How much trouble do people think Rayner is going to be in with the ethics advisor on her house dealings? I have no clue and would be interested if anyone has a handle on this and whether it is just a storm in a teacup/opponents making something out of nothing or something that could see her in real trouble?
It sounds iffy, but an article in The Telegraph today says...
"Sources close to Ms Rayner said she had divorced her husband and “ceased to own a stake” in the family home in Ashton-under-Lyne some time before buying the Hove apartment. But she continued to insist that the Ashton house remained her primary residence because her children still lived there."
If that's the case, and it's simply her ex getting the old family home, and her having to buy a new one, then that seems like a total non-story.
Of course. Although it’s also surprisingly tax efficient. Just a coincidence, I assume.
If it's true though, that's the way it happens with almost all divorces. It would be almost more difficult to the pay the higher rate of stamp duty.
How much trouble do people think Rayner is going to be in with the ethics advisor on her house dealings? I have no clue and would be interested if anyone has a handle on this and whether it is just a storm in a teacup/opponents making something out of nothing or something that could see her in real trouble?
It sounds iffy, but an article in The Telegraph today says...
"Sources close to Ms Rayner said she had divorced her husband and “ceased to own a stake” in the family home in Ashton-under-Lyne some time before buying the Hove apartment. But she continued to insist that the Ashton house remained her primary residence because her children still lived there."
If that's the case, and it's simply her ex getting the old family home, and her having to buy a new one, then that seems like a total non-story.
So where does she stay when she is in her constituency doing work for the people she represents? She can’t do it from Hove or London so is she renting somewhere or staying in a hotel - and is she billing that to the taxpayer or is she just not bothered with the constituency?
Can’t imagine her constituents would be ok with her having no residential presence in her seat.
I've not followed this one. But that looks complicated enough that newspapers may have shot themselves in the foot, aided by the months it takes for updated records to work through the land registry.
It's possible that when in the constituency she is in a spare bedroom in the former family house, either permanently or as an interim arrangement.
And for constituency work surely she'll just have a rented office like any normal MP? Don't they all have 2-3 staff in the Constituency, and 2-3 in London?
On the Connolly question, is not the real issue here that she was very poorly advised and should not have pled guilty in the first place. Given that Ricky Jones let his case go to court and was found Not GuIlty, would it not have been far better for Connolly had she taken her cae to a Jury. It does eem to me tha in matters of freedom of speech and interpretation of comments, Juries are generally loath to convict even in seemingly quite extreme examples.
I would be interested to know what advice she was given and what 'threats' were made with regard to her plea.
For the record of course I think both Connolly and Jones are bloody stupid, rather unsavoury characters but I don't think either of them should have ended up in jail.
I don't know if it's true, but I've read that Connolly and Jones were charged with different offences. Connolly was charged with something more akin to speeding (i.e. pointless denying it), whereas Jones was able to spout a load of bollocks about why he said what he said.
Connolly admitted to an offence with a sentencing guidelines minimum of two years imprisonment.
She should never have done that, because it's entirely possible that the CPS would have chosen to prosecute on lesser charges.
She was clearly both scared and very poorly advised. And when you have a young kid at home, and are worried that you won't see them for a sustained period, and that the risk of going to trial is that you could end up in prison for 3 or 4 years... Well, you can see why she did what she did. But she should never have done so.
I have been told be a couple of lawyers and a police officer (off duty) that when facing serious stuff, don’t use the family solicitor. Find a lawyer who represents really, really nasty criminals.
Well, I'm hoping that won't be an issue.
A friend got hit-and-run’d. A policeman came across a long haired bloke lying in the gutter and gave him a kicking and arrested him for drunk and disorderly. When he came round in the hospital, they’d charged him with that. Plus being in charge of a vehicle - keys in his pocket.
It was the very early days of CCTV - the police didn’t really know about it. My friend’s lawyer (who he got via a certain acquaintance) found some on a bank that was feet away from where it happened. Showed the hit and run. And the policeman kicking a semi conscious person. And the policeman stealing his watch….
That plus blood tests proving next to no alcohol (from the samples taken at hospital admission) - he’d been working in a pub and had changed a number of barrels - the policeman had smelt the beer….
Somewhat related - I've been quite surprised how good the new 'Alien: Earth' TV series is. I had very, very low expectations. But it's actually good. Not quite as mad as 'Raised By Wolves' sadly, but good.
The way they've managed to preserve quite a lot of the aesthetic of the original movie - getting on for fifty years old - and make it work, is quite impressive.
Is "Kingdom of Heaven" (the Director’s Cut) a good film? There's a tickle in the back of my head that it's underrated. Has anybody seen it?
It's one of this films you'll watch enjoy but you'll never watch it again.
If you ever want to really feel there's no hope - give https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Days_(2001_film) a try. I had to persuade my partner (of the time...) not to walk out part way through. Even though I had the urge to myself.
The only film I've ever walked out of (because I thought the film was shite) was Mother! and I absolutely adore Darren Aronofsky films all the way back to Pi.
If you want a just shit film, then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Bogey_on_a_Par_Five_Hole is the one. I was the only one in the cinema when I saw it. I should have guessed it was a bad'un when I walked in and the ticket person said, in disbelief "..... Are you.... sure?".
Is "Kingdom of Heaven" (the Director’s Cut) a good film? There's a tickle in the back of my head that it's underrated. Has anybody seen it?
It's one of this films you'll watch enjoy but you'll never watch it again.
If you ever want to really feel there's no hope - give https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Days_(2001_film) a try. I had to persuade my partner (of the time...) not to walk out part way through. Even though I had the urge to myself.
The only film I've ever walked out of (because I thought the film was shite) was Mother! and I absolutely adore Darren Aronofsky films all the way back to Pi.
I came out of 'Mother!' thinking is was a parable about artists allowing their fame to destroy their muses when apparently it was about the environment.
'Son of Saul' was grim.
I am somebody who has watched every Sharknado film.
Slacker. Sharktopus is the pinnacle of cinematic art.
How much trouble do people think Rayner is going to be in with the ethics advisor on her house dealings? I have no clue and would be interested if anyone has a handle on this and whether it is just a storm in a teacup/opponents making something out of nothing or something that could see her in real trouble?
It sounds iffy, but an article in The Telegraph today says...
"Sources close to Ms Rayner said she had divorced her husband and “ceased to own a stake” in the family home in Ashton-under-Lyne some time before buying the Hove apartment. But she continued to insist that the Ashton house remained her primary residence because her children still lived there."
If that's the case, and it's simply her ex getting the old family home, and her having to buy a new one, then that seems like a total non-story.
So where does she stay when she is in her constituency doing work for the people she represents? She can’t do it from Hove or London so is she renting somewhere or staying in a hotel - and is she billing that to the taxpayer or is she just not bothered with the constituency?
Can’t imagine her constituents would be ok with her having no residential presence in her seat.
Admiralty House, I'd assume. Pretty sure I remember reading she had a flat, but ended the contract on it a while back.
I think I'd want an actual home I owned as a backup, with so many people wanting her out of the job
On the Connolly question, is not the real issue here that she was very poorly advised and should not have pled guilty in the first place. Given that Ricky Jones let his case go to court and was found Not GuIlty, would it not have been far better for Connolly had she taken her cae to a Jury. It does eem to me tha in matters of freedom of speech and interpretation of comments, Juries are generally loath to convict even in seemingly quite extreme examples.
I would be interested to know what advice she was given and what 'threats' were made with regard to her plea.
For the record of course I think both Connolly and Jones are bloody stupid, rather unsavoury characters but I don't think either of them should have ended up in jail.
I don't know if it's true, but I've read that Connolly and Jones were charged with different offences. Connolly was charged with something more akin to speeding (i.e. pointless denying it), whereas Jones was able to spout a load of bollocks about why he said what he said.
Connolly admitted to an offence with a sentencing guidelines minimum of two years imprisonment.
She should never have done that, because it's entirely possible that the CPS would have chosen to prosecute on lesser charges.
She was clearly both scared and very poorly advised. And when you have a young kid at home, and are worried that you won't see them for a sustained period, and that the risk of going to trial is that you could end up in prison for 3 or 4 years... Well, you can see why she did what she did. But she should never have done so.
I have been told be a couple of lawyers and a police officer (off duty) that when facing serious stuff, don’t use the family solicitor. Find a lawyer who represents really, really nasty criminals.
Well, I'm hoping that won't be an issue.
A friend got hit-and-run’d. A policeman came across a long haired bloke lying in the gutter and gave him a kicking and arrested him for drunk and disorderly. When he came round in the hospital, they’d charged him with that. Plus being in charge of a vehicle - keys in his pocket.
It was the very early days of CCTV - the police didn’t really know about it. My friend’s lawyer (who he got via a certain acquaintance) found some on a bank that was feet away from where it happened. Showed the hit and run. And the policeman kicking a semi conscious person. And the policeman stealing his watch….
That plus blood tests proving next to no alcohol (from the samples taken at hospital admission) - he’d been working in a pub and had changed a number of barrels - the policeman had smelt the beer….
Derbyshire CC (RefUK) are closing half of their adult education centres under some sort of "emergency" procedure, which means no public consultation, and is "from September". At present I offer no comment; for me this is under "keep an eye out for similar":
The Reform-run Derbyshire County Council is closing five adult education centres without any public consultation following a private meeting.
Cllr Jack Bradley, Reform’s cabinet member for education, has unilaterally decided at a closed-doors meeting to shut five adult community education centres in Ashbourne, Matlock, Middleton-by-Wirksworth, Shirebrook and Long Eaton.
This comes two months after Cllr Bradley also opted to close two centres in Alfreton and Glossop, also without public or user consultation.
A county council report says the five further centres will close from September, with no consultation planned.
This would leave the authority with eight adult community education centres in Bolsover, Buxton, Chesterfield, Clay Cross, Cotmanhay, Glossop, Holmewood and Swadlincote.
How much trouble do people think Rayner is going to be in with the ethics advisor on her house dealings? I have no clue and would be interested if anyone has a handle on this and whether it is just a storm in a teacup/opponents making something out of nothing or something that could see her in real trouble?
It sounds iffy, but an article in The Telegraph today says...
"Sources close to Ms Rayner said she had divorced her husband and “ceased to own a stake” in the family home in Ashton-under-Lyne some time before buying the Hove apartment. But she continued to insist that the Ashton house remained her primary residence because her children still lived there."
If that's the case, and it's simply her ex getting the old family home, and her having to buy a new one, then that seems like a total non-story.
So where does she stay when she is in her constituency doing work for the people she represents? She can’t do it from Hove or London so is she renting somewhere or staying in a hotel - and is she billing that to the taxpayer or is she just not bothered with the constituency?
Can’t imagine her constituents would be ok with her having no residential presence in her seat.
Admiralty House, I'd assume. Pretty sure I remember reading she had a flat, but ended the contract on it a while back.
