It is unlikely the LDs will win more votes than the Tories but yes they could certainly win more seats, especially if it becomes a Labour v Reform battle in most marginal seats and the LDs hold their current seats. Kemi is unlikely to be allowed to stay Tory leader if that looks likely though.
If a hung parliament next time which of the Tories or LDs win most seats could also be key to whether Farage or Starmer becomes PM. Assuming the Tories would back Reform and the LDs would back Labour
Morning! What can your party do to remedy this situation? From the natural party of government to the prospect of being 4th within a single election cycle.
Permit me two observations: 1) The damage done to the party post Covid is cataclysmic and so many of you appear to be in utter denial. Yes this Labour government is getting worse by the day, but few people think "so lets go back to the Tories". They think you were even worse than this lot. 2) The political zeitgeist has shifted considerably. Badenoch suffers from (1) very badly - to haughty to accept that she and her colleagues did a bad job - and is banging out about woke and bathrooms which aren't the issues people care about any more.
What is the way back for you? It isn't "Labour collapsing and people making us the government again. They won't - not without a serious change of mindset firstly from your party and then from the electorate.
It's not so much post-Covid. They could have survived that, embarrassing as Partygate and Cumstain and the procurement fiascos all were.
It's the Truss debacle that killed them.
Are you referring to the event that Farage claimed to be the "most Conservative budget since 1986"? Hmmm, doesn't bode well for Farage's first budget.
I was just reading Tebbitt's wiki page, and came across the case of the "Ferrybridge Six": six electricians who were sacked from their jobs for not joining a closed shop in 1975. They were in a union; just the 'wrong' union, and the 'right' union refused to allow them to join. They lost unemployment benefits.
We've come a long way.
Thankfully.
(Michael Foot showed his nasty side in that case.)
Which I guess confirms how desperate Trump is to get it that he is even getting the least suitable leaders in the world to nominate him for it. I would have thought this nomination by itself is enough for the committee to reject Trump for ever..
If Trump wins the Nobel Peace prize it'll put dynamite under the whole tradition!!!
I saw what you did there. You paint an interesting picture.
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
It's shocking that there have not been trials for attempting to pervert the course of justice already. Not remotely surprising, of course, but shocking.
The longer that's delayed, the less likely any successful prosecution. 2028, and counting...
I would be amazed if anyone was prosecuted.
At least Pauline Vennells won’t become Bishop of London.
The way this country is going she'll probably end up as Archbishop of Canterbury. No-one wants that role it seems.
AIUI Paula [sic] Vennells no longer conducts services.
It is unlikely the LDs will win more votes than the Tories but yes they could certainly win more seats, especially if it becomes a Labour v Reform battle in most marginal seats and the LDs hold their current seats. Kemi is unlikely to be allowed to stay Tory leader if that looks likely though.
If a hung parliament next time which of the Tories or LDs win most seats could also be key to whether Farage or Starmer becomes PM. Assuming the Tories would back Reform and the LDs would back Labour
Morning! What can your party do to remedy this situation? From the natural party of government to the prospect of being 4th within a single election cycle.
Permit me two observations: 1) The damage done to the party post Covid is cataclysmic and so many of you appear to be in utter denial. Yes this Labour government is getting worse by the day, but few people think "so lets go back to the Tories". They think you were even worse than this lot. 2) The political zeitgeist has shifted considerably. Badenoch suffers from (1) very badly - to haughty to accept that she and her colleagues did a bad job - and is banging out about woke and bathrooms which aren't the issues people care about any more.
What is the way back for you? It isn't "Labour collapsing and people making us the government again. They won't - not without a serious change of mindset firstly from your party and then from the electorate.
I’ve not been paying much attention, but when was the last time Badenoch talked about bathrooms? Are you sure it’s not just you?
I believe in private she has plaintively asked why her ratings are down the toilet.
Morning all Polling start to the morning with YouGov this week Ref 28 (=) Lab 26 (=) Con 16 (-1) LD 15 (-1) Green 11 (+1)
And Sky/MiC have a Senedd poll out which will cheer Labour up a bit as they are back in the game, another absolute shocker for the Tories though 🔷Reform: 28% 🌼 Plaid Cymru: 26% 🌹 Labour: 23% 🌳 Conservatives: 10% 🟠 Lib Dems: 7% 🟩 Green:4% ⬜️Other: 2%
The misunderestimated fact at the moment in this polling is this: after a totally disastrous year in which not a single good thing can be said about them, Labour are only two points behind Reform.
In normal times (remember those?) they would be 20 points behind the Tories. People are beginning to forget they existed.
Almost better that they haven't been charged. Those involved will be cr*pping themselves. If there are ten people who are involved and nine charges are announced that tenth person will get off scot free (why do we say that btw).
The OED thinks it's from "scot" in the sense of a tax or tribute paid to a lord, so scot-free == not having to pay anything. Various related terms in German, Swedish, Dutch, etc.
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
It's shocking that there have not been trials for attempting to pervert the course of justice already. Not remotely surprising, of course, but shocking.
The longer that's delayed, the less likely any successful prosecution. 2028, and counting...
I would be amazed if anyone was prosecuted.
At least Pauline Vennells won’t become Bishop of London.
The way this country is going she'll probably end up as Archbishop of Canterbury. No-one wants that role it seems.
She isn't even a bishop, there are plenty of good candidates like the Bishop of Chelmsford and Bishop of Salisbury for the role
You must live in a different country to the one I live in. Because in this country there is ample evidence of plainly unsuitable people being parachuted into roles far beyond their skills, competence or integrity - and their supporters being utterly blind to their failings even as everything they touch is destroyed.
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
It's shocking that there have not been trials for attempting to pervert the course of justice already. Not remotely surprising, of course, but shocking.
Being in the game, I'm sure you will agree, however, that the prospect of a trial in three years' time is significant punishment for those involved and likely to be defendants. Everyone always wants things tied up - one way or the other - as quickly as possible and, innocent or guilty, these peoples' lives will be ruined for the years leading up to the trial. And no bad thing, either.
They need to be charged first and the trails are going to be complex.
When I suggested the 2 week /month court of appeal summer session to clear the cases I had a secondary thought. They could have had the post office lawyers there and as the post office worker was declared innocent the lawyer who used the horizon evidence (post the date issues had been known) could have been given a few extra months for contempt due to providing knowingly false evidence to the courts).
Almost better that they haven't been charged. Those involved will be cr*pping themselves. If there are ten people who are involved and nine charges are announced that tenth person will get off scot free (why do we say that btw). This way, all ten are worried until the charges are announced.
Isn’t “Scot free” just the reference to a lack of an extradition treaty between Scotland and England prior to unification?
Which I guess confirms how desperate Trump is to get it that he is even getting the least suitable leaders in the world to nominate him for it. I would have thought this nomination by itself is enough for the committee to reject Trump for ever..
If Trump wins the Nobel Peace prize it'll put dynamite under the whole tradition!!!
I saw what you did there. You paint an interesting picture.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
Which I guess confirms how desperate Trump is to get it that he is even getting the least suitable leaders in the world to nominate him for it. I would have thought this nomination by itself is enough for the committee to reject Trump for ever..
If Trump wins the Nobel Peace prize it'll put dynamite under the whole tradition!!!
I saw what you did there. You paint an interesting picture.
Shame the old thread just got superseded. As someone who practised tax law for quarter of a century, I was enjoying HYUFD's continuing wilful self humiliation.
On what? You butted in to an argument you hadn't followed from its origin.
Kjh was saying the government should have deprived him of his WFA, if he didn't use so many tax minimisation schemes and take cash in hand from his capital he would have been well over the taxable income threshold for losing his WFA
I'm back and I assumed with a new thread this would have died, but no and @hyufd accused me of whitting on about it.
For the final time @hyufd what are all these so many tax minimising things I did again? Can you provide a list. I have given you all the details so prey tell.
And what the hell does 'and take cash in hand from his capital he would have been well over the taxable income threshold ' mean? It is gobbledygook nonsense. What the hell does 'cash in hand' in this context mean?
There is no income tax on withdrawal of capital. I have already paid income tax before creating it. Some of it may attract CGT which I pay. There is no cash in hand stuff, whatever that means in this context. You are getting confused with people not declaring income which I have never done.
You are barking. You haven't a clue what you are talking about.
I didn't restart it, I was responding to those who did.
You were the one who was whinging your cash withdrawals from your capital and your ISAs didn't mean you lost all your WFA not me.
If your income was otherwise over the taxable income threshold where WFA was lost you otherwise would have
Answer the questions above then:
a) What are all these 'so many tax minimising schemes' I did again? Can you provide a list. I have given you all the details of what I have so it should be easy.
b) What does 'take cash in hand from his capital' even mean? There is no such concept with Capital. There is no income tax on spending your savings. Unless you are now implying I avoid CGT which I don't.
c) What do you think I could have done to put me over the £35k limit? I would love to know. If I cashed in my ISAs I still wouldn't be over it. Go on tell me how I have avoided going over the limit because if there is some way I can magic such an income I definitely want to know.
@hyufd you have lost it big time. This is idiotic stuff.
The mind boggling thing about this, is I am the one who wants to pay more tax, who doesn't want the WFA and I am the one being accused of being a tax avoider. You need to give your head a wobble.
Yes so the cash you get from your capital which is not taxed means you do not have the taxable income to meet the WFA cut off threshold for starters.
You weren't forced to build up that capital or take cash from it and it would cost too much for HMRC to trace all the cash you withdraw from it to take you over the £35k threshold so you receive no WFA. So stop whinging about it
You are stark raving mad? 70% of my capital in my house and my DC pension. So are you saying nobody should buy a house or take out a pension. The rest is what I have saved for my retirement. Are you saying people shouldn't save for their retirement?
The reason I don't have a taxable income at £35k is because I don't have a DB pension. Nobody gave me one. What was I supposed to do? Lots of people don't have one or only small ones. Are you saying they shouldn't save for retirement?
You do come up with the most idiotic stuff sometimes.
Come on tell me what I should have done then?
Stop whinging about still getting your WFA then, those with DB pensions as you say don't now get it even if they have the benefit of a DB pension income
I'm whinging because lots of people are getting it who shouldn't. That money should be used for those less well off, not for people who are wealthy. So that is why I am whinging.
It is an utter waste of money. It needs to be means tested and set at a lower threshold so people like me don't get it. And even if I return it most won't.
It is a reasonable whinge.
It is means tested...
You're struggling with basic comprehension now, let alone the correct use of tax terminology. What do you think the words "and set at a lower threshold" mean in the post you think you are correcting ?
Everybody with taxable income over £35k already loses WFA if you really want to butt in again to a discussion hours old and not even give the full quote
There is no Capital test. There was effectively one before because you couldn't get it if you were not on benefits and benefits have an asset test. So people like me now who are wealthy get it. There are an awful lot of pensioners who will not have DB pensions so who fail the earnings test but nevertheless are multi millionaires who will be getting it. I am one. It is wrong.
So as I said, let the state take your house and your ISA and then you won't need to feel guilty will you!
So what about all those others getting it who shouldn't. Wouldn't it be better to give to poor pensioners rather than rich ones. Where is your moral compass?
I don't feel guilty. I just deplore injustice. How you can justify it is beyond me.
As I said, if you had kept your taxable income over £35k you wouldn't be getting WFA.
Because you partly live cash in hand off your capital you have ensured by the backdoor you don't lose it, you can of course give your capital to the state to ensure you get it on more morally acceptable grounds if you wish as I said.
The cost for the state of investigating the capital of pensioners still getting WFA would be more than any savings made from cutting it however
God this is like a broken record. There is nothing I could/can do about my taxable income. I can't magic up an income I don't have. How was I supposed to increase it? I don't have a DB pension. My only income is the state pension and interest and dividends. I can't create an income out of thin air. What is wrong with you that you can't understand this?
So I needed to build up capital to live off in retirement. Fortunately I accumulated quite a bit.
What the hell was I supposed to do?
And again this phrase 'Cash in hand'. What are you talking about? There is no cash in hand with capital.This refers to people taking income in cash and not declaring it for income tax. It is insulting you suggest this. Capital is taxed income. It is not subject to income tax. If I do take capital that is subject to CGT I declare it and pay it.
So stop whinging about receiving your WFA then.
Either give your capital to the state or sell it and go off and live in a tent with 1 heater and then you can claim your WFA without self flagellating yourself about still receiving it because you have a bit of capital
Where are your morals? As I said earlier it isn't just me. Why should wealthy people get this benefit. It is for the less well off not for the rich. Do you not care? I'm glad I am not a Christian if this is what it means being a Christian. Shame on you for this selfish attitude of not caring. This is embarrassing.
They mostly don't, anyone with taxable income over £35k loses it.
It is only a few horders of vast capital like you who at the same time keep yourself below the £35k taxable income threshold who keep your WFA.
As I said, you could of course give up your capital and live in a tent and light a campfire for heat and use your WFA to buy wood and kindling and matches and finally shut up about it.
For HMRC there is no point chasing the capital horders like you as it would cost more to identify all your capital than any WFA savings made
I give up. You are an idiot. Any pensioner who does not have a significant DB pension and was a high earner will have done exactly the same as me so they can retire comfortably. That is a huge number of pensioners. Without my capital I have nothing to live off. Do you not understand this? How are you so stupid?
What am I supposed to live off if I didn't accumulate the capital.
How, I mean how are you so stupid that you don't understand how this works?
Why can you not understand that a benefit should have both capital and income thresholds that prevent well off people getting it.
