peak times of the year as it doesn't make any financial sense.
Imagine how much worse I would feel if I had voted for these fuckwits...
@faisalislam
Might remember I cornered Rwandan President Paul Kagame in January and asked if UK would get money back if no migrants were transferred to Rwanda… answer revealed today: Govt paid £715m so far until June of this year
“not recoverable under the terms of the Treaty”
They now actively hate their customers.
Edit - on a serious point, Homeserve are OK on looking after stuff at my rental property, but not cheap.
They are exempt is my understanding if he is talking about employers NI increase.
It passed its MOT easily (as I thought it would), albeit by taking it to a dodgy garage that I knew. The mechanic would ask "are you selling it?" and only giving it a hard look over if you were. I kept it for 18 months and 10 000 miles of mostly trouble free motoring. It had the weirdest tyre pressure to combat oversteer ( 15 front, 30 rear) and even weirder plumbing, with the rear engine water-cooled, but radiator up front, so there were hot water pipes in the sills.
Eventually it developed an electrical fault that caused it to burn out alternators, but I discovered that if I disconnected the alternator while the engine was running after about 5 miles it was fine, with a charged battery as long as you didn't use the lights much. Happy days of British motoring, though not the worst car that I have had.
No matter what happens, they always vote bloody Labour.
When did you buy a Jaaaag?
And it's only 2nd December.
A
S
H
I had an Opel that wouldn't go into reverse, but was otherwise fine. You just had to park carefully, facing up hill, so able to back out in neutral under the weight of the car. I also had a bile green Alfa Romeo that was a dream to drive but literally broke in the middle when I had to jack it up due to terminal rust.
Perhaps worst was a Rover P6 3500 that had a weird fault where under emergency braking it would spin in the carriageway, seemingly braking only one side, though mostly worked if you braked slowly. Lovely leather interior and walnut dash.
I used to buy old bangers and sell them on after a couple of months whilst at Uni, it was a useful income, but anything truly rubbish I ditched at Southamton car auction. I really offloaded some clunkers there.
Bloom bets only Asian Handicap on football scores and Haralabos bet NBA total points. They find an inefficient niche and exploit it.
Somebody like Billy Walters was known for betting a range of opportunities, but he methods were shall we say a lot more "old school" * mixed with some of the modern insights.
* multiple FBI investigations and eventually banged up for insider trading.
Seems to have a thin skin.
Trump’s transgressions with money in politics are that he steals the wrong way.
If he “followed the rules” he could easily make many millions.
Which is part of why the MAGA cult laughs off the various convictions - to them, he’s being prosecuted by crooks.
Have a look at the share options - which the modern way of shovelling money at your favourite politicians.
If the marginal tax rate was lower, more people would take on extra work, the tax paid might be higher by enough and the benefits paid might be lower by enough to make up the cost of the lower marginal rate.
It's precisely the Laffer curve, so we know that a marginal tax rate of ~86% is too high. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
This is, by the way, literally true: levels of ADHD, neurodivergence, bipolarity, addictive behaviour - are notably higher in successful chefs compared to the norm. Studies have been done
I remember being dead chuffed that it’s number plate was in the same letter range (LPH xxx D) as One of Linda Thorsons in The Avengers.
Which isn't in itself a problem until you realise you've just brought people earning £44,000 into the tax credit regime with all the extra costs in benefits that it occurs.
Hence the 86% marginal rate is too high but it's very, very expensive to fix it..
My mother was very tolerant and fueled us with hot drinks. I learnt a lot of diagnosis that way, though cars are easier than people. Or maybe no longer as we can scrap people now when they fail their MOT.
Pete Hegseth appears to be quit thoroughly toasted. He forgot to tell them about quite a lot of things:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/pete-hegseths-secret-history
I had forgotten how tiny they are
Even if that works out as a net benefit for society and the state, some opinion formers would have a problem with that.
It's sort of Payne Sutton and Edith Cresson.
It reminds me of an American joke:
Q: Why do the British drink warm beer?
A: because Lucas also make refrigerators.
This.
A millions times this.
It can be done with a single penetration from the inside - but it would need to be on a rear facade.
Fianna Fâil wins the last two seats in Cavan - Monaghan.
The election is now complete.
Final standings:
FF 48
SF 39
FG 38
The other issue affecting the people in the original article is that you get additional benefit (416.19 pm) if you are unable to seek work due to illness (the eloquently titled 'Limited Capability for Work Related Activity' or LCWRA). However, you're allowed to work as much as you want/can but... chances are when you are reassessed you'll lose the LCWRA rating at the assessment. Which many would say is fair enough - how can you be unable to work and, er, working.
I entirely agree that it needs reforming but it's nothing to do with the Laffer Curve.
At some point we are hoping for a full rebuild, but it needs a fair chunk of cash. You can’t beat the thrill and jeopardy of driving it though.
Not sure about neurodivercity but he is a genius on online computer games
(Or you could get stuff like the barrels of rubberised tar for paint on dampproof courses to protect a floor, before you put the tiles or similar on top. It was lovely stuff as long as you did not drop it anywhere sensitive.)
UC merged 6 benefits into one, the real transformation is to do a treble merger now of UC, NI and Income Tax into one.
So what if people on 45k get UC? What frigging difference does it make? All that matters is that the tax rate isn't draconian, nobody should be on over 50% let alone 85% or so.
You just fancy the idea.
That 55% is on top of, not instead of, income tax and national insurance, both employees and employers. And Student Loan payments potentially too.
This stuff is also complicated by household composition, with different levels of allowances, rates and cutoffs applying for different types of household and LHA area - and then you have the additional payments available in Scotland, and then also the low uptake of some passported benefits like Free School Meals.
Do you do your calculations based on 100% uptake of everything? That can make a marked difference to your conclusions.
It has no website and no social media presence. Bookings can be made by phone, in person or – such is its founders’ abhorrence for the digital age – hand-written postcard. Only two timeslots are available to book: one at noon, the other at 2pm.
The menu is chalked on a blackboard; the mains, at the time of writing, were just two, neither of which was vegetarian. There is no printed wine list (as the restaurant critic Jay Rayner notes, “it is all in Hugh’s head”), and it is cash-only."
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024/11/the-return-of-the-boozy-leisurely-lunch
https://www.interviewmagazine.com/food/hugh-corcoran-of-the-yellow-bittern-wants-to-bring-back-boozy-lunch
I doubt anyone disagrees with that idea. Implementing it seems to be hard though.
Faced with a real tax rate of 80% plus people choose not to work, so benefits are paid out and taxes not taken in.
Tommy Banks, who runs award-winning restaurants in North Yorkshire, says "nearly a tonne" of pies, worth £25,000 in total, were taken after the van was driven away from Barker Business Park in Melmerby on Sunday night.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gpl8r2e48o
Ridiculous, but great.
Try this sales pitch - “I want you to work for £2 per hour, take home money”