I think I'd want an actual home I owned as a backup, with so many people wanting her out of the job
Admiralty house is a long way away from her constituency. So where does she stay when doing constituency work? A mate’s sofa? A Britannia hotel, if any are free these days? Another flat she rents at the taxpayer expense?
How does she even have time to enjoy her Hove flat what with being Deputy PM and other London political duties and the demands of being a constituency MP?
So almost half of RUK supporters think their party - that's the party leading the polls atm - should "associate itself" with a hardcore racist convicted of inciting violence against asylum seekers.
That's something to think about, isn't it.
And the reason labour has to stop the boats to change the narrative
Yes, here's hoping.
Half of Reform's support is driven by racism is the gloomy take but the sunnier one (which I always try to go with) is that half of it isn't.
So some (perhaps many) of the latter can be peeled off depending on developments between now and the GE.
I know we'd both like to see that, me from a Lab perspective and you from a Con one.
I am perfectly happy with legal immigration but like many others am wholly opposed to the boats
Stop the boats and you remove the toxicity
It may require us to temporarily leave the ECHR, but this is becoming far more widely supported including in the labour party
Given that the asylum process requires asylum seekers to apply for asylum from within the UK, it hard to see how there is any way in which they can enter the country legally. Providing some means by which it is possible to apply for asylum from outside the UK would surely go some way towards stopping the boats.
431,000 was the figure for net immigration into the UK in 2024 which by common agreement is too high
However we do need a sensible immigration policy, but it will not get a hearing as long as the boats keep coming and hotels are used
Yes, but my point is that the boats will keep coming unless there is some other way in which would-be asylum seekers can apply for asylum. They simply have nothing to lose. If there was an accessible, legal way of applying for asylum, this would help to reduce the boat numbers, especially if arrival by boat reduced the chance of a successful application.
If one could only apply for asylum at one of our Embassies or Consular Offices that would perhaps help.
What was the procedure for the children on the Kindertransport?
All of which would massively increase the number of applicants.
Does it matter? They will still be living somewhere else and will only be admitted to the UK if they pass
There are 20 million girls and women in Afghanistan who be pretty much guaranteed to pass. How many would try and apply? 10%? That’s still two million.
Happy to admit Afghan women
The electorate will not agree with you. And that's before you get to potentially every other woman in the Middle East.
If you think about it, if you want to smash militant Islam, then offering women the chance to escape it, is probably the best possible way.
It's hard to have a successful society, if a significant chunk of the women have left. So, those countries would need to change their policies to prevent the exodus.
At the moment it's extremely difficult for anyone other than able-bodied young men to claim asylum in the UK. If we're prepared to accept x asylum seekers per year, then it surely makes sense to select from those who most deserve asylum rather than from those who manage to make it across the channel (the aforementioned young men). That means rejecting all (or almost all) those who arrive by boat but also accepting the x most deserving cases of those who apply by the legal means that don't currently exist.
Two thirds of asylum seekers haven't come over on the boats, if I remember the numbers.
How are they arriving in Britain?
Are they mostly getting visas for other things (students/work/?) and then claiming once they get here, or some other means?
I support NI and tax being combined so that ALL earnings are subject to the same amounts of tax.
However as others have pointed out, I wonder what this polling would be if the question was
"Would you support or oppose the Government imposing an 8% tax increase on all rents".
Because this, in effect, is what would happen.
I agree on that last point, not the first as I what NI hypothecated to fund the state pension and JSA and maybe some health and social care
And what happens if the hypothecated tax is insufficient to cover expenditure?
It shouldn't be, because everybody gets a state pension equivalent to what they paid in and contributions based JSA based on what they paid in.
Most OECD nations also fund most healthcare via state provided insurance.
If you haven't paid in enough for a state pension or JSA if unemployed, income tax can still fund pension credit and universal credit for you
This is simply not true. Even at the most basic level.
The earnings level to count as contributing to your state pension is £125 a week. However you don't actually have to start paying any NI until you earn at least £242 a week.
So there are a group of low paid workers (roughly those earning between £6500 and £12500 a year) who are qualifying towards getting their full state pension (35 years of contributions) but do not actually pay any NI.
NI was created in 1911 to fund unemployment benefit and state pensions and some health benefits (pre income tax funded NHS).
You could easily include those earning between £6500 and £12500 in those required to pay NI too in order to get the state pension.
If they don't want to do that they can opt out and just get taxpayer funded pension credit instead
So almost half of RUK supporters think their party - that's the party leading the polls atm - should "associate itself" with a hardcore racist convicted of inciting violence against asylum seekers.
That's something to think about, isn't it.
And the reason labour has to stop the boats to change the narrative
Yes, here's hoping.
Half of Reform's support is driven by racism is the gloomy take but the sunnier one (which I always try to go with) is that half of it isn't.
So some (perhaps many) of the latter can be peeled off depending on developments between now and the GE.
I know we'd both like to see that, me from a Lab perspective and you from a Con one.
I am perfectly happy with legal immigration but like many others am wholly opposed to the boats
Stop the boats and you remove the toxicity
It may require us to temporarily leave the ECHR, but this is becoming far more widely supported including in the labour party
Given that the asylum process requires asylum seekers to apply for asylum from within the UK, it hard to see how there is any way in which they can enter the country legally. Providing some means by which it is possible to apply for asylum from outside the UK would surely go some way towards stopping the boats.
431,000 was the figure for net immigration into the UK in 2024 which by common agreement is too high
However we do need a sensible immigration policy, but it will not get a hearing as long as the boats keep coming and hotels are used
Yes, but my point is that the boats will keep coming unless there is some other way in which would-be asylum seekers can apply for asylum. They simply have nothing to lose. If there was an accessible, legal way of applying for asylum, this would help to reduce the boat numbers, especially if arrival by boat reduced the chance of a successful application.
If one could only apply for asylum at one of our Embassies or Consular Offices that would perhaps help.
What was the procedure for the children on the Kindertransport?
All of which would massively increase the number of applicants.
Does it matter? They will still be living somewhere else and will only be admitted to the UK if they pass
There are 20 million girls and women in Afghanistan who be pretty much guaranteed to pass. How many would try and apply? 10%? That’s still two million.
Happy to admit Afghan women
The electorate will not agree with you. And that's before you get to potentially every other woman in the Middle East.
If you think about it, if you want to smash militant Islam, then offering women the chance to escape it, is probably the best possible way.
It's hard to have a successful society, if a significant chunk of the women have left. So, those countries would need to change their policies to prevent the exodus.
At the moment it's extremely difficult for anyone other than able-bodied young men to claim asylum in the UK. If we're prepared to accept x asylum seekers per year, then it surely makes sense to select from those who most deserve asylum rather than from those who manage to make it across the channel (the aforementioned young men). That means rejecting all (or almost all) those who arrive by boat but also accepting the x most deserving cases of those who apply by the legal means that don't currently exist.
Two thirds of asylum seekers haven't come over on the boats, if I remember the numbers.
How are they arriving in Britain?
Are they mostly getting visas for other things (students/work/?) and then claiming once they get here, or some other means?
16000/108000 in 2024 were on student visas. But of course they may have much lower acceptance rates. Plus, easier to deport if they came from the kind of countries we will take students from.
Damn, just seen that Emma Raducanu has been knocked out of the US Open.
Why the annoyance? Surely she's not very good, her fame is due to a fluke USO and being quite hot
Her game seems to have improved a lot in recent matches so this is bad news.
The way to think about tennis rankings is to turn it into football. The top three or four in the world are the Man Cities, Liverpools, Man Utd’s, Arsenals of the game. Then down to say 15 to 20 are the rest of the Premier League. And after that the rest. The drop off is huge. Lower ranked players can look very good amonsgt other lower ranked players, and can usually string a good set against a top 10 player. But in the end they lose. It’s brutal. Raducanu is where she is because that’s where she should be.
But of course performance ebbs and flows. It’s hardly like there have been 4 players in the women’s game who have completely dominated tennis in the past 5 years or so. It’s been very open.
I think Raducanu has a lot of talent, but she is young and she has time on her side. She might not be a giant slayer right now, but there’s no reason why she couldn’t be up there in the top 10 in the next few years; and her game seems to be improving of late. I hope she continues on that trajectory.
Madison Keys has been on the WTA Tour for years, she was often talked about as a future star for years, she only won her first grand slam this year.
Based on the footballing example, Raducanu would be Leicester City. A wonderful and unexpected result, but unlikely to be repeated, but you never know.
Judge Lucy Connolly, the first appointment of PM Farage to his new 'Peoples Supreme Court' after his general election win of 2029.
You heard it here first!
Note too 35% thinking the Connolly sentence was too harsh may be a minority view but above the current 30% Reform voteshare
I think it was much too harsh and the Appeal Court should have intervened, whatever the motivation of the Judge at first instance. And I would never vote Reform so I don't know what that does to your theory.
I also thought it was harsh and wouldn't vote Reform.
However, that isn't actually what the Court of Appeal were deciding. They were deciding whether the original sentence was within the sentencing guidelines or whether the trial judge had got the law wrong in that respect. That's a rather different decision from whether they'd have come up with the exact same sentence.
What I think is a little unfortunate for Connolly is she was actually too ready to accept at first instance that her behaviour fell into category A (intention to incite serious violence) where the bare minimum is two years and the starting point is three years (and actually she got that down a bit via mitigation). They tried to row it back on appeal - but I think it had actually been an agreed fact by the prosecution and defence at the original sentencing, and the evidence was that her barrister had warned her (and she'd had plenty of time - this was weeks into the investigation).
Basically, if you admit things too early to bring matters to a close, it's incredibly hard to row it back later.
Indeed. There is a good argument that "I don't care if..." is not inciting violence. She needed better lawyers, much as it pains me to say that
Possibly... although it may also have been that they advised her of the risks of a guilty plea and/or that she presented as someone who would be a defence lawyer's nightmare in the witness box.
Whilst she wouldn't need to testify as a defendant, it'd be hard not to in this case if the defence was that she meant something else. You can't, as a lawyer, just come up with a credible defence and hope it all holds together. The prosecution would've kicked the tyres pretty damned hard, and she might very well be the sort of character who'd just blow the best laid plans out of the water in the witness box. Indeed, the whole reason she was there was (to put it at its most charitable) her tendency to say incredibly stupid, nasty things.
So almost half of RUK supporters think their party - that's the party leading the polls atm - should "associate itself" with a hardcore racist convicted of inciting violence against asylum seekers.
That's something to think about, isn't it.
And the reason labour has to stop the boats to change the narrative
Yes, here's hoping.
Half of Reform's support is driven by racism is the gloomy take but the sunnier one (which I always try to go with) is that half of it isn't.
So some (perhaps many) of the latter can be peeled off depending on developments between now and the GE.
I know we'd both like to see that, me from a Lab perspective and you from a Con one.