Why do you approve of millionaires getting a benefit to help with their heating ? What is wrong with you?
So stop whinging about keeping your WFA or as I said sell your capital and go off and live in a tent.
It is easy to remove WFA from those whose income is above a certain level when their tax return is submitted.
It is not easy to track and trace all the capital accumulated by the likes of you as it has large admin costs more than any savings made by removing the allowance
As usual showing your ignorance.
Practically nobody submits a tax return at £35k income. Even up to £100k it is pretty rare if you are paid through PAYE. I assume it will be reclaimed via PAYE.
Nearly every benefit has a capital test. Infact this one did until they increased the threshold.
Honestly you come up with stuff you know nothing about.
PAYE is a tax return, done by employers.
It is fairly easy to identify those on pension credit who will have significant capital as virtually none do.
It is far more costly to identify pensioners with income up to £35k with significant capital as lots like you will do
I don't know how you have the nerve to type stuff you know nothing about.
PAYE is not a tax return. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a tax return. Tax returns are filled in by individuals after the end of the tax year. Most don't have to. PAYE is not just used by employers during the tax year, but also pension providers (with the exception of the state pension).
By the sounds of it you have never filled one in, nor know how PAYE works. Your P6 will determine your allowance then based upon this PAYE will work out your pro rata tax at each tax point on the assumption that your income to that point is pro rata for the year. It may not be, but that gets resolved each week/month as the calculation is done afresh and the difference between the tax ytd at the previous month is subtracted from that at this month and the difference is deducted in tax (or even refunded).
The calculation is usually done by computer. In the old days you had tax tables, although it is quite easy, if you know what you are doing to do it manually. I have on many occasions.
It is not a tax return in anyway.
Most benefits have a capital test except this one, particularly those aimed at low income individuals for obvious reasons, as WFA should be. Why this is different is simply because the Govt cocked up and had to U turn and got themselves in a mess. If it can be done for the others, it can be done for WFA, so you are wrong to say it is too difficult.
Is PAYE submitted direct to government to pay employees tax bills? It is. Is it therefore easy to remove allowances after submission of said bills? It is.
Is it going to cost a fortune to trace the capital of whinging whining tax minimising, capital hoarders like you? It is. As far more will have said capital up to £35k income like whinging/semi boasters like you.
Do most low income benefit/pension credit claimants have any capital of significance at all? No. Hence it is far easier to trace and costs next to nothing to do so.
So you want to impose massive admin costs on HMRC to trace all the capital the likes of you hoard, just because you won't shut up about still getting your WFA!!
Two super examples of dogs have 4 legs therefore anything with 4 legs is a dog logic there by @huyfd
a) People on benefits don't have significant capital because they are tested for it in the first place you idiot. That is the whole point of the capital test to stop people with capital claiming it. That is why there aren't any. If there wasn't a capital test there would be. It is 99% self declaration so not a huge cost.
b) PAYE is a collection method. not a tax return (as numerous people here have told you). It only deducts the correct amount by reference to the P6. The P6 is created automatically if your affairs are simple or via your tax return if not. If wrong you can get it changed. PAYE is not a tax return in any form whatsoever.
No people on benefits don't have significant capital as they poor, hence why they are on benefits as well as being well below average income
This whole conversation started with WFA payments to the rich.
WFA is *checks notes* a benefit.
Therefore, there are rich people on benefits.
He also thinks that people claiming certain benefits don't have capital because they are poor (which of course is true), but doesn't get that this only happens because there is a capital test to stop people with capital claiming it in the first place. If not people with capital would claim it and his statement would not be true
Here we go again: Dogs have 4 legs, so an animal with 4 legs is a dog is the @hyufd level of logic.
So yes there are rich people on benefits. This particular benefit. WFA in fact. And it could be removed very easily in the same way as it is removed for all the other benefits that stop people with capital claiming them.
I though @hyufd had got over this type of argument. I don't like @leon's use of the IQ argument, but sometimes it does have merit.
The discussion on benefits whether for rich, poor or middling is a bit light. For a thorough analysis you need to look at all the benefits - both means tested and non-means tested. See pic.
Then we can move onto the underlying legislation too. Why have this half-hearted spat between @HYUFD and @kjh when you can spend years debating the relevance of each and whether it should be paid.
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
Yep. Adult Social Care responsibility was dumped by the Tories onto local councils but central government declined to fund most of it. But it permitted councils to add 5% onto the council tax to pay for it - a glorious wheeze they thought to get Labour councils adding 5% so that they could call them wasteful.
A few years down the line and councils have had years of government funding cuts whilst costs of service provision skyrockets. Its no surprise that councils can no longer absorb this - the maths just don't work.
Farage proposed scrapping adult social care I assume? Its just "common sense" that mental health is all just scroungers and faked?
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
I am spending the day in the garden sorting stuff for the shed which I have ordered. It is also a beautiful day.
The second report will not hold people criminally responsible because a public inquiry cannot legally do that. It is one of their failings but it will apportion blame.
In the meanwhile here is my Post Office Bingo Card for you to tick off:
- The human impact was awful. - It was made worse by the conduct of the Post Office and others, including its lawyers and governments over many years. - It is still continuing. - Compensation is due, is urgent, is too slow and the government needs to get a move on because the current situation is disgraceful. 350 of the ca. 900 SPMs affected have died without getting compensation or the return of the money fraudulently taken from them. - Tribute will be paid to the SPMs. - The government will welcome the report, say how terrible it all is and pretend that it has no power to do anything about compensation even though the Treasury's dead hands are all over it. - The Post Office will issue some PR guff about how sorry it is and how much it is doing. Someone will use the appalling phrase "at pace". - Most journalists will forget to ask why it is that Rodric Williams one of the shiftiest of the PO lawyers who gave evidence and who was heavily involved during the entire period when the problems were known about and covered up is now in charge of compensation at the Post Office. - The phrase "conflict of interest" will not be mentioned because no-one - other than me - seems to understand or recognise one, even when it is staring you in the face. - The government continues to think overturning convictions & giving out a few baubles is enough. - This is how all governments since at least Aberfan have operated. It is Potemkin justice.
Too cynical? Or just realistic? Let's see, shall we.
I am hoping for a slightly less Potemkin result than Aberfan; we'll see. Since both the legal profession and government are deeply implicated in this case, it's almost impossible to hold an enquiry without conflicts of interest. It would be good to have that explicitly recognised, even if no more than that; I'm not holding my breath either.
Enjoy your day in the garden.
As a puzzle for your next visit, do you have any ideas how we might improve social care ?
No, no - you have it wrong on conflicts of interest. Rodric Williams was a key lawyer involved at the time leading up to the 2019 trial and beyond.
Any properly run organisation should realise that, even if his conduct at the time was beyond reproach, he should not now be in charge of compensation. He is conflicted regardless of his personal conduct. He is conflicted because of his role.
The PO as a whole is conflicted and should not, IMO, be in charge of it. But if they are none of the lawyers previously involved in this matter should be anywhere near the compensation schemes.
I am not so sick that I could not give proper training - to the entire establishment it seems - on what conflicts of interest are, why they are a bad thing, how to recognise and avoid/mitigate them. Even Lord Nolan got this wrong. Hopeless.
Oh, I agree that example is an enormous conflict of interest. But there is also a shallower, but much broader set of conflicts involved.
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
RIP. He was a good politician, even if I did not always agree with him. I wonder if he will best be remembered for the effect the Brighton Bombing had on him and, more significantly, his wife.
He'll be best remembered for the Cricket Test.
Which I fail, btw. Living in Yorkshire, supporting Durham.
It is unlikely the LDs will win more votes than the Tories but yes they could certainly win more seats, especially if it becomes a Labour v Reform battle in most marginal seats and the LDs hold their current seats. Kemi is unlikely to be allowed to stay Tory leader if that looks likely though.
If a hung parliament next time which of the Tories or LDs win most seats could also be key to whether Farage or Starmer becomes PM. Assuming the Tories would back Reform and the LDs would back Labour
Morning! What can your party do to remedy this situation? From the natural party of government to the prospect of being 4th within a single election cycle.
Permit me two observations: 1) The damage done to the party post Covid is cataclysmic and so many of you appear to be in utter denial. Yes this Labour government is getting worse by the day, but few people think "so lets go back to the Tories". They think you were even worse than this lot. 2) The political zeitgeist has shifted considerably. Badenoch suffers from (1) very badly - to haughty to accept that she and her colleagues did a bad job - and is banging out about woke and bathrooms which aren't the issues people care about any more.
What is the way back for you? It isn't "Labour collapsing and people making us the government again. They won't - not without a serious change of mindset firstly from your party and then from the electorate.
It's not so much post-Covid. They could have survived that, embarrassing as Partygate and Cumstain and the procurement fiascos all were.
It's the Truss debacle that killed them.
Which only occurred as Boris was removed, if he hadn’t been Farage would never have returned
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
(Bankrupt) Birmingham Council waves hello.
Indeed. But IMV the tribunals have *not* been judging on 'equal work'...
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
It's shocking that there have not been trials for attempting to pervert the course of justice already. Not remotely surprising, of course, but shocking.
The longer that's delayed, the less likely any successful prosecution. 2028, and counting...
I would be amazed if anyone was prosecuted.
At least Pauline Vennells won’t become Bishop of London.
The way this country is going she'll probably end up as Archbishop of Canterbury. No-one wants that role it seems.
She isn't even a bishop, there are plenty of good candidates like the Bishop of Chelmsford and Bishop of Salisbury for the role
Well David Tudor is going to rule the Bishoo of Chelmsford out,
I suspect it’s Salisbury or Newcastle simply because everyone else is tainted
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
Yep. Adult Social Care responsibility was dumped by the Tories onto local councils but central government declined to fund most of it. But it permitted councils to add 5% onto the council tax to pay for it - a glorious wheeze they thought to get Labour councils adding 5% so that they could call them wasteful.
A few years down the line and councils have had years of government funding cuts whilst costs of service provision skyrockets. Its no surprise that councils can no longer absorb this - the maths just don't work.
Farage proposed scrapping adult social care I assume? Its just "common sense" that mental health is all just scroungers and faked?
Not adult social care, but probably an indication of his thinking;
He said: "There are things called parents who for as long as modern times remember have had the aggravation of getting their kids to school."
Farage said: "If you've got two kids living next door to each other getting separate taxis that is crazy.
"To have crept to a position where school transport is costing taxpayers almost £100m per year is unacceptable."
He did say there would be exceptions for children with special educational needs.
Freshwater Strategy have their monthly City AM poll out (and are now BPC members), fieldwork 4-6 Jul
Ref 31 (-1) Lab 23 (+2) Con 19 (-2) LD 16 (+2) Grn 6 (-2) SNP 3 (=) Others 2
First thing that strikes me about that is the Green number which is much lower than with other pollsters.
They appear to find fewer Green supporters- 2x 8, 2x 7 and 2x 5 previously this year Their figures bounce around a bit but are 'generally speaking' in the ballpark of the others, a bit top heavy on Ref plus Con total
Which I guess confirms how desperate Trump is to get it that he is even getting the least suitable leaders in the world to nominate him for it. I would have thought this nomination by itself is enough for the committee to reject Trump for ever..
Zelensky (if he's got any sense, or decent advisers) should quickly nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize before Putin does (not a joke!).
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
(Bankrupt) Birmingham Council waves hello.
Indeed. But IMV the tribunals have *not* been judging on 'equal work'...
What they were judging on was the fact other councils did this 30+ years earlier. Birmingham spent 2 decades hoping the issue would go away and then 1 decade trying to defend the indefensible
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
You think you get that in non-unionised workplaces, where nobody knows what their colleagues get paid?
Then somebody discovers that the newby is on £10k more than them and all hell breaks loose.
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
It's shocking that there have not been trials for attempting to pervert the course of justice already. Not remotely surprising, of course, but shocking.
Being in the game, I'm sure you will agree, however, that the prospect of a trial in three years' time is significant punishment for those involved and likely to be defendants. Everyone always wants things tied up - one way or the other - as quickly as possible and, innocent or guilty, these peoples' lives will be ruined for the years leading up to the trial. And no bad thing, either.
They need to be charged first and the trails are going to be complex.
When I suggested the 2 week /month court of appeal summer session to clear the cases I had a secondary thought. They could have had the post office lawyers there and as the post office worker was declared innocent the lawyer who used the horizon evidence (post the date issues had been known) could have been given a few extra months for contempt due to providing knowingly false evidence to the courts).
Almost better that they haven't been charged. Those involved will be cr*pping themselves. If there are ten people who are involved and nine charges are announced that tenth person will get off scot free (why do we say that btw). This way, all ten are worried until the charges are announced.
Isn’t “Scot free” just the reference to a lack of an extradition treaty between Scotland and England prior to unification?
Er, no. A scot is a mark or blemish. o get away scot free is to escape unharmed.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
But I read on here that the African American community in NYC are outraged, nay OUTRAGED, at Zohran. I believe derek guy@dieworkwear has given him his fashion blessing, so it's a done deal obviously.
Almost better that they haven't been charged. Those involved will be cr*pping themselves. If there are ten people who are involved and nine charges are announced that tenth person will get off scot free (why do we say that btw).
The OED thinks it's from "scot" in the sense of a tax or tribute paid to a lord, so scot-free == not having to pay anything. Various related terms in German, Swedish, Dutch, etc.
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
It's shocking that there have not been trials for attempting to pervert the course of justice already. Not remotely surprising, of course, but shocking.
The longer that's delayed, the less likely any successful prosecution. 2028, and counting...
I would be amazed if anyone was prosecuted.