I am perfectly happy with legal immigration but like many others am wholly opposed to the boats
Stop the boats and you remove the toxicity
It may require us to temporarily leave the ECHR, but this is becoming far more widely supported including in the labour party
Given that the asylum process requires asylum seekers to apply for asylum from within the UK, it hard to see how there is any way in which they can enter the country legally. Providing some means by which it is possible to apply for asylum from outside the UK would surely go some way towards stopping the boats.
431,000 was the figure for net immigration into the UK in 2024 which by common agreement is too high
However we do need a sensible immigration policy, but it will not get a hearing as long as the boats keep coming and hotels are used
Yes, but my point is that the boats will keep coming unless there is some other way in which would-be asylum seekers can apply for asylum. They simply have nothing to lose. If there was an accessible, legal way of applying for asylum, this would help to reduce the boat numbers, especially if arrival by boat reduced the chance of a successful application.
If one could only apply for asylum at one of our Embassies or Consular Offices that would perhaps help.
What was the procedure for the children on the Kindertransport?
All of which would massively increase the number of applicants.
Does it matter? They will still be living somewhere else and will only be admitted to the UK if they pass
There are 20 million girls and women in Afghanistan who be pretty much guaranteed to pass. How many would try and apply? 10%? That’s still two million.
Happy to admit Afghan women
The electorate will not agree with you. And that's before you get to potentially every other woman in the Middle East.
If you think about it, if you want to smash militant Islam, then offering women the chance to escape it, is probably the best possible way.
It's hard to have a successful society, if a significant chunk of the women have left. So, those countries would need to change their policies to prevent the exodus.
At the moment it's extremely difficult for anyone other than able-bodied young men to claim asylum in the UK. If we're prepared to accept x asylum seekers per year, then it surely makes sense to select from those who most deserve asylum rather than from those who manage to make it across the channel (the aforementioned young men). That means rejecting all (or almost all) those who arrive by boat but also accepting the x most deserving cases of those who apply by the legal means that don't currently exist.
Two thirds of asylum seekers haven't come over on the boats, if I remember the numbers.
How are they arriving in Britain?
Are they mostly getting visas for other things (students/work/?) and then claiming once they get here, or some other means?
Yes.
The ones coming over on boats are a much higher proportion of successful asylum applicants. The ones already here are more likely to be "bogus" and "economic migrants".
And those coming over on boats aren't all men. They're 76% adult men and 14% children... so presumably 10% adult women.
Judge Lucy Connolly, the first appointment of PM Farage to his new 'Peoples Supreme Court' after his general election win of 2029.
You heard it here first!
Note too 35% thinking the Connolly sentence was too harsh may be a minority view but above the current 30% Reform voteshare
I think it was much too harsh and the Appeal Court should have intervened, whatever the motivation of the Judge at first instance. And I would never vote Reform so I don't know what that does to your theory.
I also thought it was harsh and wouldn't vote Reform.
However, that isn't actually what the Court of Appeal were deciding. They were deciding whether the original sentence was within the sentencing guidelines or whether the trial judge had got the law wrong in that respect. That's a rather different decision from whether they'd have come up with the exact same sentence.
What I think is a little unfortunate for Connolly is she was actually too ready to accept at first instance that her behaviour fell into category A (intention to incite serious violence) where the bare minimum is two years and the starting point is three years (and actually she got that down a bit via mitigation). They tried to row it back on appeal - but I think it had actually been an agreed fact by the prosecution and defence at the original sentencing, and the evidence was that her barrister had warned her (and she'd had plenty of time - this was weeks into the investigation).
Basically, if you admit things too early to bring matters to a close, it's incredibly hard to row it back later.
Indeed. There is a good argument that "I don't care if..." is not inciting violence. She needed better lawyers, much as it pains me to say that
Possibly... although it may also have been that they advised her of the risks of a guilty plea and/or that she presented as someone who would be a defence lawyer's nightmare in the witness box.
Whilst she wouldn't need to testify as a defendant, it'd be hard not to in this case if the defence was that she meant something else. You can't, as a lawyer, just come up with a credible defence and hope it all holds together. The prosecution would've kicked the tyres pretty damned hard, and she might very well be the sort of character who'd just blow the best laid plans out of the water in the witness box. Indeed, the whole reason she was there was (to put it at its most charitable) her tendency to say incredibly stupid, nasty things.
Stuff like her saying she'll play the mental health card would have rather undermined any claims of honesty.
On the Connolly question, is not the real issue here that she was very poorly advised and should not have pled guilty in the first place. Given that Ricky Jones let his case go to court and was found Not GuIlty, would it not have been far better for Connolly had she taken her cae to a Jury. It does eem to me tha in matters of freedom of speech and interpretation of comments, Juries are generally loath to convict even in seemingly quite extreme examples.
I would be interested to know what advice she was given and what 'threats' were made with regard to her plea.
For the record of course I think both Connolly and Jones are bloody stupid, rather unsavoury characters but I don't think either of them should have ended up in jail.
I don't know if it's true, but I've read that Connolly and Jones were charged with different offences. Connolly was charged with something more akin to speeding (i.e. pointless denying it), whereas Jones was able to spout a load of bollocks about why he said what he said.
Connolly admitted to an offence with a sentencing guidelines minimum of two years imprisonment.
She should never have done that, because it's entirely possible that the CPS would have chosen to prosecute on lesser charges.
She was clearly both scared and very poorly advised. And when you have a young kid at home, and are worried that you won't see them for a sustained period, and that the risk of going to trial is that you could end up in prison for 3 or 4 years... Well, you can see why she did what she did. But she should never have done so.
I have been told be a couple of lawyers and a police officer (off duty) that when facing serious stuff, don’t use the family solicitor. Find a lawyer who represents really, really nasty criminals.
Well, I'm hoping that won't be an issue.
A friend got hit-and-run’d. A policeman came across a long haired bloke lying in the gutter and gave him a kicking and arrested him for drunk and disorderly. When he came round in the hospital, they’d charged him with that. Plus being in charge of a vehicle - keys in his pocket.
It was the very early days of CCTV - the police didn’t really know about it. My friend’s lawyer (who he got via a certain acquaintance) found some on a bank that was feet away from where it happened. Showed the hit and run. And the policeman kicking a semi conscious person. And the policeman stealing his watch….
That plus blood tests proving next to no alcohol (from the samples taken at hospital admission) - he’d been working in a pub and had changed a number of barrels - the policeman had smelt the beer….
The policeman is now Chief Constable Savage.
That’s Chief Constable Sir Fred Savage, OBE, DipShit, to you….
The policeman turned out to have been returned to uniform and demoted for being on the edges of the West Midlands Serious Crimes Squad comedy.
So almost half of RUK supporters think their party - that's the party leading the polls atm - should "associate itself" with a hardcore racist convicted of inciting violence against asylum seekers.
That's something to think about, isn't it.
And the reason labour has to stop the boats to change the narrative
Yes, here's hoping.
Half of Reform's support is driven by racism is the gloomy take but the sunnier one (which I always try to go with) is that half of it isn't.
So some (perhaps many) of the latter can be peeled off depending on developments between now and the GE.
I know we'd both like to see that, me from a Lab perspective and you from a Con one.
I am perfectly happy with legal immigration but like many others am wholly opposed to the boats
Stop the boats and you remove the toxicity
It may require us to temporarily leave the ECHR, but this is becoming far more widely supported including in the labour party
Given that the asylum process requires asylum seekers to apply for asylum from within the UK, it hard to see how there is any way in which they can enter the country legally. Providing some means by which it is possible to apply for asylum from outside the UK would surely go some way towards stopping the boats.
431,000 was the figure for net immigration into the UK in 2024 which by common agreement is too high
However we do need a sensible immigration policy, but it will not get a hearing as long as the boats keep coming and hotels are used
Yes, but my point is that the boats will keep coming unless there is some other way in which would-be asylum seekers can apply for asylum. They simply have nothing to lose. If there was an accessible, legal way of applying for asylum, this would help to reduce the boat numbers, especially if arrival by boat reduced the chance of a successful application.
If one could only apply for asylum at one of our Embassies or Consular Offices that would perhaps help.
What was the procedure for the children on the Kindertransport?
All of which would massively increase the number of applicants.
Does it matter? They will still be living somewhere else and will only be admitted to the UK if they pass
There are 20 million girls and women in Afghanistan who be pretty much guaranteed to pass. How many would try and apply? 10%? That’s still two million.
Happy to admit Afghan women
The electorate will not agree with you. And that's before you get to potentially every other woman in the Middle East.
If you think about it, if you want to smash militant Islam, then offering women the chance to escape it, is probably the best possible way.
It's hard to have a successful society, if a significant chunk of the women have left. So, those countries would need to change their policies to prevent the exodus.
At the moment it's extremely difficult for anyone other than able-bodied young men to claim asylum in the UK. If we're prepared to accept x asylum seekers per year, then it surely makes sense to select from those who most deserve asylum rather than from those who manage to make it across the channel (the aforementioned young men). That means rejecting all (or almost all) those who arrive by boat but also accepting the x most deserving cases of those who apply by the legal means that don't currently exist.
Two thirds of asylum seekers haven't come over on the boats, if I remember the numbers.
How are they arriving in Britain?
Are they mostly getting visas for other things (students/work/?) and then claiming once they get here, or some other means?
Yes.
The ones coming over on boats are a much higher proportion of successful asylum applicants. The ones already here are more likely to be "bogus" and "economic migrants".
And those coming over on boats aren't all men. They're 76% adult men and 14% children... so presumably 10% adult women.
Excluding withdrawals and administrative decisions, around 68% of all initial decisions on asylum applications from people who arrived by small boat – a total of 47,000 – were grants of protection. That was higher than the grant rate for asylum applications generally, which stood at 57% for the 2018-24 period.
So almost half of RUK supporters think their party - that's the party leading the polls atm - should "associate itself" with a hardcore racist convicted of inciting violence against asylum seekers.
That's something to think about, isn't it.
And the reason labour has to stop the boats to change the narrative
Yes, here's hoping.
Half of Reform's support is driven by racism is the gloomy take but the sunnier one (which I always try to go with) is that half of it isn't.
So some (perhaps many) of the latter can be peeled off depending on developments between now and the GE.
I know we'd both like to see that, me from a Lab perspective and you from a Con one.
I am perfectly happy with legal immigration but like many others am wholly opposed to the boats
Stop the boats and you remove the toxicity
It may require us to temporarily leave the ECHR, but this is becoming far more widely supported including in the labour party
Given that the asylum process requires asylum seekers to apply for asylum from within the UK, it hard to see how there is any way in which they can enter the country legally. Providing some means by which it is possible to apply for asylum from outside the UK would surely go some way towards stopping the boats.
431,000 was the figure for net immigration into the UK in 2024 which by common agreement is too high
However we do need a sensible immigration policy, but it will not get a hearing as long as the boats keep coming and hotels are used
Yes, but my point is that the boats will keep coming unless there is some other way in which would-be asylum seekers can apply for asylum. They simply have nothing to lose. If there was an accessible, legal way of applying for asylum, this would help to reduce the boat numbers, especially if arrival by boat reduced the chance of a successful application.
If one could only apply for asylum at one of our Embassies or Consular Offices that would perhaps help.
What was the procedure for the children on the Kindertransport?
All of which would massively increase the number of applicants.
Does it matter? They will still be living somewhere else and will only be admitted to the UK if they pass
There are 20 million girls and women in Afghanistan who be pretty much guaranteed to pass. How many would try and apply? 10%? That’s still two million.
Happy to admit Afghan women
The electorate will not agree with you. And that's before you get to potentially every other woman in the Middle East.
If you think about it, if you want to smash militant Islam, then offering women the chance to escape it, is probably the best possible way.
It's hard to have a successful society, if a significant chunk of the women have left. So, those countries would need to change their policies to prevent the exodus.
At the moment it's extremely difficult for anyone other than able-bodied young men to claim asylum in the UK. If we're prepared to accept x asylum seekers per year, then it surely makes sense to select from those who most deserve asylum rather than from those who manage to make it across the channel (the aforementioned young men). That means rejecting all (or almost all) those who arrive by boat but also accepting the x most deserving cases of those who apply by the legal means that don't currently exist.
Two thirds of asylum seekers haven't come over on the boats, if I remember the numbers.
How are they arriving in Britain?
Are they mostly getting visas for other things (students/work/?) and then claiming once they get here, or some other means?
Yes.
The ones coming over on boats are a much higher proportion of successful asylum applicants. The ones already here are more likely to be "bogus" and "economic migrants".
And those coming over on boats aren't all men. They're 76% adult men and 14% children... so presumably 10% adult women.
Excluding withdrawals and administrative decisions, around 68% of all initial decisions on asylum applications from people who arrived by small boat – a total of 47,000 – were grants of protection. That was higher than the grant rate for asylum applications generally, which stood at 57% for the 2018-24 period.
Judge Lucy Connolly, the first appointment of PM Farage to his new 'Peoples Supreme Court' after his general election win of 2029.
You heard it here first!
Note too 35% thinking the Connolly sentence was too harsh may be a minority view but above the current 30% Reform voteshare
I think it was much too harsh and the Appeal Court should have intervened, whatever the motivation of the Judge at first instance. And I would never vote Reform so I don't know what that does to your theory.
I also thought it was harsh and wouldn't vote Reform.
However, that isn't actually what the Court of Appeal were deciding. They were deciding whether the original sentence was within the sentencing guidelines or whether the trial judge had got the law wrong in that respect. That's a rather different decision from whether they'd have come up with the exact same sentence.
What I think is a little unfortunate for Connolly is she was actually too ready to accept at first instance that her behaviour fell into category A (intention to incite serious violence) where the bare minimum is two years and the starting point is three years (and actually she got that down a bit via mitigation). They tried to row it back on appeal - but I think it had actually been an agreed fact by the prosecution and defence at the original sentencing, and the evidence was that her barrister had warned her (and she'd had plenty of time - this was weeks into the investigation).
Basically, if you admit things too early to bring matters to a close, it's incredibly hard to row it back later.
Indeed. There is a good argument that "I don't care if..." is not inciting violence. She needed better lawyers, much as it pains me to say that
Possibly... although it may also have been that they advised her of the risks of a guilty plea and/or that she presented as someone who would be a defence lawyer's nightmare in the witness box.
Whilst she wouldn't need to testify as a defendant, it'd be hard not to in this case if the defence was that she meant something else. You can't, as a lawyer, just come up with a credible defence and hope it all holds together. The prosecution would've kicked the tyres pretty damned hard, and she might very well be the sort of character who'd just blow the best laid plans out of the water in the witness box. Indeed, the whole reason she was there was (to put it at its most charitable) her tendency to say incredibly stupid, nasty things.
Stuff like her saying she'll play the mental health card would have rather undermined any claims of honesty.
Yes, I'd forgotten that one but you're right that you do need a credible defendant and she very likely wasn't one.
I'm slightly reminded of the Tony Martin case. He had a fairly credible defence on paper, but was a nightmare defendant who wouldn't, couldn't, and didn't help himself in any way.
I'm also reminded of a case I attended of a group of youths accused of murder by pushing a guy they were robbing off a bridge. Their defence was basically each blamed each other (i.e. they said they robbed him but were totally against chucking him off the bridge). This was before changes in the law of joint enterprise so it was quite a credible defence on paper. The trouble was the stupid bastards were giggling and passing notes to each other in the dock, so obviously nobody on the jury believed the defence for one millisecond.
How much trouble do people think Rayner is going to be in with the ethics advisor on her house dealings? I have no clue and would be interested if anyone has a handle on this and whether it is just a storm in a teacup/opponents making something out of nothing or something that could see her in real trouble?
It sounds iffy, but an article in The Telegraph today says...
"Sources close to Ms Rayner said she had divorced her husband and “ceased to own a stake” in the family home in Ashton-under-Lyne some time before buying the Hove apartment. But she continued to insist that the Ashton house remained her primary residence because her children still lived there."
If that's the case, and it's simply her ex getting the old family home, and her having to buy a new one, then that seems like a total non-story.
So where does she stay when she is in her constituency doing work for the people she represents? She can’t do it from Hove or London so is she renting somewhere or staying in a hotel - and is she billing that to the taxpayer or is she just not bothered with the constituency?
Can’t imagine her constituents would be ok with her having no residential presence in her seat.
Admiralty House, I'd assume. Pretty sure I remember reading she had a flat, but ended the contract on it a while back.
I think I'd want an actual home I owned as a backup, with so many people wanting her out of the job
Admiralty house is a long way away from her constituency. So where does she stay when doing constituency work? A mate’s sofa? A Britannia hotel, if any are free these days? Another flat she rents at the taxpayer expense?
How does she even have time to enjoy her Hove flat what with being Deputy PM and other London political duties and the demands of being a constituency MP?
I thought part of the issue is that she's still paying council tax at the Ashton home, as her children live there, and that's her base in Manchester?
If it's the case that this is simply her buying a house after a divorce, then the stamp duty doesn't seem to be an issue, as it would be odd to indefinitely stay on the deeds of a house you've handed over in the divorce.
If she stays with her ex and the kids when in Manchester, which seems ideal if it's an amicable divorce - as it wouldn't make much sense renting somewhere or getting hotels and moving the kids about.
The council tax then needs to be paid on a second home in either Brighton or Ashton. It doesn't seem to make much difference financially which way round it is.
Seeing as both @tse and @rcs1000 are on here, can we get clarity on whether PB profiles must be public or not?
Because we were told that everyone had to be public, but loads of PBers are still private. I’m not going to snitch on them, but some consistency - or elucidation- would be useful
Happy to follow rules, but what are the rules?
All profiles need to be public, I need to go into the Vanilla settings to disable the option to have private profiles if I can find it tonight.
How much trouble do people think Rayner is going to be in with the ethics advisor on her house dealings? I have no clue and would be interested if anyone has a handle on this and whether it is just a storm in a teacup/opponents making something out of nothing or something that could see her in real trouble?
It sounds iffy, but an article in The Telegraph today says...
"Sources close to Ms Rayner said she had divorced her husband and “ceased to own a stake” in the family home in Ashton-under-Lyne some time before buying the Hove apartment. But she continued to insist that the Ashton house remained her primary residence because her children still lived there."
If that's the case, and it's simply her ex getting the old family home, and her having to buy a new one, then that seems like a total non-story.
So where does she stay when she is in her constituency doing work for the people she represents? She can’t do it from Hove or London so is she renting somewhere or staying in a hotel - and is she billing that to the taxpayer or is she just not bothered with the constituency?
Can’t imagine her constituents would be ok with her having no residential presence in her seat.
Admiralty House, I'd assume. Pretty sure I remember reading she had a flat, but ended the contract on it a while back.
I think I'd want an actual home I owned as a backup, with so many people wanting her out of the job
Admiralty house is a long way away from her constituency. So where does she stay when doing constituency work? A mate’s sofa? A Britannia hotel, if any are free these days? Another flat she rents at the taxpayer expense?
How does she even have time to enjoy her Hove flat what with being Deputy PM and other London political duties and the demands of being a constituency MP?
I thought part of the issue is that she's still paying council tax at the Ashton home, as her children live there, and that's her base in Manchester?
If it's the case that this is simply her buying a house after a divorce, then the stamp duty doesn't seem to be an issue, as it would be odd to indefinitely stay on the deeds of a house you've handed over in the divorce.
If she stays with her ex and the kids when in Manchester, which seems ideal if it's an amicable divorce - as it wouldn't make much sense renting somewhere or getting hotels and moving the kids about.
The council tax then needs to be paid on a second home in either Brighton or Ashton. It doesn't seem to make much difference financially which way round it is.
Add to that the differing timescales of the various processes and [edit] registries, and one can see how things can be whipped up out of nothing.
One might also wonder, what has happened to GDPR and personal data security?
Judge Lucy Connolly, the first appointment of PM Farage to his new 'Peoples Supreme Court' after his general election win of 2029.
You heard it here first!
Note too 35% thinking the Connolly sentence was too harsh may be a minority view but above the current 30% Reform voteshare
I think it was much too harsh and the Appeal Court should have intervened, whatever the motivation of the Judge at first instance. And I would never vote Reform so I don't know what that does to your theory.
I also thought it was harsh and wouldn't vote Reform.
However, that isn't actually what the Court of Appeal were deciding. They were deciding whether the original sentence was within the sentencing guidelines or whether the trial judge had got the law wrong in that respect. That's a rather different decision from whether they'd have come up with the exact same sentence.
What I think is a little unfortunate for Connolly is she was actually too ready to accept at first instance that her behaviour fell into category A (intention to incite serious violence) where the bare minimum is two years and the starting point is three years (and actually she got that down a bit via mitigation). They tried to row it back on appeal - but I think it had actually been an agreed fact by the prosecution and defence at the original sentencing, and the evidence was that her barrister had warned her (and she'd had plenty of time - this was weeks into the investigation).
Basically, if you admit things too early to bring matters to a close, it's incredibly hard to row it back later.
Indeed. There is a good argument that "I don't care if..." is not inciting violence. She needed better lawyers, much as it pains me to say that
Possibly... although it may also have been that they advised her of the risks of a guilty plea and/or that she presented as someone who would be a defence lawyer's nightmare in the witness box.
Whilst she wouldn't need to testify as a defendant, it'd be hard not to in this case if the defence was that she meant something else. You can't, as a lawyer, just come up with a credible defence and hope it all holds together. The prosecution would've kicked the tyres pretty damned hard, and she might very well be the sort of character who'd just blow the best laid plans out of the water in the witness box. Indeed, the whole reason she was there was (to put it at its most charitable) her tendency to say incredibly stupid, nasty things.