At least Pauline Vennells won’t become Bishop of London.
The way this country is going she'll probably end up as Archbishop of Canterbury. No-one wants that role it seems.
She isn't even a bishop, there are plenty of good candidates like the Bishop of Chelmsford and Bishop of Salisbury for the role
Well David Tudor is going to rule the Bishoo of Chelmsford out,
I suspect it’s Salisbury or Newcastle simply because everyone else is tainted
Should be the Bishop of Guildford as a nice circularity that someone who was abused by John Smyth replaces the man who had to resign because of John Smyth.
I remember meeting him on a college trip to Parliament in 1994. A lovely charming man who was very happy chatting to this group of teenagers from a long long way away from his constituency.
That's good to hear. Also famously the originator of the Tebbit test re cricket (but really more about cultural identity and immigration).
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
Yep. Adult Social Care responsibility was dumped by the Tories onto local councils but central government declined to fund most of it. But it permitted councils to add 5% onto the council tax to pay for it - a glorious wheeze they thought to get Labour councils adding 5% so that they could call them wasteful.
A few years down the line and councils have had years of government funding cuts whilst costs of service provision skyrockets. Its no surprise that councils can no longer absorb this - the maths just don't work.
Farage proposed scrapping adult social care I assume? Its just "common sense" that mental health is all just scroungers and faked?
Not adult social care, but probably an indication of his thinking;
He said: "There are things called parents who for as long as modern times remember have had the aggravation of getting their kids to school."
Farage said: "If you've got two kids living next door to each other getting separate taxis that is crazy.
"To have crept to a position where school transport is costing taxpayers almost £100m per year is unacceptable."
He did say there would be exceptions for children with special educational needs.
In other words, there are meaningful cuts that don't really hurt good people, just chancers and freeloaders.
(Aside: Kent could probably save a fair bit on transport by having more pupils attending their local school...)
Given Kent's overall expenditure is somewhere around £2.5 billion (though about a billion of that is offset by Government grants), £98m is a drop in the ocean but if that's the best example of "waste" Linden Kemkaran and her DLOGE group have found, they've either a) not been looking very hard or b) discovered the previous Conservative administration was running a tight ship financially and the County's financial problems may have other causes.
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
It's shocking that there have not been trials for attempting to pervert the course of justice already. Not remotely surprising, of course, but shocking.
The longer that's delayed, the less likely any successful prosecution. 2028, and counting...
I would be amazed if anyone was prosecuted.
At least Pauline Vennells won’t become Bishop of London.
The way this country is going she'll probably end up as Archbishop of Canterbury. No-one wants that role it seems.
She isn't even a bishop, there are plenty of good candidates like the Bishop of Chelmsford and Bishop of Salisbury for the role
Well David Tudor is going to rule the Bishoo of Chelmsford out,
I suspect it’s Salisbury or Newcastle simply because everyone else is tainted
It was the former Bishop of Chelmsford, now Architecture of York who had responsibility over Tudor not Guli the current Bishop
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
You think you get that in non-unionised workplaces, where nobody knows what their colleagues get paid?
Then somebody discovers that the newby is on £10k more than them and all hell breaks loose.
The evils of the closed shop are being forgotten; or excused. It is a club; if your face did not fit, or you did not pay the dues to the 'correct' hand, then you could not join. Unite is not the first union to show itself to be utterly corrupt.
Which is a shame, as unions can do a heck of a lot of good.
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
It's shocking that there have not been trials for attempting to pervert the course of justice already. Not remotely surprising, of course, but shocking.
The longer that's delayed, the less likely any successful prosecution. 2028, and counting...
I would be amazed if anyone was prosecuted.
At least Pauline Vennells won’t become Bishop of London.
The way this country is going she'll probably end up as Archbishop of Canterbury. No-one wants that role it seems.
She isn't even a bishop, there are plenty of good candidates like the Bishop of Chelmsford and Bishop of Salisbury for the role
Well David Tudor is going to rule the Bishoo of Chelmsford out,
I suspect it’s Salisbury or Newcastle simply because everyone else is tainted
SFAICS the current Bishop of Chelmsford has not acted wrongly WRT the Tudor case. The bishop with questions to answer is the former one, now Archbishop of York.
Newcastle is, IMHO, out of the runing sadly as she has said the right thing slightly too often. I hope I am wrong. She would be the best around.
Anyone looking for a proper AoC in the tradition of Richard Harries, Michael Ramsey, John Habgood or Rowan Williams is going to be disappointed. The species is going extinct.
I am still in wild ecstatic warlike Dionysian Thrace. The archaeological museum here in Sofia is a gem - it has a vault of metal treasure which is basically Homer turned into iron and gold
The thracians were the brutal northern neighbours of the Greeks. Yet the Greeks needed their militant barbarity to become truly great - they absorbed the spirit of the north and harnessed it
Isn’t this true of almost every major European society? The Romans had the Germans. The franks the Norse. The Slavs the rus. The English the Scots
Even the Welsh have the north Welsh - in their mountain fastnesses, preserving the language
It is unlikely the LDs will win more votes than the Tories but yes they could certainly win more seats, especially if it becomes a Labour v Reform battle in most marginal seats and the LDs hold their current seats. Kemi is unlikely to be allowed to stay Tory leader if that looks likely though.
If a hung parliament next time which of the Tories or LDs win most seats could also be key to whether Farage or Starmer becomes PM. Assuming the Tories would back Reform and the LDs would back Labour
Morning! What can your party do to remedy this situation? From the natural party of government to the prospect of being 4th within a single election cycle.
Permit me two observations: 1) The damage done to the party post Covid is cataclysmic and so many of you appear to be in utter denial. Yes this Labour government is getting worse by the day, but few people think "so lets go back to the Tories". They think you were even worse than this lot. 2) The political zeitgeist has shifted considerably. Badenoch suffers from (1) very badly - to haughty to accept that she and her colleagues did a bad job - and is banging out about woke and bathrooms which aren't the issues people care about any more.
What is the way back for you? It isn't "Labour collapsing and people making us the government again. They won't - not without a serious change of mindset firstly from your party and then from the electorate.
It's not so much post-Covid. They could have survived that, embarrassing as Partygate and Cumstain and the procurement fiascos all were.
It's the Truss debacle that killed them.
Are you referring to the event that Farage claimed to be the "most Conservative budget since 1986"? Hmmm, doesn't bode well for Farage's first budget.
Farage is an idiot.
I'm enjoying 'Who dares, wins', Sandbrook's tome on the 1979-1982 period. The economics are strikingly similar to today but the govenment very much were serious about things. They accepted that there would be pain in trying to get Britain working again and that you couldn't insulate everyone. We seem to have lost that idea - the idea that government means making hard choices and being unpopular. Starmer has caved quicker than an cave explorer going looking for a pack of lost Thai footballers.
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
You think you get that in non-unionised workplaces, where nobody knows what their colleagues get paid?
Then somebody discovers that the newby is on £10k more than them and all hell breaks loose.
The evils of the closed shop are being forgotten; or excused. It is a club; if your face did not fit, or you did not pay the dues to the 'correct' hand, then you could not join. Unite is not the first union to show itself to be utterly corrupt.
Which is a shame, as unions can do a heck of a lot of good.
75% of the union at our place's efforts appear to be in discussing gender and/or sexuality.
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
(Bankrupt) Birmingham Council waves hello.
Indeed. But IMV the tribunals have *not* been judging on 'equal work'...
What they were judging on was the fact other councils did this 30+ years earlier. Birmingham spent 2 decades hoping the issue would go away and then 1 decade trying to defend the indefensible
"When it comes to defining “equal work”, there are three kinds of equality recognised by the law. The first two are “like work” (work that involves similar tasks, knowledge and skills), and “work rated as equivalent” (under a job-evaluation scheme). The third type of equal work is the most controversial and hard to define; namely, the “work of equal value” at the centre of Birmingham’s woes. This refers to “equal” job roles that might not in fact be remotely similar, but are judged to be equivalent in terms of the effort and skill needed to carry them out, and the level of decision-making involved."
The problem is with the third definition, which is utterly cr@p.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
That's an interesting and valid point and the short answer, again, is I don't Know.
What will be interesting in education over the next 5-10 years will be the impact of the big declines in birth rates. Will we see councils closing or amalgamating primary schools and later secondary schools as pupil numbers fall off and the secondary impacts of that throughout the education sector will be considerable.
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
You think you get that in non-unionised workplaces, where nobody knows what their colleagues get paid?
Then somebody discovers that the newby is on £10k more than them and all hell breaks loose.
The evils of the closed shop are being forgotten; or excused. It is a club; if your face did not fit, or you did not pay the dues to the 'correct' hand, then you could not join. Unite is not the first union to show itself to be utterly corrupt.
Which is a shame, as unions can do a heck of a lot of good.
Now it is just the professional institutions (and that invisible entity the Engineering Council) that essentially run a closed shop. And they don't even negotiate pay and conditions for their members.
Which I guess confirms how desperate Trump is to get it that he is even getting the least suitable leaders in the world to nominate him for it. I would have thought this nomination by itself is enough for the committee to reject Trump for ever..
Zelensky (if he's got any sense, or decent advisers) should quickly nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize before Putin does (not a joke!).
I guess the threats to annex Sweden or put a 250% tariff will start shortly then.
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
I am spending the day in the garden sorting stuff for the shed which I have ordered. It is also a beautiful day.
The second report will not hold people criminally responsible because a public inquiry cannot legally do that. It is one of their failings but it will apportion blame.
In the meanwhile here is my Post Office Bingo Card for you to tick off:
- The human impact was awful. - It was made worse by the conduct of the Post Office and others, including its lawyers and governments over many years. - It is still continuing. - Compensation is due, is urgent, is too slow and the government needs to get a move on because the current situation is disgraceful. 350 of the ca. 900 SPMs affected have died without getting compensation or the return of the money fraudulently taken from them. - Tribute will be paid to the SPMs. - The government will welcome the report, say how terrible it all is and pretend that it has no power to do anything about compensation even though the Treasury's dead hands are all over it. - The Post Office will issue some PR guff about how sorry it is and how much it is doing. Someone will use the appalling phrase "at pace". - Most journalists will forget to ask why it is that Rodric Williams one of the shiftiest of the PO lawyers who gave evidence and who was heavily involved during the entire period when the problems were known about and covered up is now in charge of compensation at the Post Office. - The phrase "conflict of interest" will not be mentioned because no-one - other than me - seems to understand or recognise one, even when it is staring you in the face. - The government continues to think overturning convictions & giving out a few baubles is enough. - This is how all governments since at least Aberfan have operated. It is Potemkin justice.
Too cynical? Or just realistic? Let's see, shall we.
I hope nobody tries to play that as a drinking game. Could have a very unfortunate effect on the liver.
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
You think you get that in non-unionised workplaces, where nobody knows what their colleagues get paid?
Then somebody discovers that the newby is on £10k more than them and all hell breaks loose.
The evils of the closed shop are being forgotten; or excused. It is a club; if your face did not fit, or you did not pay the dues to the 'correct' hand, then you could not join. Unite is not the first union to show itself to be utterly corrupt.
Which is a shame, as unions can do a heck of a lot of good.
75% of the union at our place's efforts appear to be in discussing gender and/or sexuality.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
That's an interesting and valid point and the short answer, again, is I don't Know.
What will be interesting in education over the next 5-10 years will be the impact of the big declines in birth rates. Will we see councils closing or amalgamating primary schools and later secondary schools as pupil numbers fall off and the secondary impacts of that throughout the education sector will be considerable.
Glen O'Hara is pointing out this morning on Bluesky that there has been no planning in HE sector for the fall by 1/5th in uk students due in 2030.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
My education psychologist granddaughter considers that there are many children diagnosed as having mental health problems who actually don't have.
Not sure, of course, whether she's simply trying to reduce her workload.
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
You think you get that in non-unionised workplaces, where nobody knows what their colleagues get paid?
Then somebody discovers that the newby is on £10k more than them and all hell breaks loose.
The evils of the closed shop are being forgotten; or excused. It is a club; if your face did not fit, or you did not pay the dues to the 'correct' hand, then you could not join. Unite is not the first union to show itself to be utterly corrupt.
Which is a shame, as unions can do a heck of a lot of good.
Unions are a great thing, and the closed shop, while rational, is a bad thing because of human nature. Unions should retain mass membership by the quality and value of the services they offer their members.
Shame the old thread just got superseded. As someone who practised tax law for quarter of a century, I was enjoying HYUFD's continuing wilful self humiliation.
On what? You butted in to an argument you hadn't followed from its origin.
Kjh was saying the government should have deprived him of his WFA, if he didn't use so many tax minimisation schemes and take cash in hand from his capital he would have been well over the taxable income threshold for losing his WFA
I'm back and I assumed with a new thread this would have died, but no and @hyufd accused me of whitting on about it.
For the final time @hyufd what are all these so many tax minimising things I did again? Can you provide a list. I have given you all the details so prey tell.
And what the hell does 'and take cash in hand from his capital he would have been well over the taxable income threshold ' mean? It is gobbledygook nonsense. What the hell does 'cash in hand' in this context mean?
There is no income tax on withdrawal of capital. I have already paid income tax before creating it. Some of it may attract CGT which I pay. There is no cash in hand stuff, whatever that means in this context. You are getting confused with people not declaring income which I have never done.
You are barking. You haven't a clue what you are talking about.
I didn't restart it, I was responding to those who did.
You were the one who was whinging your cash withdrawals from your capital and your ISAs didn't mean you lost all your WFA not me.