I believe she was also charged with inciting racial hatred, rather than inciting violence. That is potentially a lot harder to argue that you didn't mean it, compared with "encouraging violent disorder", which is what Ricky Jones was charged with.
I support NI and tax being combined so that ALL earnings are subject to the same amounts of tax.
However as others have pointed out, I wonder what this polling would be if the question was
"Would you support or oppose the Government imposing an 8% tax increase on all rents".
Because this, in effect, is what would happen.
I agree on that last point, not the first as I what NI hypothecated to fund the state pension and JSA and maybe some health and social care
And what happens if the hypothecated tax is insufficient to cover expenditure?
It shouldn't be, because everybody gets a state pension equivalent to what they paid in and contributions based JSA based on what they paid in.
Most OECD nations also fund most healthcare via state provided insurance.
If you haven't paid in enough for a state pension or JSA if unemployed, income tax can still fund pension credit and universal credit for you
This is simply not true. Even at the most basic level.
The earnings level to count as contributing to your state pension is £125 a week. However you don't actually have to start paying any NI until you earn at least £242 a week.
So there are a group of low paid workers (roughly those earning between £6500 and £12500 a year) who are qualifying towards getting their full state pension (35 years of contributions) but do not actually pay any NI.
NI was created in 1911 to fund unemployment benefit and state pensions and some health benefits (pre income tax funded NHS).
You could easily include those earning between £6500 and £12500 in those required to pay NI too in order to get the state pension.
If they don't want to do that they can opt out and just get taxpayer funded pension credit instead
Your point is... well pointless. Income tax was first levied in the early 19th century to pay for the wars with France. That hasn't stopped it being expanded to cover all manner of GIvernment expenditure. The fact that a tax was initially levied for a particular purpose does not mean that, more than 100 years afterwards, it is still ringfenced for that purpose.
NI goes into general Goverment expenditure which includes Pensions and healthcare. We should recognise that reality and now merge them so that everyone is paying the same amount of taxation on the same amount of income, whatever its source.
Seeing as both @tse and @rcs1000 are on here, can we get clarity on whether PB profiles must be public or not?
Because we were told that everyone had to be public, but loads of PBers are still private. I’m not going to snitch on them, but some consistency - or elucidation- would be useful
Happy to follow rules, but what are the rules?
All profiles need to be public, I need to go into the Vanilla settings to disable the option to have private profiles if I can find it tonight.
Ta
Your reminder that your profile being public private doesn’t hide/shoe your comments. All of them are accessible to Google. I scraped the part history of PB into a database the other day, just for fun…
Judge Lucy Connolly, the first appointment of PM Farage to his new 'Peoples Supreme Court' after his general election win of 2029.
You heard it here first!
Note too 35% thinking the Connolly sentence was too harsh may be a minority view but above the current 30% Reform voteshare
I think it was much too harsh and the Appeal Court should have intervened, whatever the motivation of the Judge at first instance. And I would never vote Reform so I don't know what that does to your theory.
I also thought it was harsh and wouldn't vote Reform.
However, that isn't actually what the Court of Appeal were deciding. They were deciding whether the original sentence was within the sentencing guidelines or whether the trial judge had got the law wrong in that respect. That's a rather different decision from whether they'd have come up with the exact same sentence.
What I think is a little unfortunate for Connolly is she was actually too ready to accept at first instance that her behaviour fell into category A (intention to incite serious violence) where the bare minimum is two years and the starting point is three years (and actually she got that down a bit via mitigation). They tried to row it back on appeal - but I think it had actually been an agreed fact by the prosecution and defence at the original sentencing, and the evidence was that her barrister had warned her (and she'd had plenty of time - this was weeks into the investigation).
Basically, if you admit things too early to bring matters to a close, it's incredibly hard to row it back later.
Indeed. There is a good argument that "I don't care if..." is not inciting violence. She needed better lawyers, much as it pains me to say that
Possibly... although it may also have been that they advised her of the risks of a guilty plea and/or that she presented as someone who would be a defence lawyer's nightmare in the witness box.
Whilst she wouldn't need to testify as a defendant, it'd be hard not to in this case if the defence was that she meant something else. You can't, as a lawyer, just come up with a credible defence and hope it all holds together. The prosecution would've kicked the tyres pretty damned hard, and she might very well be the sort of character who'd just blow the best laid plans out of the water in the witness box. Indeed, the whole reason she was there was (to put it at its mostly charitable) her tendency to say incredibly stupid, nasty things.
Thought we'd done this and cycle free posted a link to a professional review of her legal advice which commended the lawyer.
I support NI and tax being combined so that ALL earnings are subject to the same amounts of tax.
However as others have pointed out, I wonder what this polling would be if the question was
"Would you support or oppose the Government imposing an 8% tax increase on all rents".
Because this, in effect, is what would happen.
I agree on that last point, not the first as I what NI hypothecated to fund the state pension and JSA and maybe some health and social care
And what happens if the hypothecated tax is insufficient to cover expenditure?
It shouldn't be, because everybody gets a state pension equivalent to what they paid in and contributions based JSA based on what they paid in.
Most OECD nations also fund most healthcare via state provided insurance.
If you haven't paid in enough for a state pension or JSA if unemployed, income tax can still fund pension credit and universal credit for you
This is simply not true. Even at the most basic level.
The earnings level to count as contributing to your state pension is £125 a week. However you don't actually have to start paying any NI until you earn at least £242 a week.
So there are a group of low paid workers (roughly those earning between £6500 and £12500 a year) who are qualifying towards getting their full state pension (35 years of contributions) but do not actually pay any NI.
NI was created in 1911 to fund unemployment benefit and state pensions and some health benefits (pre income tax funded NHS).
You could easily include those earning between £6500 and £12500 in those required to pay NI too in order to get the state pension.
If they don't want to do that they can opt out and just get taxpayer funded pension credit instead
Your point is... well pointless. Income tax was first levied in the early 19th century to pay for the wars with France. That hasn't stopped it being expanded to cover all manner of GIvernment expenditure. The fact that a tax was initially levied for a particular purpose does not mean that, more than 100 years afterwards, it is still ringfenced for that purpose.
NI goes into general Goverment expenditure which includes Pensions and healthcare. We should recognise that reality and now merge them so that everyone is paying the same amount of taxation on the same amount of income, whatever its source.
Even older; in the 18th century, but only just, by a year or two. Which reinforces your point.
How much trouble do people think Rayner is going to be in with the ethics advisor on her house dealings? I have no clue and would be interested if anyone has a handle on this and whether it is just a storm in a teacup/opponents making something out of nothing or something that could see her in real trouble?
It sounds iffy, but an article in The Telegraph today says...
"Sources close to Ms Rayner said she had divorced her husband and “ceased to own a stake” in the family home in Ashton-under-Lyne some time before buying the Hove apartment. But she continued to insist that the Ashton house remained her primary residence because her children still lived there."
If that's the case, and it's simply her ex getting the old family home, and her having to buy a new one, then that seems like a total non-story.
So where does she stay when she is in her constituency doing work for the people she represents? She can’t do it from Hove or London so is she renting somewhere or staying in a hotel - and is she billing that to the taxpayer or is she just not bothered with the constituency?
Can’t imagine her constituents would be ok with her having no residential presence in her seat.
Admiralty House, I'd assume. Pretty sure I remember reading she had a flat, but ended the contract on it a while back.
I think I'd want an actual home I owned as a backup, with so many people wanting her out of the job
Admiralty house is a long way away from her constituency. So where does she stay when doing constituency work? A mate’s sofa? A Britannia hotel, if any are free these days? Another flat she rents at the taxpayer expense?
How does she even have time to enjoy her Hove flat what with being Deputy PM and other London political duties and the demands of being a constituency MP?
I thought part of the issue is that she's still paying council tax at the Ashton home, as her children live there, and that's her base in Manchester?
If it's the case that this is simply her buying a house after a divorce, then the stamp duty doesn't seem to be an issue, as it would be odd to indefinitely stay on the deeds of a house you've handed over in the divorce.
If she stays with her ex and the kids when in Manchester, which seems ideal if it's an amicable divorce - as it wouldn't make much sense renting somewhere or getting hotels and moving the kids about.
The council tax then needs to be paid on a second home in either Brighton or Ashton. It doesn't seem to make much difference financially which way round it is.
Add to that the differing timescales of the various processes and [edit] registries, and one can see how things can be whipped up out of nothing.
One might also wonder, what has happened to GDPR and personal data security?
it's the telegraph, all they do is smear left wing politicians
I support NI and tax being combined so that ALL earnings are subject to the same amounts of tax.
However as others have pointed out, I wonder what this polling would be if the question was
"Would you support or oppose the Government imposing an 8% tax increase on all rents".
Because this, in effect, is what would happen.
I agree on that last point, not the first as I what NI hypothecated to fund the state pension and JSA and maybe some health and social care
And what happens if the hypothecated tax is insufficient to cover expenditure?
It shouldn't be, because everybody gets a state pension equivalent to what they paid in and contributions based JSA based on what they paid in.
Most OECD nations also fund most healthcare via state provided insurance.
If you haven't paid in enough for a state pension or JSA if unemployed, income tax can still fund pension credit and universal credit for you
This is simply not true. Even at the most basic level.
The earnings level to count as contributing to your state pension is £125 a week. However you don't actually have to start paying any NI until you earn at least £242 a week.
So there are a group of low paid workers (roughly those earning between £6500 and £12500 a year) who are qualifying towards getting their full state pension (35 years of contributions) but do not actually pay any NI.
NI was created in 1911 to fund unemployment benefit and state pensions and some health benefits (pre income tax funded NHS).
You could easily include those earning between £6500 and £12500 in those required to pay NI too in order to get the state pension.
If they don't want to do that they can opt out and just get taxpayer funded pension credit instead
Your point is... well pointless. Income tax was first levied in the early 19th century to pay for the wars with France. That hasn't stopped it being expanded to cover all manner of GIvernment expenditure. The fact that a tax was initially levied for a particular purpose does not mean that, more than 100 years afterwards, it is still ringfenced for that purpose.
NI goes into general Goverment expenditure which includes Pensions and healthcare. We should recognise that reality and now merge them so that everyone is paying the same amount of taxation on the same amount of income, whatever its source.
Income tax still funds defence and any foreign conflicts we are involved with today. So that does not dispute my point at all.
We already have one of the least contributory welfare and healthcare systems in the developed world and you clearly want to make welfare even more dependency based and non contributory by making it entirely tax funded from income tax.
All eliminating NI would do is end one of the few elements of contributory welfare we have, with state pensions and contributions based JSA reliant on NI contributions.
Which is why your proposal must be vehemently opposed by anyone but the socialist welfare dependency loving left who clearly you want to encourage. Instead we should be hypothecating NI to fund state pensions and JSA and also start having state backed insurance for healthcare like most OECD nations too not just a taxpayer funded NHS
I support NI and tax being combined so that ALL earnings are subject to the same amounts of tax.
However as others have pointed out, I wonder what this polling would be if the question was
"Would you support or oppose the Government imposing an 8% tax increase on all rents".
Because this, in effect, is what would happen.
I agree on that last point, not the first as I what NI hypothecated to fund the state pension and JSA and maybe some health and social care
And what happens if the hypothecated tax is insufficient to cover expenditure?
It shouldn't be, because everybody gets a state pension equivalent to what they paid in and contributions based JSA based on what they paid in.
Most OECD nations also fund most healthcare via state provided insurance.
If you haven't paid in enough for a state pension or JSA if unemployed, income tax can still fund pension credit and universal credit for you
This is simply not true. Even at the most basic level.
The earnings level to count as contributing to your state pension is £125 a week. However you don't actually have to start paying any NI until you earn at least £242 a week.
So there are a group of low paid workers (roughly those earning between £6500 and £12500 a year) who are qualifying towards getting their full state pension (35 years of contributions) but do not actually pay any NI.
NI was created in 1911 to fund unemployment benefit and state pensions and some health benefits (pre income tax funded NHS).
You could easily include those earning between £6500 and £12500 in those required to pay NI too in order to get the state pension.
If they don't want to do that they can opt out and just get taxpayer funded pension credit instead
Your point is... well pointless. Income tax was first levied in the early 19th century to pay for the wars with France. That hasn't stopped it being expanded to cover all manner of GIvernment expenditure. The fact that a tax was initially levied for a particular purpose does not mean that, more than 100 years afterwards, it is still ringfenced for that purpose.
NI goes into general Goverment expenditure which includes Pensions and healthcare. We should recognise that reality and now merge them so that everyone is paying the same amount of taxation on the same amount of income, whatever its source.
Plus as you, me and many other people have pointed out to HYUFD many, many times before (including on this thread I note you have again) you get NI credits without actually paying NI already today as the thresholds don't line up.
If you want a contributory system its entirely possible to have a genuine contributory system based on income tax. It shouldn't make a difference how you earn your income, whether salaried or otherwise, you should make the same contribution then get the same contributory-based benefits.
No reason to keep the broken NI system which isn't contribution based already today and isn't fit for purpose.
I support NI and tax being combined so that ALL earnings are subject to the same amounts of tax.
However as others have pointed out, I wonder what this polling would be if the question was
"Would you support or oppose the Government imposing an 8% tax increase on all rents".
Because this, in effect, is what would happen.
I agree on that last point, not the first as I what NI hypothecated to fund the state pension and JSA and maybe some health and social care
And what happens if the hypothecated tax is insufficient to cover expenditure?
It shouldn't be, because everybody gets a state pension equivalent to what they paid in and contributions based JSA based on what they paid in.
Most OECD nations also fund most healthcare via state provided insurance.
If you haven't paid in enough for a state pension or JSA if unemployed, income tax can still fund pension credit and universal credit for you
This is simply not true. Even at the most basic level.
The earnings level to count as contributing to your state pension is £125 a week. However you don't actually have to start paying any NI until you earn at least £242 a week.
So there are a group of low paid workers (roughly those earning between £6500 and £12500 a year) who are qualifying towards getting their full state pension (35 years of contributions) but do not actually pay any NI.
NI was created in 1911 to fund unemployment benefit and state pensions and some health benefits (pre income tax funded NHS).
You could easily include those earning between £6500 and £12500 in those required to pay NI too in order to get the state pension.
If they don't want to do that they can opt out and just get taxpayer funded pension credit instead
Your point is... well pointless. Income tax was first levied in the early 19th century to pay for the wars with France. That hasn't stopped it being expanded to cover all manner of GIvernment expenditure. The fact that a tax was initially levied for a particular purpose does not mean that, more than 100 years afterwards, it is still ringfenced for that purpose.
NI goes into general Goverment expenditure which includes Pensions and healthcare. We should recognise that reality and now merge them so that everyone is paying the same amount of taxation on the same amount of income, whatever its source.
Plus as you, me and many other people have pointed out to HYUFD many, many times before (including on this thread I note you have again) you get NI credits without actually paying NI already today as the thresholds don't line up.
If you want a contributory system its entirely possible to have a genuine contributory system based on income tax. It shouldn't make a difference how you earn your income, whether salaried or otherwise, you should make the same contribution then get the same contributory-based benefits.
No reason to keep the broken NI system which isn't contribution based already today and isn't fit for purpose.
And NI credits should be scrapped too.
If you haven't paid in enough for a state pension or JSA you should only get pension credit or UC.
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I support NI and tax being combined so that ALL earnings are subject to the same amounts of tax.
However as others have pointed out, I wonder what this polling would be if the question was
"Would you support or oppose the Government imposing an 8% tax increase on all rents".
Because this, in effect, is what would happen.
I agree on that last point, not the first as I what NI hypothecated to fund the state pension and JSA and maybe some health and social care
And what happens if the hypothecated tax is insufficient to cover expenditure?
It shouldn't be, because everybody gets a state pension equivalent to what they paid in and contributions based JSA based on what they paid in.
Most OECD nations also fund most healthcare via state provided insurance.
If you haven't paid in enough for a state pension or JSA if unemployed, income tax can still fund pension credit and universal credit for you
This is simply not true. Even at the most basic level.
The earnings level to count as contributing to your state pension is £125 a week. However you don't actually have to start paying any NI until you earn at least £242 a week.
So there are a group of low paid workers (roughly those earning between £6500 and £12500 a year) who are qualifying towards getting their full state pension (35 years of contributions) but do not actually pay any NI.
NI was created in 1911 to fund unemployment benefit and state pensions and some health benefits (pre income tax funded NHS).
You could easily include those earning between £6500 and £12500 in those required to pay NI too in order to get the state pension.
If they don't want to do that they can opt out and just get taxpayer funded pension credit instead
Your point is... well pointless. Income tax was first levied in the early 19th century to pay for the wars with France. That hasn't stopped it being expanded to cover all manner of GIvernment expenditure. The fact that a tax was initially levied for a particular purpose does not mean that, more than 100 years afterwards, it is still ringfenced for that purpose.
NI goes into general Goverment expenditure which includes Pensions and healthcare. We should recognise that reality and now merge them so that everyone is paying the same amount of taxation on the same amount of income, whatever its source.
Income tax still funds defence and any foreign conflicts we are involved with today. So that does not dispute my point at all.
We already have one of the least contributory welfare and healthcare systems in the developed world and you clearly want to make welfare even more dependency based and non contributory by making it entirely tax funded from income tax.
All eliminating NI would do is end one of the few elements of contributory welfare we have, with state pensions and contributions based JSA reliant on NI contributions.
Which is why your proposal must be vehemently opposed by anyone but the socialist welfare dependency loving left who clearly you want to encourage. Instead we should be hypothecating NI to fund state pensions and JSA and also start having state backed insurance for healthcare like most OECD nations too not just a taxpayer funded NHS
NI isn't contributory already today, millions of people get NI "contributions" without paying a single penny of NI.
If you want a real, contributory system then great, lets design one. No reason it can't be based off a merged income tax though.
If a merged income tax was used to make contributions then would that satisfy your concerns?
I support NI and tax being combined so that ALL earnings are subject to the same amounts of tax.
However as others have pointed out, I wonder what this polling would be if the question was
"Would you support or oppose the Government imposing an 8% tax increase on all rents".
Because this, in effect, is what would happen.
I agree on that last point, not the first as I what NI hypothecated to fund the state pension and JSA and maybe some health and social care
And what happens if the hypothecated tax is insufficient to cover expenditure?
It shouldn't be, because everybody gets a state pension equivalent to what they paid in and contributions based JSA based on what they paid in.
Most OECD nations also fund most healthcare via state provided insurance.
If you haven't paid in enough for a state pension or JSA if unemployed, income tax can still fund pension credit and universal credit for you
This is simply not true. Even at the most basic level.
The earnings level to count as contributing to your state pension is £125 a week. However you don't actually have to start paying any NI until you earn at least £242 a week.
So there are a group of low paid workers (roughly those earning between £6500 and £12500 a year) who are qualifying towards getting their full state pension (35 years of contributions) but do not actually pay any NI.
NI was created in 1911 to fund unemployment benefit and state pensions and some health benefits (pre income tax funded NHS).
You could easily include those earning between £6500 and £12500 in those required to pay NI too in order to get the state pension.
If they don't want to do that they can opt out and just get taxpayer funded pension credit instead
Your point is... well pointless. Income tax was first levied in the early 19th century to pay for the wars with France. That hasn't stopped it being expanded to cover all manner of GIvernment expenditure. The fact that a tax was initially levied for a particular purpose does not mean that, more than 100 years afterwards, it is still ringfenced for that purpose.
NI goes into general Goverment expenditure which includes Pensions and healthcare. We should recognise that reality and now merge them so that everyone is paying the same amount of taxation on the same amount of income, whatever its source.
Income tax still funds defence and any foreign conflicts we are involved with today. So that does not dispute my point at all.
We already have one of the least contributory welfare and healthcare systems in the developed world and you clearly want to make welfare even more dependency based and non contributory by making it entirely tax funded from income tax.
All eliminating NI would do is end one of the few elements of contributory welfare we have, with state pensions and contributions based JSA reliant on NI contributions.
Which is why your proposal must be vehemently opposed by anyone but the socialist welfare dependency loving left who clearly you want to encourage. Instead we should be hypothecating NI to fund state pensions and JSA and also start having state backed insurance for healthcare like most OECD nations too not just a taxpayer funded NHS
NI isn't contributory already today, millions of people get NI "contributions" without paying a single penny of NI.
If you want a real, contributory system then great, lets design one. No reason it can't be based off a merged income tax though.
If a merged income tax was used to make contributions then would that satisfy your concerns?
As I already said, NI credits should also be scrapped and anyone earning from £6500 to £12000 required to pay NI to get the state pension or JSA otherwise they only get pension credits or UC
Trump cabinet officials told a federal appeals court that ruling president’s global tariffs illegal would seriously harm US foreign policy, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warning of “dangerous diplomatic embarrassment.”
Incredible how many right of centre commentators now no longer believe in an independent judiciary or the rule of law.
If a result in a court is not what their street and online mob want then the system is wrong and should be torn down.
This is rule by mob.
Twenty years ago any conservative would run a bloody mile from this.
I think it can hold for now, though there were some scuffles already between protestors and police in Epping tonight and protests are being organised at asylum hotels nationwide this weekend.
However, if the court in October rules that hotels housing asylum seekers full time is no change of use and no planning permission required then it will be very difficult for the Starmer government to maintain public order if the Home Office insists on keeping such hotels open for migrants funded by them
How much trouble do people think Rayner is going to be in with the ethics advisor on her house dealings? I have no clue and would be interested if anyone has a handle on this and whether it is just a storm in a teacup/opponents making something out of nothing or something that could see her in real trouble?