If your income was otherwise over the taxable income threshold where WFA was lost you otherwise would have
Answer the questions above then:
a) What are all these 'so many tax minimising schemes' I did again? Can you provide a list. I have given you all the details of what I have so it should be easy.
b) What does 'take cash in hand from his capital' even mean? There is no such concept with Capital. There is no income tax on spending your savings. Unless you are now implying I avoid CGT which I don't.
c) What do you think I could have done to put me over the £35k limit? I would love to know. If I cashed in my ISAs I still wouldn't be over it. Go on tell me how I have avoided going over the limit because if there is some way I can magic such an income I definitely want to know.
@hyufd you have lost it big time. This is idiotic stuff.
The mind boggling thing about this, is I am the one who wants to pay more tax, who doesn't want the WFA and I am the one being accused of being a tax avoider. You need to give your head a wobble.
Yes so the cash you get from your capital which is not taxed means you do not have the taxable income to meet the WFA cut off threshold for starters.
You weren't forced to build up that capital or take cash from it and it would cost too much for HMRC to trace all the cash you withdraw from it to take you over the £35k threshold so you receive no WFA. So stop whinging about it
You are stark raving mad? 70% of my capital in my house and my DC pension. So are you saying nobody should buy a house or take out a pension. The rest is what I have saved for my retirement. Are you saying people shouldn't save for their retirement?
The reason I don't have a taxable income at £35k is because I don't have a DB pension. Nobody gave me one. What was I supposed to do? Lots of people don't have one or only small ones. Are you saying they shouldn't save for retirement?
You do come up with the most idiotic stuff sometimes.
Come on tell me what I should have done then?
Stop whinging about still getting your WFA then, those with DB pensions as you say don't now get it even if they have the benefit of a DB pension income
I'm whinging because lots of people are getting it who shouldn't. That money should be used for those less well off, not for people who are wealthy. So that is why I am whinging.
It is an utter waste of money. It needs to be means tested and set at a lower threshold so people like me don't get it. And even if I return it most won't.
It is a reasonable whinge.
It is means tested...
You're struggling with basic comprehension now, let alone the correct use of tax terminology. What do you think the words "and set at a lower threshold" mean in the post you think you are correcting ?
Everybody with taxable income over £35k already loses WFA if you really want to butt in again to a discussion hours old and not even give the full quote
There is no Capital test. There was effectively one before because you couldn't get it if you were not on benefits and benefits have an asset test. So people like me now who are wealthy get it. There are an awful lot of pensioners who will not have DB pensions so who fail the earnings test but nevertheless are multi millionaires who will be getting it. I am one. It is wrong.
So as I said, let the state take your house and your ISA and then you won't need to feel guilty will you!
So what about all those others getting it who shouldn't. Wouldn't it be better to give to poor pensioners rather than rich ones. Where is your moral compass?
I don't feel guilty. I just deplore injustice. How you can justify it is beyond me.
As I said, if you had kept your taxable income over £35k you wouldn't be getting WFA.
Because you partly live cash in hand off your capital you have ensured by the backdoor you don't lose it, you can of course give your capital to the state to ensure you get it on more morally acceptable grounds if you wish as I said.
The cost for the state of investigating the capital of pensioners still getting WFA would be more than any savings made from cutting it however
God this is like a broken record. There is nothing I could/can do about my taxable income. I can't magic up an income I don't have. How was I supposed to increase it? I don't have a DB pension. My only income is the state pension and interest and dividends. I can't create an income out of thin air. What is wrong with you that you can't understand this?
So I needed to build up capital to live off in retirement. Fortunately I accumulated quite a bit.
What the hell was I supposed to do?
And again this phrase 'Cash in hand'. What are you talking about? There is no cash in hand with capital.This refers to people taking income in cash and not declaring it for income tax. It is insulting you suggest this. Capital is taxed income. It is not subject to income tax. If I do take capital that is subject to CGT I declare it and pay it.
So stop whinging about receiving your WFA then.
Either give your capital to the state or sell it and go off and live in a tent with 1 heater and then you can claim your WFA without self flagellating yourself about still receiving it because you have a bit of capital
Where are your morals? As I said earlier it isn't just me. Why should wealthy people get this benefit. It is for the less well off not for the rich. Do you not care? I'm glad I am not a Christian if this is what it means being a Christian. Shame on you for this selfish attitude of not caring. This is embarrassing.
They mostly don't, anyone with taxable income over £35k loses it.
It is only a few horders of vast capital like you who at the same time keep yourself below the £35k taxable income threshold who keep your WFA.
As I said, you could of course give up your capital and live in a tent and light a campfire for heat and use your WFA to buy wood and kindling and matches and finally shut up about it.
For HMRC there is no point chasing the capital horders like you as it would cost more to identify all your capital than any WFA savings made
I give up. You are an idiot. Any pensioner who does not have a significant DB pension and was a high earner will have done exactly the same as me so they can retire comfortably. That is a huge number of pensioners. Without my capital I have nothing to live off. Do you not understand this? How are you so stupid?
What am I supposed to live off if I didn't accumulate the capital.
How, I mean how are you so stupid that you don't understand how this works?
Why can you not understand that a benefit should have both capital and income thresholds that prevent well off people getting it.
Why do you approve of millionaires getting a benefit to help with their heating ? What is wrong with you?
So stop whinging about keeping your WFA or as I said sell your capital and go off and live in a tent.
It is easy to remove WFA from those whose income is above a certain level when their tax return is submitted.
It is not easy to track and trace all the capital accumulated by the likes of you as it has large admin costs more than any savings made by removing the allowance
As usual showing your ignorance.
Practically nobody submits a tax return at £35k income. Even up to £100k it is pretty rare if you are paid through PAYE. I assume it will be reclaimed via PAYE.
Nearly every benefit has a capital test. Infact this one did until they increased the threshold.
Honestly you come up with stuff you know nothing about.
PAYE is a tax return, done by employers.
It is fairly easy to identify those on pension credit who will have significant capital as virtually none do.
It is far more costly to identify pensioners with income up to £35k with significant capital as lots like you will do
I don't know how you have the nerve to type stuff you know nothing about.
PAYE is not a tax return. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a tax return. Tax returns are filled in by individuals after the end of the tax year. Most don't have to. PAYE is not just used by employers during the tax year, but also pension providers (with the exception of the state pension).
By the sounds of it you have never filled one in, nor know how PAYE works. Your P6 will determine your allowance then based upon this PAYE will work out your pro rata tax at each tax point on the assumption that your income to that point is pro rata for the year. It may not be, but that gets resolved each week/month as the calculation is done afresh and the difference between the tax ytd at the previous month is subtracted from that at this month and the difference is deducted in tax (or even refunded).
The calculation is usually done by computer. In the old days you had tax tables, although it is quite easy, if you know what you are doing to do it manually. I have on many occasions.
It is not a tax return in anyway.
Most benefits have a capital test except this one, particularly those aimed at low income individuals for obvious reasons, as WFA should be. Why this is different is simply because the Govt cocked up and had to U turn and got themselves in a mess. If it can be done for the others, it can be done for WFA, so you are wrong to say it is too difficult.
Is PAYE submitted direct to government to pay employees tax bills? It is. Is it therefore easy to remove allowances after submission of said bills? It is.
Is it going to cost a fortune to trace the capital of whinging whining tax minimising, capital hoarders like you? It is. As far more will have said capital up to £35k income like whinging/semi boasters like you.
Do most low income benefit/pension credit claimants have any capital of significance at all? No. Hence it is far easier to trace and costs next to nothing to do so.
So you want to impose massive admin costs on HMRC to trace all the capital the likes of you hoard, just because you won't shut up about still getting your WFA!!
Two super examples of dogs have 4 legs therefore anything with 4 legs is a dog logic there by @huyfd
a) People on benefits don't have significant capital because they are tested for it in the first place you idiot. That is the whole point of the capital test to stop people with capital claiming it. That is why there aren't any. If there wasn't a capital test there would be. It is 99% self declaration so not a huge cost.
b) PAYE is a collection method. not a tax return (as numerous people here have told you). It only deducts the correct amount by reference to the P6. The P6 is created automatically if your affairs are simple or via your tax return if not. If wrong you can get it changed. PAYE is not a tax return in any form whatsoever.
No people on benefits don't have significant capital as they poor, hence why they are on benefits as well as being well below average income
This whole conversation started with WFA payments to the rich.
WFA is *checks notes* a benefit.
Therefore, there are rich people on benefits.
He also thinks that people claiming certain benefits don't have capital because they are poor (which of course is true), but doesn't get that this only happens because there is a capital test to stop people with capital claiming it in the first place. If not people with capital would claim it and his statement would not be true
Here we go again: Dogs have 4 legs, so an animal with 4 legs is a dog is the @hyufd level of logic.
So yes there are rich people on benefits. This particular benefit. WFA in fact. And it could be removed very easily in the same way as it is removed for all the other benefits that stop people with capital claiming them.
I though @hyufd had got over this type of argument. I don't like @leon's use of the IQ argument, but sometimes it does have merit.
For the last 48 hours you have been boasting about how you minimise your tax liability by hoarding vast amounts of capital and as a result keep yourself below the taxable income threshold to remove your WFA.
You now have the audacity to expect taxpayers to pay a fortune to employ HMRC admins to trace said capital of legal tax dodgers like you just so you can have your WFA removed.
While those on actual real benefits like UC and pension credit get it as they are really on low incomes with next to no capital at all to trace
a) Do you actually read what I post? I haven't boasted about it. I have done the exact opposite. I have done no tax avoidance or minimisation as you now call it. None. I have no way of generating an income to be taxed hence I had to save for my retirement. What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to spend it all and then live in poverty and off the state in retirement or save it and have a very comfortable retirement
b) Re taxpayers paying a fortune to employ staff to trace capital: Again you show your complete ignorance. Banks and Building Societies provide HMRC with the interest information. If your interest is over a certain amount they will automatically challenge you if you have claimed a benefit that is capital limited. How do I know because I have been audited twice* As usual you have no idea what you are talking about. It does not take resources to administer and is already done for a whole host of benefits.
* So to explain the scenario I found myself in. For reasons that are too boring to go into I needed to remove some of the funds from my company, but didn't want to trigger a salary, dividend or loan as it wasn't any of these. I called HMRC and explained the issue, they said I could, provided I drew up an agreement between myself and the company and declared any interest for Corporation Tax. I did just that and filed the agreement with HMRC.
When it came to my personal tax return my declared interest was obviously now lower than that provided to them by the banks and they challenged it. I provided the agreement, confirmed I would be paying Corporation Tax on it and put them in touch with the Corporation Tax side of HMRC and everything was fine.
But it goes to show they are on the ball and that this works.
@hyufd you know nothing about the tax system and argue here with people who do and make unsubstantiated and inaccurate accusations. You do realise that a number of things you have said about me are libellous don't you. Now I wouldn't sue because I don't care, but you should be cautious about some of the stuff you say, particularly to others.
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
You think you get that in non-unionised workplaces, where nobody knows what their colleagues get paid?
Then somebody discovers that the newby is on £10k more than them and all hell breaks loose.
The evils of the closed shop are being forgotten; or excused. It is a club; if your face did not fit, or you did not pay the dues to the 'correct' hand, then you could not join. Unite is not the first union to show itself to be utterly corrupt.
Which is a shame, as unions can do a heck of a lot of good.
75% of the union at our place's efforts appear to be in discussing gender and/or sexuality.
Are they affiliated to the Scottish Green Party?
It's one of the public sector ones - Unite or Unison or one of those. Or maybe both of those. They do give the impression that the Scottish Green Party is the party with which they would be most comfortable.
RIP. He was a good politician, even if I did not always agree with him. I wonder if he will best be remembered for the effect the Brighton Bombing had on him and, more significantly, his wife.
He will be best remembered for that, yes, but he will be most widely remembered for, "get on your bike".
Which makes the hostility from righties behind the wheel of a car towards cyclists richly ironic, of course.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
My education psychologist granddaughter considers that there are many children diagnosed as having mental health problems who actually don't have.
Not sure, of course, whether she's simply trying to reduce her workload.
I think both your points are true. I think lockdown caused a lot of SEN, but also - re OKC's granddaughter - it's certainly the case that we diagnose a lot of SEN which a generation ago would have just been part of the normal spectrum of childhood behaviour.
Other reasons for the increase in SEN include: Increased age of mothers - I have a hazy understanding that (though am happy to be corrected) that frequency of SEN is correlated to mothers' age at birth Improved ability to keep very premature babies alive - a generation ago, babies born at, say, 27 weeks would have almost certainly died - now we are able to keep them alive but in many cases they have quite severe SEN.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
Yep. Adult Social Care responsibility was dumped by the Tories onto local councils but central government declined to fund most of it. But it permitted councils to add 5% onto the council tax to pay for it - a glorious wheeze they thought to get Labour councils adding 5% so that they could call them wasteful.
A few years down the line and councils have had years of government funding cuts whilst costs of service provision skyrockets. Its no surprise that councils can no longer absorb this - the maths just don't work.
Farage proposed scrapping adult social care I assume? Its just "common sense" that mental health is all just scroungers and faked?
Not adult social care, but probably an indication of his thinking;
He said: "There are things called parents who for as long as modern times remember have had the aggravation of getting their kids to school."
Farage said: "If you've got two kids living next door to each other getting separate taxis that is crazy.
"To have crept to a position where school transport is costing taxpayers almost £100m per year is unacceptable."
He did say there would be exceptions for children with special educational needs.
In other words, there are meaningful cuts that don't really hurt good people, just chancers and freeloaders.
(Aside: Kent could probably save a fair bit on transport by having more pupils attending their local school...)
Precisely. That last bit. End parental choice and assign children to their nearest school. Most of them can walk there, so less childhood obesity, less traffic, less pollution. Lower fares for those who do need taxis.
RIP. He was a good politician, even if I did not always agree with him. I wonder if he will best be remembered for the effect the Brighton Bombing had on him and, more significantly, his wife.
He'll be best remembered for the Cricket Test.
Which I fail, btw. Living in Yorkshire, supporting Durham.
I remember him being portrayed on Spitting Image in his black leather bomber jacket acting as a bit of a thug. I remember him lamenting that he had always wanted one of those but felt he couldn't after the program made it his motif. A good example of his sense of humour and of the ridiculous.
Tebbit, to me, represented an important strand of the Tory party. Intensely patriotic, wanting to get on and willing to work hard to get on, from a modest background with a real understanding how the poorer people lived, keen on policies that gave people from that background the chance to succeed, whether it was allowing them to buy their council house, privatisation shares or encouragement for small businesses; tough but fair on crime and strong on defence.
It is not irrelevant to this thread to reflect what people from a similar background would vote or stand for now. What does the current party have to offer people like that? Do they care about them at all? Can they even relate to them?
It looks like a spat between two of our posters is going to give Coronation Street and The Archers a run for their money.
Just think, in 3,000 years time a Palestinian and and Israeli will be laughing in a bar “hey Moshe, at least we didn’t keep this stupid fucking argument going as long as HYUFD and kjh.”
“Absolutely Ismael, to think someone found an even more pointless argument to take over their lives.”
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
My education psychologist granddaughter considers that there are many children diagnosed as having mental health problems who actually don't have.
Not sure, of course, whether she's simply trying to reduce her workload.
I think both your points are true. I think lockdown caused a lot of SEN, but also - re OKC's granddaughter - it's certainly the case that we diagnose a lot of SEN which a generation ago would have just been part of the normal spectrum of childhood behaviour.
Other reasons for the increase in SEN include: Increased age of mothers - I have a hazy understanding that (though am happy to be corrected) that frequency of SEN is correlated to mothers' age at birth Improved ability to keep very premature babies alive - a generation ago, babies born at, say, 27 weeks would have almost certainly died - now we are able to keep them alive but in many cases they have quite severe SEN.
I've related before the experience I have with high flying pharmacy students - a huge proportion of them have some kind of DAP (disability action plan) and my suspicion that many are gaming the system to get extra time in exams. I suspect something similar here. Parents will be looking for advantages for their offspring. They will also probably prefer an official sounding diagnosis to the old approach of 'your child's just not that bright' or 'your child is a troublemaker'. We live in more enlightened times but while we are better at recognising issues we seem very open to abuse by cynical people.
I am still in wild ecstatic warlike Dionysian Thrace. The archaeological museum here in Sofia is a gem - it has a vault of metal treasure which is basically Homer turned into iron and gold
The thracians were the brutal northern neighbours of the Greeks. Yet the Greeks needed their militant barbarity to become truly great - they absorbed the spirit of the north and harnessed it
Isn’t this true of almost every major European society? The Romans had the Germans. The franks the Norse. The Slavs the rus. The English the Scots
Even the Welsh have the north Welsh - in their mountain fastnesses, preserving the language
Every “civilised” nation needs a group of people they can use to break heads on their behalf. Contrary to popular belief, the Germans and Scandinavians who took service with the Romans were mostly very loyal to them, and only revolted when faced with betrayal by their employers.
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
It's shocking that there have not been trials for attempting to pervert the course of justice already. Not remotely surprising, of course, but shocking.
The longer that's delayed, the less likely any successful prosecution. 2028, and counting...
I would be amazed if anyone was prosecuted.
At least Pauline Vennells won’t become Bishop of London.
The way this country is going she'll probably end up as Archbishop of Canterbury. No-one wants that role it seems.
She isn't even a bishop, there are plenty of good candidates like the Bishop of Chelmsford and Bishop of Salisbury for the role
Well David Tudor is going to rule the Bishoo of Chelmsford out,
I suspect it’s Salisbury or Newcastle simply because everyone else is tainted
SFAICS the current Bishop of Chelmsford has not acted wrongly WRT the Tudor case. The bishop with questions to answer is the former one, now Archbishop of York.
Newcastle is, IMHO, out of the runing sadly as she has said the right thing slightly too often. I hope I am wrong. She would be the best around.
Anyone looking for a proper AoC in the tradition of Richard Harries, Michael Ramsey, John Habgood or Rowan Williams is going to be disappointed. The species is going extinct.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
That's an interesting and valid point and the short answer, again, is I don't Know.
What will be interesting in education over the next 5-10 years will be the impact of the big declines in birth rates. Will we see councils closing or amalgamating primary schools and later secondary schools as pupil numbers fall off and the secondary impacts of that throughout the education sector will be considerable.
We are already seeing that in some areas - though in my area of Trafford numbers of kids are still rising and we are going in the opposite direction. It's certainly on the radar of those planning for education that future roll numbers may be rather lower than present (immigration may reverse this again, though my understanding is that despite appearances children are underrepresented as a proportion of all immigrants).
It looks like a spat between two of our posters is going to give Coronation Street and The Archers a run for their money.
As noted upthread, it's not unlike one of Tavare's more stubborn innings, where every variation of fine bowling, with pace, spin, guile and intelligence, is met by the same dead bat response.
Compelling in its own way for the true aficionado, but desperately boring for most.
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
Ah, so you don't believe in equal pay for equal work. Cool.
You think you get that in non-unionised workplaces, where nobody knows what their colleagues get paid?
Then somebody discovers that the newby is on £10k more than them and all hell breaks loose.
The evils of the closed shop are being forgotten; or excused. It is a club; if your face did not fit, or you did not pay the dues to the 'correct' hand, then you could not join. Unite is not the first union to show itself to be utterly corrupt.
Which is a shame, as unions can do a heck of a lot of good.
Now it is just the professional institutions (and that invisible entity the Engineering Council) that essentially run a closed shop. And they don't even negotiate pay and conditions for their members.
So you would argue it's a bad thing for them to 'essentially' run a closed shop?
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
Yep. Adult Social Care responsibility was dumped by the Tories onto local councils but central government declined to fund most of it. But it permitted councils to add 5% onto the council tax to pay for it - a glorious wheeze they thought to get Labour councils adding 5% so that they could call them wasteful.
A few years down the line and councils have had years of government funding cuts whilst costs of service provision skyrockets. Its no surprise that councils can no longer absorb this - the maths just don't work.
Farage proposed scrapping adult social care I assume? Its just "common sense" that mental health is all just scroungers and faked?
Not adult social care, but probably an indication of his thinking;
He said: "There are things called parents who for as long as modern times remember have had the aggravation of getting their kids to school."
Farage said: "If you've got two kids living next door to each other getting separate taxis that is crazy.
"To have crept to a position where school transport is costing taxpayers almost £100m per year is unacceptable."
He did say there would be exceptions for children with special educational needs.
In other words, there are meaningful cuts that don't really hurt good people, just chancers and freeloaders.
(Aside: Kent could probably save a fair bit on transport by having more pupils attending their local school...)
Precisely. That last bit. End parental choice and assign children to their nearest school. Most of them can walk there, so less childhood obesity, less traffic, less pollution. Lower fares for those who do need taxis.
SEN varies enormously from child to child and some need specialist accommodation in designed SEN units which many schools do not have so the child has to go, often long distances, to the school which can properly cater for them and that's where the taxi (and often a specially equipped vehicle not just any bog standard car) comes in.
Unfortunately, the debate is being driven by Farage's complete misunderstanding and indeed crass ignornace of the subject - analogous to Trump's to be honest. Complex problems are not solved by simplistic solutions.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
My education psychologist granddaughter considers that there are many children diagnosed as having mental health problems who actually don't have.
Not sure, of course, whether she's simply trying to reduce her workload.
I think both your points are true. I think lockdown caused a lot of SEN, but also - re OKC's granddaughter - it's certainly the case that we diagnose a lot of SEN which a generation ago would have just been part of the normal spectrum of childhood behaviour.
Other reasons for the increase in SEN include: Increased age of mothers - I have a hazy understanding that (though am happy to be corrected) that frequency of SEN is correlated to mothers' age at birth Improved ability to keep very premature babies alive - a generation ago, babies born at, say, 27 weeks would have almost certainly died - now we are able to keep them alive but in many cases they have quite severe SEN.
I've related before the experience I have with high flying pharmacy students - a huge proportion of them have some kind of DAP (disability action plan) and my suspicion that many are gaming the system to get extra time in exams. I suspect something similar here. Parents will be looking for advantages for their offspring. They will also probably prefer an official sounding diagnosis to the old approach of 'your child's just not that bright' or 'your child is a troublemaker'. We live in more enlightened times but while we are better at recognising issues we seem very open to abuse by cynical people.
Two thirds of my children have SEN. I have a dyslexic daughter and an ADHD daughter. There is not a doubt in my mind that they *have* these conditions - seeing middle daughter attempting to spell or youngest daughter attempting to sit still is amusingly tragic. They don't really get any special adjustments beyond their teachers being a bit more aware of how best to teach them. They're both bright kids but they quite clearly have SEN.
But I suspect many of my contemporaries also do, but it just wasn't picked up.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
That's an interesting and valid point and the short answer, again, is I don't Know.
What will be interesting in education over the next 5-10 years will be the impact of the big declines in birth rates. Will we see councils closing or amalgamating primary schools and later secondary schools as pupil numbers fall off and the secondary impacts of that throughout the education sector will be considerable.
Councils don't run schools any more; academic trusts do.
It looks like a spat between two of our posters is going to give Coronation Street and The Archers a run for their money.
As noted upthread, it's not unlike one of Tavare's more stubborn innings, where every variation of fine bowling, with pace, spin, guile and intelligence, is met by the same dead bat response.
Compelling in its own way for the true aficionado, but desperately boring for most.
There was nothing boring about Chris Tavare's batting.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
My education psychologist granddaughter considers that there are many children diagnosed as having mental health problems who actually don't have.
Not sure, of course, whether she's simply trying to reduce her workload.
I think both your points are true. I think lockdown caused a lot of SEN, but also - re OKC's granddaughter - it's certainly the case that we diagnose a lot of SEN which a generation ago would have just been part of the normal spectrum of childhood behaviour.
Other reasons for the increase in SEN include: Increased age of mothers - I have a hazy understanding that (though am happy to be corrected) that frequency of SEN is correlated to mothers' age at birth Improved ability to keep very premature babies alive - a generation ago, babies born at, say, 27 weeks would have almost certainly died - now we are able to keep them alive but in many cases they have quite severe SEN.
I've related before the experience I have with high flying pharmacy students - a huge proportion of them have some kind of DAP (disability action plan) and my suspicion that many are gaming the system to get extra time in exams. I suspect something similar here. Parents will be looking for advantages for their offspring. They will also probably prefer an official sounding diagnosis to the old approach of 'your child's just not that bright' or 'your child is a troublemaker'. We live in more enlightened times but while we are better at recognising issues we seem very open to abuse by cynical people.
No middle class parent will ever countenance the idea that their child is thick. They are either "differently abled" or else there is a (quasi?) medical explanation.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
My education psychologist granddaughter considers that there are many children diagnosed as having mental health problems who actually don't have.
Not sure, of course, whether she's simply trying to reduce her workload.
I think both your points are true. I think lockdown caused a lot of SEN, but also - re OKC's granddaughter - it's certainly the case that we diagnose a lot of SEN which a generation ago would have just been part of the normal spectrum of childhood behaviour.
Other reasons for the increase in SEN include: Increased age of mothers - I have a hazy understanding that (though am happy to be corrected) that frequency of SEN is correlated to mothers' age at birth Improved ability to keep very premature babies alive - a generation ago, babies born at, say, 27 weeks would have almost certainly died - now we are able to keep them alive but in many cases they have quite severe SEN.
I've related before the experience I have with high flying pharmacy students - a huge proportion of them have some kind of DAP (disability action plan) and my suspicion that many are gaming the system to get extra time in exams. I suspect something similar here. Parents will be looking for advantages for their offspring. They will also probably prefer an official sounding diagnosis to the old approach of 'your child's just not that bright' or 'your child is a troublemaker'. We live in more enlightened times but while we are better at recognising issues we seem very open to abuse by cynical people.
And there is a financial aspect too. DLA isn't means tested, so any parent can get some extra help with bringing their kids. Diagnosis and EAP aren't directly connected with claiming DLA but most will start all three processes.
I am still in wild ecstatic warlike Dionysian Thrace. The archaeological museum here in Sofia is a gem - it has a vault of metal treasure which is basically Homer turned into iron and gold
The thracians were the brutal northern neighbours of the Greeks. Yet the Greeks needed their militant barbarity to become truly great - they absorbed the spirit of the north and harnessed it
Isn’t this true of almost every major European society? The Romans had the Germans. The franks the Norse. The Slavs the rus. The English the Scots
Even the Welsh have the north Welsh - in their mountain fastnesses, preserving the language
Every “civilised” nation needs a group of people they can use to break heads on their behalf. Contrary to popular belief, the Germans and Scandinavians who took service with the Romans were mostly very loyal to them, and only revolted when faced with betrayal by their employers.