It sounds iffy, but an article in The Telegraph today says...
"Sources close to Ms Rayner said she had divorced her husband and “ceased to own a stake” in the family home in Ashton-under-Lyne some time before buying the Hove apartment. But she continued to insist that the Ashton house remained her primary residence because her children still lived there."
If that's the case, and it's simply her ex getting the old family home, and her having to buy a new one, then that seems like a total non-story.
So where does she stay when she is in her constituency doing work for the people she represents? She can’t do it from Hove or London so is she renting somewhere or staying in a hotel - and is she billing that to the taxpayer or is she just not bothered with the constituency?
Can’t imagine her constituents would be ok with her having no residential presence in her seat.
And of course, voters want their representatives to be local. But almost all residents contact you by email, nowadays, and those that don’t phone up, which could easily be to a mobile. Most casework is then dealt with by sending emails or making phone calls. The number of instances where you need to go and see someone, or something, as a councillor is relatively small, and I doubt it is much greater for an MP. Whilst living in your patch keeps you in touch with the local area and what’s going on, the truth is that in the modern world you can be an effective representative from anywhere. Except for contributing to meetings, obvs, since the government took away the option to dial in remotely that kept councils running during the pandemic. And for MPs those meetings are mostly in London, anyway.
A huge loss for the President and his trade agenda this afternoon as an appeals court upholds a ruling that all of the tariffs he has imposed under the IEEPA statute — which is the vast majority of the country-specific tariffs we’ve seen so far this term — are illegal.
Much more to come here. This will all but certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court. The most immediate question is whether the tariffs are allowed to remain in place as the appeals process continues to play out.
In recent decades in the U.S. and across the developed world, birth rates have barely changed for right-wingers.
The more left-wing, the more fertility rates have fallen!”
Interesting, across the developed world rightwingers fertility rates are still at 2.0 ie roughly replacement level, leftwingers fertility rate has collapsed to 1.6.
In the US rightwingers fertility even higher at 2.8 and leftwingers at just 1.8
We had three kids in an effort to populate the world with tofu eating wokerati. I wish we'd gone for the fourth but seriously, kids are exhausting. I guess it's not too late...
In recent decades in the U.S. and across the developed world, birth rates have barely changed for right-wingers.
The more left-wing, the more fertility rates have fallen!”
Interesting, across the developed world rightwingers fertility rates are still at 2.0 ie roughly replacement level, leftwingers fertility rate has collapsed to 1.6.
In the US rightwingers fertility even higher at 2.8 and leftwingers at just 1.8
We had three kids in an effort to populate the world with tofu eating wokerati. I wish we'd gone for the fourth but seriously, kids are exhausting. I guess it's not too late...
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
It effectively was when NI was set up in 1911.
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
It effectively was when NI was set up in 1911.
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
No, it was never hypothecated, not even in 1911.
It is tax and spend. Be far cheaper to have one tax and make it truly contributions-based on that one tax? Or do you oppose contributions-based reforms?
There would be zero administrative cost to work out contributions for pension and JSA from income tax, just set a threshold that has to be met to earn the contribution - just as already happens today with NI.
edit — just seen BigG's post with the other parties.
Thank heavens the next election is as late as nearly 4 years away !
They ought to roll the dice and put Angela Rayner in number 10.
I’d be happy to see her in No 10. It’s hard to see how Starmer recovers , he wasn’t really liked before the election and won because people wanted the Tories out , now his popularity is completely in the toilet . He’s also hacked off a lot of Labour voters who are sick of his efforts to court Reform voters and his vomit inducing Trump arse licking .
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
It effectively was when NI was set up in 1911.
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
No, it was never hypothecated, not even in 1911.
It is tax and spend. Be far cheaper to have one tax and make it truly contributions-based on that one tax? Or do you oppose contributions-based reforms?
There would be zero administrative cost to work out contributions for pension and JSA from income tax, just set a threshold that has to be met to earn the contribution - just as already happens today with NI.
In 1911 National Insurance was only used for state pensions, unemployment benefit and some health costs.
Income tax is a tax not an insurance there would be huge admin costs to work out what funds pensions and JSA from it given it also has to fund defence, the police, transport, customs, courts etc unlike ringfenced NI
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
It effectively was when NI was set up in 1911.
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
No, it was never hypothecated, not even in 1911.
It is tax and spend. Be far cheaper to have one tax and make it truly contributions-based on that one tax? Or do you oppose contributions-based reforms?
There would be zero administrative cost to work out contributions for pension and JSA from income tax, just set a threshold that has to be met to earn the contribution - just as already happens today with NI.
In 1911 National Insurance was only used for state pensions, unemployment benefit and some health costs.
Income tax is a tax not an insurance there would be huge admin costs to work out what funds pensions and JSA from it given it also has to fund defence, the police, transport, customs, courts etc unlike ringfenced NI
That's not true, it wasn't used for state pensions until 1948.
NI isn't, never has been, and never will be ringfenced.
Ringfencing any tax doesn't work since the amount spent or raised will vary - if we go into a recession and unemployment surges then tax payments (including NI) can fall while JSA etc benefit payments rise, it is quite literally impossible to link the tax and spend so they balance every year as they are countercyclical.
Which is why it is and always has been just a tax. A tax with thresholds. Income tax can be the same tax, with thresholds.
In recent decades in the U.S. and across the developed world, birth rates have barely changed for right-wingers.
The more left-wing, the more fertility rates have fallen!”
Interesting, across the developed world rightwingers fertility rates are still at 2.0 ie roughly replacement level, leftwingers fertility rate has collapsed to 1.6.
In the US rightwingers fertility even higher at 2.8 and leftwingers at just 1.8
We had three kids in an effort to populate the world with tofu eating wokerati. I wish we'd gone for the fourth but seriously, kids are exhausting. I guess it's not too late...
Bonk for Corbyn and Sir Keir
In the immortal words of Sean Lock, that would be a "challenging wank".
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
It effectively was when NI was set up in 1911.
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
No, it was never hypothecated, not even in 1911.
It is tax and spend. Be far cheaper to have one tax and make it truly contributions-based on that one tax? Or do you oppose contributions-based reforms?
There would be zero administrative cost to work out contributions for pension and JSA from income tax, just set a threshold that has to be met to earn the contribution - just as already happens today with NI.
In 1911 National Insurance was only used for state pensions, unemployment benefit and some health costs.
Income tax is a tax not an insurance there would be huge admin costs to work out what funds pensions and JSA from it given it also has to fund defence, the police, transport, customs, courts etc unlike ringfenced NI
That's not true, it wasn't used for state pensions until 1948.
NI isn't, never has been, and never will be ringfenced.
Ringfencing any tax doesn't work since the amount spent or raised will vary - if we go into a recession and unemployment surges then tax payments (including NI) can fall while JSA etc benefit payments rise, it is quite literally impossible to link the tax and spend so they balance every year as they are countercyclical.
Which is why it is and always has been just a tax. A tax with thresholds. Income tax can be the same tax, with thresholds.
Originally NI schemes were used to fund health and pension insurance benefits run by approved societies and unemployment benefit administered by government.
Given JSA funds will have been ringfenced in any recession they will already be ready for those newly unemployed who would not have needed to claim them beforehand.
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
It effectively was when NI was set up in 1911.
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
No, it was never hypothecated, not even in 1911.
It is tax and spend. Be far cheaper to have one tax and make it truly contributions-based on that one tax? Or do you oppose contributions-based reforms?
There would be zero administrative cost to work out contributions for pension and JSA from income tax, just set a threshold that has to be met to earn the contribution - just as already happens today with NI.
In 1911 National Insurance was only used for state pensions, unemployment benefit and some health costs.
Income tax is a tax not an insurance there would be huge admin costs to work out what funds pensions and JSA from it given it also has to fund defence, the police, transport, customs, courts etc unlike ringfenced NI
That's not true, it wasn't used for state pensions until 1948.
NI isn't, never has been, and never will be ringfenced.
Ringfencing any tax doesn't work since the amount spent or raised will vary - if we go into a recession and unemployment surges then tax payments (including NI) can fall while JSA etc benefit payments rise, it is quite literally impossible to link the tax and spend so they balance every year as they are countercyclical.
Which is why it is and always has been just a tax. A tax with thresholds. Income tax can be the same tax, with thresholds.
Originally NI schemes were used to fund health and pension insurance benefits run by approved societies and unemployment benefit administered by government.
Given JSA funds will have been ringfenced in any recession they will already be ready for those newly unemployed who would not have needed to claim them beforehand.
Again, they're not ringfenced, nor can they be like that. How do you have the funds ready for the newly unemployed if you don't know when the next recession is, nor how many people will become unemployed?
Lets say we hit a major recession this Parliament that results in five million becoming unemployed. That instantly means all those 5 million aren't paying a penny in your beloved NI, but they're all entitled to JSA. You expect that to be ringfenced balanced?
Not possible. Never been possible. That's why it all goes into, and all comes out of, the same HMRC pot as all our other taxes, spending and our deficit and borrowing.
In recent decades in the U.S. and across the developed world, birth rates have barely changed for right-wingers.
The more left-wing, the more fertility rates have fallen!”
Interesting, across the developed world rightwingers fertility rates are still at 2.0 ie roughly replacement level, leftwingers fertility rate has collapsed to 1.6.
In the US rightwingers fertility even higher at 2.8 and leftwingers at just 1.8
We had three kids in an effort to populate the world with tofu eating wokerati. I wish we'd gone for the fourth but seriously, kids are exhausting. I guess it's not too late...
Bonk for Corbyn and Sir Keir
In the immortal words of Sean Lock, that would be a "challenging wank".
Work stopped at approx 9:30. I've set my OOO on my calendar, notified the organisers of next week's meetings that I will not be attending, tickets are purchased, I will be on Scottish soil Monday morning ready for RSS2025 in Edinburgh, my second time in that fair city.
I don't think I would ever vote Reform because although Farage is a libertarian I don't think I'd trust the rest of them not to be authoritarians when they get into office, and do things like introduce ID cards. But despite that I'm not at all surprised to see the party on 35% with at least one pollster.
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
It effectively was when NI was set up in 1911.
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
No, it was never hypothecated, not even in 1911.
It is tax and spend. Be far cheaper to have one tax and make it truly contributions-based on that one tax? Or do you oppose contributions-based reforms?
There would be zero administrative cost to work out contributions for pension and JSA from income tax, just set a threshold that has to be met to earn the contribution - just as already happens today with NI.
In 1911 National Insurance was only used for state pensions, unemployment benefit and some health costs.
Income tax is a tax not an insurance there would be huge admin costs to work out what funds pensions and JSA from it given it also has to fund defence, the police, transport, customs, courts etc unlike ringfenced NI
That's not true, it wasn't used for state pensions until 1948.
NI isn't, never has been, and never will be ringfenced.