Even in Camden and Primrose Hill we look at the barbarian northerners - Kentish Town, Gospel Oak - with a definite wariness. Tinged with respect for their aggression
As long as the non-union members are happy with a pay freeze when the union members get the pay rise negotiated by their union, then no need for a closed shop.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
As a civil servant, I am enormously grateful to the unions that have got me my pay rises without me having to be a member.
It looks like a spat between two of our posters is going to give Coronation Street and The Archers a run for their money.
As noted upthread, it's not unlike one of Tavare's more stubborn innings, where every variation of fine bowling, with pace, spin, guile and intelligence, is met by the same dead bat response.
Compelling in its own way for the true aficionado, but desperately boring for most.
Like almost all cricketers, Chris Tavare's biography is a rich seam. Not least that apparently he is the cousin of the genuinely funny Jim Tavare (who featured in the criminally forgotten 'The Sketch Show' with Lee Mack, Tim Vine, Karen Taylor and Ronni Ancona).
I also rather liked this:
No-one who saw Chris Tavare bat will forget it in a hurry, even after therapy. If David Steele was the bank clerk who went to war, Tavare was the schoolteacher who took arms. Tall, angular and splayfooted, a thin moustache sketched on his top lip, he would walk to the crease like a stork approaching a watering hole full of crocs. Once there though, he began not to bat but to set, concrete drying under the sun. His principal movement was between the stumps and square leg, to where he would walk, gingerly, after every ball. If John Le Measurier had played Test cricket, he would have played it like Chris Tavare.
Tavare's feats remain the stuff of legend. His five and half hour fifty against Pakistan in 1982 was the second slowest half-century in the history of the game, and yet even that paled in comparison to the six and a half hour 35 against India in Madras the following winter. In a team that contained Botham, Gatting, Lamb and Gower, Tavare truly stood out. The mighty ballast which he provided against the Australians in '81 played a part in that famous win, albeit a part that never quite makes the highlights reels.
Like a lot of slow players, stories abounded that Tavare was a wolf in sheep's clothing, capable of pillaging county attacks on quiet Canterbury afternoons. If it happened, no-one remembers it now.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
My education psychologist granddaughter considers that there are many children diagnosed as having mental health problems who actually don't have.
Not sure, of course, whether she's simply trying to reduce her workload.
I think both your points are true. I think lockdown caused a lot of SEN, but also - re OKC's granddaughter - it's certainly the case that we diagnose a lot of SEN which a generation ago would have just been part of the normal spectrum of childhood behaviour.
Other reasons for the increase in SEN include: Increased age of mothers - I have a hazy understanding that (though am happy to be corrected) that frequency of SEN is correlated to mothers' age at birth Improved ability to keep very premature babies alive - a generation ago, babies born at, say, 27 weeks would have almost certainly died - now we are able to keep them alive but in many cases they have quite severe SEN.
I've related before the experience I have with high flying pharmacy students - a huge proportion of them have some kind of DAP (disability action plan) and my suspicion that many are gaming the system to get extra time in exams. I suspect something similar here. Parents will be looking for advantages for their offspring. They will also probably prefer an official sounding diagnosis to the old approach of 'your child's just not that bright' or 'your child is a troublemaker'. We live in more enlightened times but while we are better at recognising issues we seem very open to abuse by cynical people.
As a retired pharmacist, and indeed a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society I'm concerned by this. Pharmacists often need to be 'nit pickers', getting everything right first time and picking up on the exceptional, which may or may not be an error, but they shouldn't need extra time to do it.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
That's an interesting and valid point and the short answer, again, is I don't Know.
What will be interesting in education over the next 5-10 years will be the impact of the big declines in birth rates. Will we see councils closing or amalgamating primary schools and later secondary schools as pupil numbers fall off and the secondary impacts of that throughout the education sector will be considerable.
Councils don't run schools any more; academic trusts do.
Not so. Many smaller schools (primaries) are still under LEA management.
In the case of Academies, the land and buildings are held on a 999-year lease with a peppercorn payment and a condition of that lease is IF the school closes, the land and buildings revert back to the Council.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
My education psychologist granddaughter considers that there are many children diagnosed as having mental health problems who actually don't have.
Not sure, of course, whether she's simply trying to reduce her workload.
I think both your points are true. I think lockdown caused a lot of SEN, but also - re OKC's granddaughter - it's certainly the case that we diagnose a lot of SEN which a generation ago would have just been part of the normal spectrum of childhood behaviour.
Other reasons for the increase in SEN include: Increased age of mothers - I have a hazy understanding that (though am happy to be corrected) that frequency of SEN is correlated to mothers' age at birth Improved ability to keep very premature babies alive - a generation ago, babies born at, say, 27 weeks would have almost certainly died - now we are able to keep them alive but in many cases they have quite severe SEN.
I've related before the experience I have with high flying pharmacy students - a huge proportion of them have some kind of DAP (disability action plan) and my suspicion that many are gaming the system to get extra time in exams. I suspect something similar here. Parents will be looking for advantages for their offspring. They will also probably prefer an official sounding diagnosis to the old approach of 'your child's just not that bright' or 'your child is a troublemaker'. We live in more enlightened times but while we are better at recognising issues we seem very open to abuse by cynical people.
As a retired pharmacist, and indeed a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society I'm concerned by this. Pharmacists often need to be 'nit pickers', getting everything right first time and picking up on the exceptional, which may or may not be an error, but they shouldn't need extra time to do it.
I have no expectation that Boots or the NHS will grant these students extra time in the real world. Primarily it is an educational advantage (and frequently not needed - most of our exams are NOT time limited, or have such generous time that the extra isn't used).
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
It's shocking that there have not been trials for attempting to pervert the course of justice already. Not remotely surprising, of course, but shocking.
The longer that's delayed, the less likely any successful prosecution. 2028, and counting...
I would be amazed if anyone was prosecuted.
At least Pauline Vennells won’t become Bishop of London.
The way this country is going she'll probably end up as Archbishop of Canterbury. No-one wants that role it seems.
She isn't even a bishop, there are plenty of good candidates like the Bishop of Chelmsford and Bishop of Salisbury for the role
Well David Tudor is going to rule the Bishoo of Chelmsford out,
I suspect it’s Salisbury or Newcastle simply because everyone else is tainted
SFAICS the current Bishop of Chelmsford has not acted wrongly WRT the Tudor case. The bishop with questions to answer is the former one, now Archbishop of York.
Newcastle is, IMHO, out of the runing sadly as she has said the right thing slightly too often. I hope I am wrong. She would be the best around.
Anyone looking for a proper AoC in the tradition of Richard Harries, Michael Ramsey, John Habgood or Rowan Williams is going to be disappointed. The species is going extinct.
(Harries was never AoC - he was Oxford.)
Yes. Nor was John Habgood, though he should have been. We would have been spared Mr Carey. What is going extinct is the central, liberal, theologically minded group who are also papabile for jobs like AoC.
There is not a single bishop on the bench who have written or could write an outstanding book on a New Testament or theological subject. (I am happy to be proved wrong).
I am still in wild ecstatic warlike Dionysian Thrace. The archaeological museum here in Sofia is a gem - it has a vault of metal treasure which is basically Homer turned into iron and gold
The thracians were the brutal northern neighbours of the Greeks. Yet the Greeks needed their militant barbarity to become truly great - they absorbed the spirit of the north and harnessed it
Isn’t this true of almost every major European society? The Romans had the Germans. The franks the Norse. The Slavs the rus. The English the Scots
Even the Welsh have the north Welsh - in their mountain fastnesses, preserving the language
Every “civilised” nation needs a group of people they can use to break heads on their behalf. Contrary to popular belief, the Germans and Scandinavians who took service with the Romans were mostly very loyal to them, and only revolted when faced with betrayal by their employers.
Even in Camden and Primrose Hill we look at the barbarian northerners - Kentish Town, Gospel Oak - with a definite wariness. Tinged with respect for their aggression
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
Yep. Adult Social Care responsibility was dumped by the Tories onto local councils but central government declined to fund most of it. But it permitted councils to add 5% onto the council tax to pay for it - a glorious wheeze they thought to get Labour councils adding 5% so that they could call them wasteful.
A few years down the line and councils have had years of government funding cuts whilst costs of service provision skyrockets. Its no surprise that councils can no longer absorb this - the maths just don't work.
Farage proposed scrapping adult social care I assume? Its just "common sense" that mental health is all just scroungers and faked?
Not adult social care, but probably an indication of his thinking;
He said: "There are things called parents who for as long as modern times remember have had the aggravation of getting their kids to school."
Farage said: "If you've got two kids living next door to each other getting separate taxis that is crazy.
"To have crept to a position where school transport is costing taxpayers almost £100m per year is unacceptable."
He did say there would be exceptions for children with special educational needs.
In other words, there are meaningful cuts that don't really hurt good people, just chancers and freeloaders.
(Aside: Kent could probably save a fair bit on transport by having more pupils attending their local school...)
Precisely. That last bit. End parental choice and assign children to their nearest school. Most of them can walk there, so less childhood obesity, less traffic, less pollution. Lower fares for those who do need taxis.
SEN varies enormously from child to child and some need specialist accommodation in designed SEN units which many schools do not have so the child has to go, often long distances, to the school which can properly cater for them and that's where the taxi (and often a specially equipped vehicle not just any bog standard car) comes in.
Unfortunately, the debate is being driven by Farage's complete misunderstanding and indeed crass ignorance of the subject - analogous to Trump's to be honest. Complex problems are not solved by simplistic solutions.
More like wilful ignorance. Everyone wants simplicity but it doesn't exist in real life. But if you are willing to lie and obfuscate, you'll get elected (See one D Trump)
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
That's an interesting and valid point and the short answer, again, is I don't Know.
What will be interesting in education over the next 5-10 years will be the impact of the big declines in birth rates. Will we see councils closing or amalgamating primary schools and later secondary schools as pupil numbers fall off and the secondary impacts of that throughout the education sector will be considerable.
Councils don't run schools any more; academic trusts do.
Not so. Many smaller schools (primaries) are still under LEA management.
In the case of Academies, the land and buildings are held on a 999-year lease with a peppercorn payment and a condition of that lease is IF the school closes, the land and buildings revert back to the Council.
Glad to read that. One of my grandchildren works for a trust which has school scattered across South Essex, yet they have teachers with managerial or similar duties across several schools. I really don't understand how it works, economically.
I am still in wild ecstatic warlike Dionysian Thrace. The archaeological museum here in Sofia is a gem - it has a vault of metal treasure which is basically Homer turned into iron and gold
The thracians were the brutal northern neighbours of the Greeks. Yet the Greeks needed their militant barbarity to become truly great - they absorbed the spirit of the north and harnessed it
Isn’t this true of almost every major European society? The Romans had the Germans. The franks the Norse. The Slavs the rus. The English the Scots
Even the Welsh have the north Welsh - in their mountain fastnesses, preserving the language
Every “civilised” nation needs a group of people they can use to break heads on their behalf. Contrary to popular belief, the Germans and Scandinavians who took service with the Romans were mostly very loyal to them, and only revolted when faced with betrayal by their employers.
Even in Camden and Primrose Hill we look at the barbarian northerners - Kentish Town, Gospel Oak - with a definite wariness. Tinged with respect for their aggression
It's probably linked to quality of agricultural land. The richer the agricultural land, the greater the attraction of the soft life: the poorer the land, the more earning a living by fighting for/with your rich neighbours becomes attractive. And in Europe at least, in general, the further south you go, the more people the land supports. (There are exceptions of course, like mountainous areas - but the Swiss were always used as mercenaries, so the same logic applies.) If this is true, there's probably a point at which it is flipped. Perhaps the Arabs - poor herders from their desert wastes - performed a similar role for the Ottomans?
Hope @Cyclefree is well enough to watch after all her work on it.
It's just a real shame that it's going to take so long to bring some of the actual criminals involved to justice, as that's a separate report.
Actually, justice will take even longer (first trials c.2028... if there are any).
The second report will talk about blame, but probably no more than that.
will all be "lessons will eb learned" and then under the carpet as usual. Some toffs will have made millions working on it and will move on to their next gravy train slot.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
My education psychologist granddaughter considers that there are many children diagnosed as having mental health problems who actually don't have.
Not sure, of course, whether she's simply trying to reduce her workload.
I think both your points are true. I think lockdown caused a lot of SEN, but also - re OKC's granddaughter - it's certainly the case that we diagnose a lot of SEN which a generation ago would have just been part of the normal spectrum of childhood behaviour.
Other reasons for the increase in SEN include: Increased age of mothers - I have a hazy understanding that (though am happy to be corrected) that frequency of SEN is correlated to mothers' age at birth Improved ability to keep very premature babies alive - a generation ago, babies born at, say, 27 weeks would have almost certainly died - now we are able to keep them alive but in many cases they have quite severe SEN.
I've related before the experience I have with high flying pharmacy students - a huge proportion of them have some kind of DAP (disability action plan) and my suspicion that many are gaming the system to get extra time in exams. I suspect something similar here. Parents will be looking for advantages for their offspring. They will also probably prefer an official sounding diagnosis to the old approach of 'your child's just not that bright' or 'your child is a troublemaker'. We live in more enlightened times but while we are better at recognising issues we seem very open to abuse by cynical people.
As a retired pharmacist, and indeed a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society I'm concerned by this. Pharmacists often need to be 'nit pickers', getting everything right first time and picking up on the exceptional, which may or may not be an error, but they shouldn't need extra time to do it.
I have no expectation that Boots or the NHS will grant these students extra time in the real world. Primarily it is an educational advantage (and frequently not needed - most of our exams are NOT time limited, or have such generous time that the extra isn't used).
I hope that your first sentence is made clear to your students!
I'm also bemused by the concept of an exam which isn't time-limited.
I am still in wild ecstatic warlike Dionysian Thrace. The archaeological museum here in Sofia is a gem - it has a vault of metal treasure which is basically Homer turned into iron and gold
The thracians were the brutal northern neighbours of the Greeks. Yet the Greeks needed their militant barbarity to become truly great - they absorbed the spirit of the north and harnessed it
Isn’t this true of almost every major European society? The Romans had the Germans. The franks the Norse. The Slavs the rus. The English the Scots
Even the Welsh have the north Welsh - in their mountain fastnesses, preserving the language
Every “civilised” nation needs a group of people they can use to break heads on their behalf. Contrary to popular belief, the Germans and Scandinavians who took service with the Romans were mostly very loyal to them, and only revolted when faced with betrayal by their employers.
Even in Camden and Primrose Hill we look at the barbarian northerners - Kentish Town, Gospel Oak - with a definite wariness. Tinged with respect for their aggression
It's probably linked to quality of agricultural land. The richer the agricultural land, the greater the attraction of the soft life: the poorer the land, the more earning a living by fighting for/with your rich neighbours becomes attractive. And in Europe at least, in general, the further south you go, the more people the land supports. (There are exceptions of course, like mountainous areas - but the Swiss were always used as mercenaries, so the same logic applies.) If this is true, there's probably a point at which it is flipped. Perhaps the Arabs - poor herders from their desert wastes - performed a similar role for the Ottomans?
The Mamluks largely did the job for the Ottomans - slave mercenaries originally from the Eurasian Steppe so hard people from a hard landscape.
It looks like a spat between two of our posters is going to give Coronation Street and The Archers a run for their money.
As noted upthread, it's not unlike one of Tavare's more stubborn innings, where every variation of fine bowling, with pace, spin, guile and intelligence, is met by the same dead bat response.
Compelling in its own way for the true aficionado, but desperately boring for most.
There was nothing boring about Chris Tavare's batting.
If Tavare, Boycott and Edrich had been in the team we would have drawn the second test. Though of course we wouldn't have won the first one.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
My education psychologist granddaughter considers that there are many children diagnosed as having mental health problems who actually don't have.
Not sure, of course, whether she's simply trying to reduce her workload.
I think both your points are true. I think lockdown caused a lot of SEN, but also - re OKC's granddaughter - it's certainly the case that we diagnose a lot of SEN which a generation ago would have just been part of the normal spectrum of childhood behaviour.
Other reasons for the increase in SEN include: Increased age of mothers - I have a hazy understanding that (though am happy to be corrected) that frequency of SEN is correlated to mothers' age at birth Improved ability to keep very premature babies alive - a generation ago, babies born at, say, 27 weeks would have almost certainly died - now we are able to keep them alive but in many cases they have quite severe SEN.
I've related before the experience I have with high flying pharmacy students - a huge proportion of them have some kind of DAP (disability action plan) and my suspicion that many are gaming the system to get extra time in exams. I suspect something similar here. Parents will be looking for advantages for their offspring. They will also probably prefer an official sounding diagnosis to the old approach of 'your child's just not that bright' or 'your child is a troublemaker'. We live in more enlightened times but while we are better at recognising issues we seem very open to abuse by cynical people.
As a retired pharmacist, and indeed a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society I'm concerned by this. Pharmacists often need to be 'nit pickers', getting everything right first time and picking up on the exceptional, which may or may not be an error, but they shouldn't need extra time to do it.
That is an important and much broader point. Vocational or professional training needs to be very wary about what adjustments can be made for those that are going to practice in a field and provide services to others. I remember, many years ago, having a student on the Diploma in Legal Practice who had a diagnosis of dyslexia. His draft Initial writ (the document that starts an action) was unusable. Apart from the desperate spelling, the missing words and the inept grammar it was simply impossible to follow.
I was really unsure what to do about this. No one should be paying for such work. No employer would want it going out in their name. No sheriff would have tolerated it. It was not the student's fault, not at all, but his disability simply made him unsuited for the role he was training for. As I recall, he was allowed to pass but whether that did him or the profession any favours I don't know.
Shame the old thread just got superseded. As someone who practised tax law for quarter of a century, I was enjoying HYUFD's continuing wilful self humiliation.
On what? You butted in to an argument you hadn't followed from its origin.
Kjh was saying the government should have deprived him of his WFA, if he didn't use so many tax minimisation schemes and take cash in hand from his capital he would have been well over the taxable income threshold for losing his WFA
I'm back and I assumed with a new thread this would have died, but no and @hyufd accused me of whitting on about it.
For the final time @hyufd what are all these so many tax minimising things I did again? Can you provide a list. I have given you all the details so prey tell.
And what the hell does 'and take cash in hand from his capital he would have been well over the taxable income threshold ' mean? It is gobbledygook nonsense. What the hell does 'cash in hand' in this context mean?
There is no income tax on withdrawal of capital. I have already paid income tax before creating it. Some of it may attract CGT which I pay. There is no cash in hand stuff, whatever that means in this context. You are getting confused with people not declaring income which I have never done.
You are barking. You haven't a clue what you are talking about.
I didn't restart it, I was responding to those who did.
You were the one who was whinging your cash withdrawals from your capital and your ISAs didn't mean you lost all your WFA not me.
If your income was otherwise over the taxable income threshold where WFA was lost you otherwise would have
Answer the questions above then:
a) What are all these 'so many tax minimising schemes' I did again? Can you provide a list. I have given you all the details of what I have so it should be easy.
b) What does 'take cash in hand from his capital' even mean? There is no such concept with Capital. There is no income tax on spending your savings. Unless you are now implying I avoid CGT which I don't.
c) What do you think I could have done to put me over the £35k limit? I would love to know. If I cashed in my ISAs I still wouldn't be over it. Go on tell me how I have avoided going over the limit because if there is some way I can magic such an income I definitely want to know.
@hyufd you have lost it big time. This is idiotic stuff.
The mind boggling thing about this, is I am the one who wants to pay more tax, who doesn't want the WFA and I am the one being accused of being a tax avoider. You need to give your head a wobble.
Yes so the cash you get from your capital which is not taxed means you do not have the taxable income to meet the WFA cut off threshold for starters.
You weren't forced to build up that capital or take cash from it and it would cost too much for HMRC to trace all the cash you withdraw from it to take you over the £35k threshold so you receive no WFA. So stop whinging about it
You are stark raving mad? 70% of my capital in my house and my DC pension. So are you saying nobody should buy a house or take out a pension. The rest is what I have saved for my retirement. Are you saying people shouldn't save for their retirement?
The reason I don't have a taxable income at £35k is because I don't have a DB pension. Nobody gave me one. What was I supposed to do? Lots of people don't have one or only small ones. Are you saying they shouldn't save for retirement?
You do come up with the most idiotic stuff sometimes.
Come on tell me what I should have done then?
Stop whinging about still getting your WFA then, those with DB pensions as you say don't now get it even if they have the benefit of a DB pension income
I'm whinging because lots of people are getting it who shouldn't. That money should be used for those less well off, not for people who are wealthy. So that is why I am whinging.
It is an utter waste of money. It needs to be means tested and set at a lower threshold so people like me don't get it. And even if I return it most won't.
It is a reasonable whinge.
It is means tested...
You're struggling with basic comprehension now, let alone the correct use of tax terminology. What do you think the words "and set at a lower threshold" mean in the post you think you are correcting ?
Everybody with taxable income over £35k already loses WFA if you really want to butt in again to a discussion hours old and not even give the full quote
There is no Capital test. There was effectively one before because you couldn't get it if you were not on benefits and benefits have an asset test. So people like me now who are wealthy get it. There are an awful lot of pensioners who will not have DB pensions so who fail the earnings test but nevertheless are multi millionaires who will be getting it. I am one. It is wrong.
So as I said, let the state take your house and your ISA and then you won't need to feel guilty will you!
So what about all those others getting it who shouldn't. Wouldn't it be better to give to poor pensioners rather than rich ones. Where is your moral compass?
I don't feel guilty. I just deplore injustice. How you can justify it is beyond me.
As I said, if you had kept your taxable income over £35k you wouldn't be getting WFA.
Because you partly live cash in hand off your capital you have ensured by the backdoor you don't lose it, you can of course give your capital to the state to ensure you get it on more morally acceptable grounds if you wish as I said.
The cost for the state of investigating the capital of pensioners still getting WFA would be more than any savings made from cutting it however
God this is like a broken record. There is nothing I could/can do about my taxable income. I can't magic up an income I don't have. How was I supposed to increase it? I don't have a DB pension. My only income is the state pension and interest and dividends. I can't create an income out of thin air. What is wrong with you that you can't understand this?
So I needed to build up capital to live off in retirement. Fortunately I accumulated quite a bit.
What the hell was I supposed to do?
And again this phrase 'Cash in hand'. What are you talking about? There is no cash in hand with capital.This refers to people taking income in cash and not declaring it for income tax. It is insulting you suggest this. Capital is taxed income. It is not subject to income tax. If I do take capital that is subject to CGT I declare it and pay it.
So stop whinging about receiving your WFA then.
Either give your capital to the state or sell it and go off and live in a tent with 1 heater and then you can claim your WFA without self flagellating yourself about still receiving it because you have a bit of capital
Where are your morals? As I said earlier it isn't just me. Why should wealthy people get this benefit. It is for the less well off not for the rich. Do you not care? I'm glad I am not a Christian if this is what it means being a Christian. Shame on you for this selfish attitude of not caring. This is embarrassing.
They mostly don't, anyone with taxable income over £35k loses it.
It is only a few horders of vast capital like you who at the same time keep yourself below the £35k taxable income threshold who keep your WFA.
As I said, you could of course give up your capital and live in a tent and light a campfire for heat and use your WFA to buy wood and kindling and matches and finally shut up about it.
For HMRC there is no point chasing the capital horders like you as it would cost more to identify all your capital than any WFA savings made
I give up. You are an idiot. Any pensioner who does not have a significant DB pension and was a high earner will have done exactly the same as me so they can retire comfortably. That is a huge number of pensioners. Without my capital I have nothing to live off. Do you not understand this? How are you so stupid?
What am I supposed to live off if I didn't accumulate the capital.
How, I mean how are you so stupid that you don't understand how this works?
Why can you not understand that a benefit should have both capital and income thresholds that prevent well off people getting it.
Why do you approve of millionaires getting a benefit to help with their heating ? What is wrong with you?
So stop whinging about keeping your WFA or as I said sell your capital and go off and live in a tent.
It is easy to remove WFA from those whose income is above a certain level when their tax return is submitted.
It is not easy to track and trace all the capital accumulated by the likes of you as it has large admin costs more than any savings made by removing the allowance
As usual showing your ignorance.
Practically nobody submits a tax return at £35k income. Even up to £100k it is pretty rare if you are paid through PAYE. I assume it will be reclaimed via PAYE.
Nearly every benefit has a capital test. Infact this one did until they increased the threshold.
Honestly you come up with stuff you know nothing about.
PAYE is a tax return, done by employers.
It is fairly easy to identify those on pension credit who will have significant capital as virtually none do.
It is far more costly to identify pensioners with income up to £35k with significant capital as lots like you will do
I don't know how you have the nerve to type stuff you know nothing about.
PAYE is not a tax return. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a tax return. Tax returns are filled in by individuals after the end of the tax year. Most don't have to. PAYE is not just used by employers during the tax year, but also pension providers (with the exception of the state pension).
By the sounds of it you have never filled one in, nor know how PAYE works. Your P6 will determine your allowance then based upon this PAYE will work out your pro rata tax at each tax point on the assumption that your income to that point is pro rata for the year. It may not be, but that gets resolved each week/month as the calculation is done afresh and the difference between the tax ytd at the previous month is subtracted from that at this month and the difference is deducted in tax (or even refunded).
The calculation is usually done by computer. In the old days you had tax tables, although it is quite easy, if you know what you are doing to do it manually. I have on many occasions.
It is not a tax return in anyway.
Most benefits have a capital test except this one, particularly those aimed at low income individuals for obvious reasons, as WFA should be. Why this is different is simply because the Govt cocked up and had to U turn and got themselves in a mess. If it can be done for the others, it can be done for WFA, so you are wrong to say it is too difficult.
Is PAYE submitted direct to government to pay employees tax bills? It is. Is it therefore easy to remove allowances after submission of said bills? It is.
Is it going to cost a fortune to trace the capital of whinging whining tax minimising, capital hoarders like you? It is. As far more will have said capital up to £35k income like whinging/semi boasters like you.
Do most low income benefit/pension credit claimants have any capital of significance at all? No. Hence it is far easier to trace and costs next to nothing to do so.
So you want to impose massive admin costs on HMRC to trace all the capital the likes of you hoard, just because you won't shut up about still getting your WFA!!
Two super examples of dogs have 4 legs therefore anything with 4 legs is a dog logic there by @huyfd
a) People on benefits don't have significant capital because they are tested for it in the first place you idiot. That is the whole point of the capital test to stop people with capital claiming it. That is why there aren't any. If there wasn't a capital test there would be. It is 99% self declaration so not a huge cost.
b) PAYE is a collection method. not a tax return (as numerous people here have told you). It only deducts the correct amount by reference to the P6. The P6 is created automatically if your affairs are simple or via your tax return if not. If wrong you can get it changed. PAYE is not a tax return in any form whatsoever.
No people on benefits don't have significant capital as they poor, hence why they are on benefits as well as being well below average income
This whole conversation started with WFA payments to the rich.
WFA is *checks notes* a benefit.
Therefore, there are rich people on benefits.
Did they have a break for sleep or have HYUFD and khj been battling all night?
We might need cricket rules on here. Stop for bad light - or more when there's more heat than light
HYUFD is surely the Chris Tavare of argument ?
I'm pretty sure he's played on several times though. It's just that no one's paying attention to raise the finger.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
That's an interesting and valid point and the short answer, again, is I don't Know.
What will be interesting in education over the next 5-10 years will be the impact of the big declines in birth rates. Will we see councils closing or amalgamating primary schools and later secondary schools as pupil numbers fall off and the secondary impacts of that throughout the education sector will be considerable.
Councils don't run schools any more; academic trusts do.
Not so. Many smaller schools (primaries) are still under LEA management.
In the case of Academies, the land and buildings are held on a 999-year lease with a peppercorn payment and a condition of that lease is IF the school closes, the land and buildings revert back to the Council.
Glad to read that. One of my grandchildren works for a trust which has school scattered across South Essex, yet they have teachers with managerial or similar duties across several schools. I really don't understand how it works, economically.
It doesn't, really - academic trusts are charities. As an approach, it shouldn't work, but in my (highly partial - since my wife works for an academy chain) view, it does: there seems to be a greater level of success in focusing on what could be done to improve schools than under the council model (when, frankly, many councils did not appear particularly motivated). That's not to say the academy trust model is the only model which could do this. But this approach appears to work better than the council model.
But even so, academy trusts have to (and do) plan for future demographic changes.
Farage is absolutely right to call for this to be reformed. The govts plan is woefully inadequate and this is yet another shit sandwich bequeathed by the useless prior Tory regime.
SEND is Starmer's next bear trap. Individual provision is unaffordable, but as Nick Ferrari demonstrated yesterday taking away special needs provision from needy little children is the Welfare Bill on steroids all over again.
The last Government were splendid at spending money they didn't have to scupper the next Government. Genius.
And people said Rishi was rubbish at politics.
Cheap political points scoring aside, every Council, irrespective of the party leading the administration, where it has a statutory provide to provide SEN services, is struggling.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
My daughter should be in an interesting cohort. Children born September 2021 to August 2022; the first entirely after Covid. Will the quantity of SEN drop when she gets to school (She has no issues so far as we're aware), or is there a ratchet effect in place now ?
That's an interesting and valid point and the short answer, again, is I don't Know.
What will be interesting in education over the next 5-10 years will be the impact of the big declines in birth rates. Will we see councils closing or amalgamating primary schools and later secondary schools as pupil numbers fall off and the secondary impacts of that throughout the education sector will be considerable.
Councils don't run schools any more; academic trusts do.
Not so. Many smaller schools (primaries) are still under LEA management.
In the case of Academies, the land and buildings are held on a 999-year lease with a peppercorn payment and a condition of that lease is IF the school closes, the land and buildings revert back to the Council.
Glad to read that. One of my grandchildren works for a trust which has school scattered across South Essex, yet they have teachers with managerial or similar duties across several schools. I really don't understand how it works, economically.
The Trust are supposed to maintain the land and buildings as part of their lease - they can get the Council (or the Council's contractors) to maintain the property via a "buyback" of various maintenance services including statutory inspections (legionella, PAT, electrical etc) or they can do it all thelselves but they have to hand over the records IF the building is vacated and reverts back to Council ownership (as you might expect).
Comments
In normal times (remember those?) they would be 20 points behind the Tories. People are beginning to forget they existed.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
The rise in SEN referrals since Covid has been astronomical and exponential - there simply aren't the qualified SEN teachers to carry out the assessments, the accommodation deemed to be required isn't available and building it costs a lot of money and third, the home to school transport costs for special needs children is equally ruinous.
The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the disruptions to normal social, educational and cultural life wrought by the pandemic have affected significant numbers of both children and adults as the numbers seeking SEN referrals and the numbers economically active down to mental health issues demonstrate.
Unfortunately, attitudes to those with mental health issues, whether children or adult, among some in the wider community remain in the dim and distant past.
Ref 31 (-1)
Lab 23 (+2)
Con 19 (-2)
LD 16 (+2)
Grn 6 (-2)
SNP 3 (=)
Others 2
Then we can move onto the underlying legislation too. Why have this half-hearted spat between @HYUFD and @kjh when you can spend years debating the relevance of each and whether it should be paid.
Or you can watch Wimbledon.
Otherwise we have the Free Rider Problem.
A few years down the line and councils have had years of government funding cuts whilst costs of service provision skyrockets. Its no surprise that councils can no longer absorb this - the maths just don't work.
Farage proposed scrapping adult social care I assume? Its just "common sense" that mental health is all just scroungers and faked?
But there is also a shallower, but much broader set of conflicts involved.
Which I fail, btw. Living in Yorkshire, supporting Durham.
Johnson removed himself by his idiotic behaviour
I suspect it’s Salisbury or Newcastle simply because everyone else is tainted
He said: "There are things called parents who for as long as modern times remember have had the aggravation of getting their kids to school."
Farage said: "If you've got two kids living next door to each other getting separate taxis that is crazy.
"To have crept to a position where school transport is costing taxpayers almost £100m per year is unacceptable."
He did say there would be exceptions for children with special educational needs.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd6gx56je91o.amp
In other words, there are meaningful cuts that don't really hurt good people, just chancers and freeloaders.
(Aside: Kent could probably save a fair bit on transport by having more pupils attending their local school...)
Their figures bounce around a bit but are 'generally speaking' in the ballpark of the others, a bit top heavy on Ref plus Con total
Then somebody discovers that the newby is on £10k more than them and all hell breaks loose.
https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1942405514245136526
Of course he might get deported before that happens
I believe derek guy@dieworkwear has given him his fashion blessing, so it's a done deal obviously.
Which is a shame, as unions can do a heck of a lot of good.
Newcastle is, IMHO, out of the runing sadly as she has said the right thing slightly too often. I hope I am wrong. She would be the best around.
Anyone looking for a proper AoC in the tradition of Richard Harries, Michael Ramsey, John Habgood or Rowan Williams is going to be disappointed. The species is going extinct.
I am still in wild ecstatic warlike Dionysian Thrace. The archaeological museum here in Sofia is a gem - it has a vault of metal treasure which is basically Homer turned into iron and gold
The thracians were the brutal northern neighbours of the Greeks. Yet the Greeks needed their militant barbarity to become truly great - they absorbed the spirit of the north and harnessed it
Isn’t this true of almost every major European society? The Romans had the Germans. The franks the Norse. The Slavs the rus. The English the Scots
Even the Welsh have the north Welsh - in their mountain fastnesses, preserving the language
I'm enjoying 'Who dares, wins', Sandbrook's tome on the 1979-1982 period. The economics are strikingly similar to today but the govenment very much were serious about things. They accepted that there would be pain in trying to get Britain working again and that you couldn't insulate everyone. We seem to have lost that idea - the idea that government means making hard choices and being unpopular. Starmer has caved quicker than an cave explorer going looking for a pack of lost Thai footballers.
https://moneyweek.com/economy/uk-economy/birmingham-bin-strike
"When it comes to defining “equal work”, there are three kinds of equality recognised by the law. The first two are “like work” (work that involves similar tasks, knowledge and skills), and “work rated as equivalent” (under a job-evaluation scheme). The third type of equal work is the most controversial and hard to define; namely, the “work of equal value” at the centre of Birmingham’s woes. This refers to “equal” job roles that might not in fact be remotely similar, but are judged to be equivalent in terms of the effort and skill needed to carry them out, and the level of decision-making involved."
The problem is with the third definition, which is utterly cr@p.
What will be interesting in education over the next 5-10 years will be the impact of the big declines in birth rates. Will we see councils closing or amalgamating primary schools and later secondary schools as pupil numbers fall off and the secondary impacts of that throughout the education sector will be considerable.
Not sure, of course, whether she's simply trying to reduce her workload.
b) Re taxpayers paying a fortune to employ staff to trace capital: Again you show your complete ignorance. Banks and Building Societies provide HMRC with the interest information. If your interest is over a certain amount they will automatically challenge you if you have claimed a benefit that is capital limited. How do I know because I have been audited twice* As usual you have no idea what you are talking about. It does not take resources to administer and is already done for a whole host of benefits.
* So to explain the scenario I found myself in. For reasons that are too boring to go into I needed to remove some of the funds from my company, but didn't want to trigger a salary, dividend or loan as it wasn't any of these. I called HMRC and explained the issue, they said I could, provided I drew up an agreement between myself and the company and declared any interest for Corporation Tax. I did just that and filed the agreement with HMRC.
When it came to my personal tax return my declared interest was obviously now lower than that provided to them by the banks and they challenged it. I provided the agreement, confirmed I would be paying Corporation Tax on it and put them in touch with the Corporation Tax side of HMRC and everything was fine.
But it goes to show they are on the ball and that this works.
@hyufd you know nothing about the tax system and argue here with people who do and make unsubstantiated and inaccurate accusations. You do realise that a number of things you have said about me are libellous don't you. Now I wouldn't sue because I don't care, but you should be cautious about some of the stuff you say, particularly to others.
Anyway off to the garden now.
Which makes the hostility from righties behind the wheel of a car towards cyclists richly ironic, of course.
Other reasons for the increase in SEN include:
Increased age of mothers - I have a hazy understanding that (though am happy to be corrected) that frequency of SEN is correlated to mothers' age at birth
Improved ability to keep very premature babies alive - a generation ago, babies born at, say, 27 weeks would have almost certainly died - now we are able to keep them alive but in many cases they have quite severe SEN.
Tebbit, to me, represented an important strand of the Tory party. Intensely patriotic, wanting to get on and willing to work hard to get on, from a modest background with a real understanding how the poorer people lived, keen on policies that gave people from that background the chance to succeed, whether it was allowing them to buy their council house, privatisation shares or encouragement for small businesses; tough but fair on crime and strong on defence.
It is not irrelevant to this thread to reflect what people from a similar background would vote or stand for now. What does the current party have to offer people like that? Do they care about them at all? Can they even relate to them?
“Absolutely Ismael, to think someone found an even more pointless argument to take over their lives.”
loyal to them, and only revolted when faced with betrayal by their employers.
It's certainly on the radar of those planning for education that future roll numbers may be rather lower than present (immigration may reverse this again, though my understanding is that despite appearances children are underrepresented as a proportion of all immigrants).
Compelling in its own way for the true aficionado, but desperately boring for most.
Unfortunately, the debate is being driven by Farage's complete misunderstanding and indeed crass ignornace of the subject - analogous to Trump's to be honest. Complex problems are not solved by simplistic solutions.
For some little people maybe. The teaboy for the meeting…
For the rest - “Too much time has passed for a prosecution to be in the public interest. Lessons will be learned.”
But I suspect many of my contemporaries also do, but it just wasn't picked up.
I also rather liked this:
No-one who saw Chris Tavare bat will forget it in a hurry, even after therapy. If David Steele was the bank clerk who went to war, Tavare was the schoolteacher who took arms. Tall, angular and splayfooted, a thin moustache sketched on his top lip, he would walk to the crease like a stork approaching a watering hole full of crocs. Once there though, he began not to bat but to set, concrete drying under the sun. His principal movement was between the stumps and square leg, to where he would walk, gingerly, after every ball. If John Le Measurier had played Test cricket, he would have played it like Chris Tavare.
Tavare's feats remain the stuff of legend. His five and half hour fifty against Pakistan in 1982 was the second slowest half-century in the history of the game, and yet even that paled in comparison to the six and a half hour 35 against India in Madras the following winter. In a team that contained Botham, Gatting, Lamb and Gower, Tavare truly stood out. The mighty ballast which he provided against the Australians in '81 played a part in that famous win, albeit a part that never quite makes the highlights reels.
Like a lot of slow players, stories abounded that Tavare was a wolf in sheep's clothing, capable of pillaging county attacks on quiet Canterbury afternoons. If it happened, no-one remembers it now.
https://theoldbatsman.blogspot.com/2011/05/tavare-legend-lives.html
In the case of Academies, the land and buildings are held on a 999-year lease with a peppercorn payment and a condition of that lease is IF the school closes, the land and buildings revert back to the Council.
There is not a single bishop on the bench who have written or could write an outstanding book on a New Testament or theological subject. (I am happy to be proved wrong).
If this is true, there's probably a point at which it is flipped. Perhaps the Arabs - poor herders from their desert wastes - performed a similar role for the Ottomans?
JD Vance: I Can't Wait To 'Clean Up DC' By 'Releasing the Epstein Client List'
https://x.com/kobefox/status/1854347383544701151
One month ago.
"Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list."
https://x.com/ClaytonMorris/status/1942202617414725692
I'm also bemused by the concept of an exam which isn't time-limited.
I was really unsure what to do about this. No one should be paying for such work. No employer would want it going out in their name. No sheriff would have tolerated it. It was not the student's fault, not at all, but his disability simply made him unsuited for the role he was training for. As I recall, he was allowed to pass but whether that did him or the profession any favours I don't know.
As an approach, it shouldn't work, but in my (highly partial - since my wife works for an academy chain) view, it does: there seems to be a greater level of success in focusing on what could be done to improve schools than under the council model (when, frankly, many councils did not appear particularly motivated).
That's not to say the academy trust model is the only model which could do this. But this approach appears to work better than the council model.
But even so, academy trusts have to (and do) plan for future demographic changes.