Ringfencing any tax doesn't work since the amount spent or raised will vary - if we go into a recession and unemployment surges then tax payments (including NI) can fall while JSA etc benefit payments rise, it is quite literally impossible to link the tax and spend so they balance every year as they are countercyclical.
Which is why it is and always has been just a tax. A tax with thresholds. Income tax can be the same tax, with thresholds.
Originally NI schemes were used to fund health and pension insurance benefits run by approved societies and unemployment benefit administered by government.
Given JSA funds will have been ringfenced in any recession they will already be ready for those newly unemployed who would not have needed to claim them beforehand.
Again, they're not ringfenced, nor can they be like that. How do you have the funds ready for the newly unemployed if you don't know when the next recession is, nor how many people will become unemployed?
Lets say we hit a major recession this Parliament that results in five million becoming unemployed. That instantly means all those 5 million aren't paying a penny in your beloved NI, but they're all entitled to JSA. You expect that to be ringfenced balanced?
Not possible. Never been possible. That's why it all goes into, and all comes out of, the same HMRC pot as all our other taxes, spending and our deficit and borrowing.
As everybody in work will have contributed for years via NI and built up a fund for their JSA if they are ever unemployed and need it.
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
It effectively was when NI was set up in 1911.
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
No, it was never hypothecated, not even in 1911.
It is tax and spend. Be far cheaper to have one tax and make it truly contributions-based on that one tax? Or do you oppose contributions-based reforms?
There would be zero administrative cost to work out contributions for pension and JSA from income tax, just set a threshold that has to be met to earn the contribution - just as already happens today with NI.
In 1911 National Insurance was only used for state pensions, unemployment benefit and some health costs.
Income tax is a tax not an insurance there would be huge admin costs to work out what funds pensions and JSA from it given it also has to fund defence, the police, transport, customs, courts etc unlike ringfenced NI
That's not true, it wasn't used for state pensions until 1948.
NI isn't, never has been, and never will be ringfenced.
Ringfencing any tax doesn't work since the amount spent or raised will vary - if we go into a recession and unemployment surges then tax payments (including NI) can fall while JSA etc benefit payments rise, it is quite literally impossible to link the tax and spend so they balance every year as they are countercyclical.
Which is why it is and always has been just a tax. A tax with thresholds. Income tax can be the same tax, with thresholds.
Originally NI schemes were used to fund health and pension insurance benefits run by approved societies and unemployment benefit administered by government.
Given JSA funds will have been ringfenced in any recession they will already be ready for those newly unemployed who would not have needed to claim them beforehand.
Again, they're not ringfenced, nor can they be like that. How do you have the funds ready for the newly unemployed if you don't know when the next recession is, nor how many people will become unemployed?
Lets say we hit a major recession this Parliament that results in five million becoming unemployed. That instantly means all those 5 million aren't paying a penny in your beloved NI, but they're all entitled to JSA. You expect that to be ringfenced balanced?
Not possible. Never been possible. That's why it all goes into, and all comes out of, the same HMRC pot as all our other taxes, spending and our deficit and borrowing.
As everybody in work will have contributed for years via NI and built up a fund for their JSA if they are ever unemployed and need it.
No they bloody haven't!
Do you think there's some mythical pot of JSA money lying around somewhere with your own name on it? Are you frigging kidding yourself!? You can't actually believe that!?
If you want a private fund you need to do so privately. Abolish NI and have private savings then if that's what you're on about, but tax and spend is done nationally.
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
It effectively was when NI was set up in 1911.
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
No, it was never hypothecated, not even in 1911.
It is tax and spend. Be far cheaper to have one tax and make it truly contributions-based on that one tax? Or do you oppose contributions-based reforms?
There would be zero administrative cost to work out contributions for pension and JSA from income tax, just set a threshold that has to be met to earn the contribution - just as already happens today with NI.
In 1911 National Insurance was only used for state pensions, unemployment benefit and some health costs.
Income tax is a tax not an insurance there would be huge admin costs to work out what funds pensions and JSA from it given it also has to fund defence, the police, transport, customs, courts etc unlike ringfenced NI
That's not true, it wasn't used for state pensions until 1948.
NI isn't, never has been, and never will be ringfenced.
Ringfencing any tax doesn't work since the amount spent or raised will vary - if we go into a recession and unemployment surges then tax payments (including NI) can fall while JSA etc benefit payments rise, it is quite literally impossible to link the tax and spend so they balance every year as they are countercyclical.
Which is why it is and always has been just a tax. A tax with thresholds. Income tax can be the same tax, with thresholds.
Originally NI schemes were used to fund health and pension insurance benefits run by approved societies and unemployment benefit administered by government.
Given JSA funds will have been ringfenced in any recession they will already be ready for those newly unemployed who would not have needed to claim them beforehand.
Again, they're not ringfenced, nor can they be like that. How do you have the funds ready for the newly unemployed if you don't know when the next recession is, nor how many people will become unemployed?
Lets say we hit a major recession this Parliament that results in five million becoming unemployed. That instantly means all those 5 million aren't paying a penny in your beloved NI, but they're all entitled to JSA. You expect that to be ringfenced balanced?
Not possible. Never been possible. That's why it all goes into, and all comes out of, the same HMRC pot as all our other taxes, spending and our deficit and borrowing.
As everybody in work will have contributed for years via NI and built up a fund for their JSA if they are ever unemployed and need it.
No they bloody haven't!
Do you think there's some mythical pot of JSA money lying around somewhere with your own name on it? Are you frigging kidding yourself!? You can't actually believe that!?
If you want a private fund you need to do so privately. Abolish NI and have private savings then if that's what you're on about, but tax and spend is done nationally.
Yes if NI is hypothecated and paid in for when in work. Most western nations from the US to Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan etc have unemployment insurance funds and schemes requiring contributions to or membership of to claim the benefits if out of work
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
It effectively was when NI was set up in 1911.
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
No, it was never hypothecated, not even in 1911.
It is tax and spend. Be far cheaper to have one tax and make it truly contributions-based on that one tax? Or do you oppose contributions-based reforms?
There would be zero administrative cost to work out contributions for pension and JSA from income tax, just set a threshold that has to be met to earn the contribution - just as already happens today with NI.
In 1911 National Insurance was only used for state pensions, unemployment benefit and some health costs.
Income tax is a tax not an insurance there would be huge admin costs to work out what funds pensions and JSA from it given it also has to fund defence, the police, transport, customs, courts etc unlike ringfenced NI
That's not true, it wasn't used for state pensions until 1948.
NI isn't, never has been, and never will be ringfenced.
Ringfencing any tax doesn't work since the amount spent or raised will vary - if we go into a recession and unemployment surges then tax payments (including NI) can fall while JSA etc benefit payments rise, it is quite literally impossible to link the tax and spend so they balance every year as they are countercyclical.
Which is why it is and always has been just a tax. A tax with thresholds. Income tax can be the same tax, with thresholds.
Originally NI schemes were used to fund health and pension insurance benefits run by approved societies and unemployment benefit administered by government.
Given JSA funds will have been ringfenced in any recession they will already be ready for those newly unemployed who would not have needed to claim them beforehand.
Again, they're not ringfenced, nor can they be like that. How do you have the funds ready for the newly unemployed if you don't know when the next recession is, nor how many people will become unemployed?
Lets say we hit a major recession this Parliament that results in five million becoming unemployed. That instantly means all those 5 million aren't paying a penny in your beloved NI, but they're all entitled to JSA. You expect that to be ringfenced balanced?
Not possible. Never been possible. That's why it all goes into, and all comes out of, the same HMRC pot as all our other taxes, spending and our deficit and borrowing.
As everybody in work will have contributed for years via NI and built up a fund for their JSA if they are ever unemployed and need it.
No they bloody haven't!
Do you think there's some mythical pot of JSA money lying around somewhere with your own name on it? Are you frigging kidding yourself!? You can't actually believe that!?
If you want a private fund you need to do so privately. Abolish NI and have private savings then if that's what you're on about, but tax and spend is done nationally.
Yes if NI is hypothecated and paid in for when in work
What are you talking about? Even if its hypothecated, there's no individual pot lying there.
Do you mean hypothecated on an individual basis rather than a collective basis? If so, that's just private savings, so abolish it.
What happens to your pot if you go your career never being unemployed? What funds your pot if you're regularly unemployed?
The whole thing is done collectively so there can't be a hypothecated match since they're counter-cyclical.
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
I see you edited this in so I never originally responded to it, but this is completely backwards.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Income Tax as I already said funds almost every government department, so not only would you have to identify it you would then have to break down the percentage of it for each taxpayer that should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA etc.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
You wouldn't have to break it down, since its already not ringfenced.
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
It would be ringfenced and hypothecated under my plan
But it never has been.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
It effectively was when NI was set up in 1911.
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
No, it was never hypothecated, not even in 1911.
It is tax and spend. Be far cheaper to have one tax and make it truly contributions-based on that one tax? Or do you oppose contributions-based reforms?
There would be zero administrative cost to work out contributions for pension and JSA from income tax, just set a threshold that has to be met to earn the contribution - just as already happens today with NI.
In 1911 National Insurance was only used for state pensions, unemployment benefit and some health costs.
Income tax is a tax not an insurance there would be huge admin costs to work out what funds pensions and JSA from it given it also has to fund defence, the police, transport, customs, courts etc unlike ringfenced NI
That's not true, it wasn't used for state pensions until 1948.
NI isn't, never has been, and never will be ringfenced.
Ringfencing any tax doesn't work since the amount spent or raised will vary - if we go into a recession and unemployment surges then tax payments (including NI) can fall while JSA etc benefit payments rise, it is quite literally impossible to link the tax and spend so they balance every year as they are countercyclical.
Which is why it is and always has been just a tax. A tax with thresholds. Income tax can be the same tax, with thresholds.
Originally NI schemes were used to fund health and pension insurance benefits run by approved societies and unemployment benefit administered by government.
Given JSA funds will have been ringfenced in any recession they will already be ready for those newly unemployed who would not have needed to claim them beforehand.
Again, they're not ringfenced, nor can they be like that. How do you have the funds ready for the newly unemployed if you don't know when the next recession is, nor how many people will become unemployed?
Lets say we hit a major recession this Parliament that results in five million becoming unemployed. That instantly means all those 5 million aren't paying a penny in your beloved NI, but they're all entitled to JSA. You expect that to be ringfenced balanced?
Not possible. Never been possible. That's why it all goes into, and all comes out of, the same HMRC pot as all our other taxes, spending and our deficit and borrowing.
As everybody in work will have contributed for years via NI and built up a fund for their JSA if they are ever unemployed and need it.
No they bloody haven't!
Do you think there's some mythical pot of JSA money lying around somewhere with your own name on it? Are you frigging kidding yourself!? You can't actually believe that!?
If you want a private fund you need to do so privately. Abolish NI and have private savings then if that's what you're on about, but tax and spend is done nationally.
Yes if NI is hypothecated and paid in for when in work
What are you talking about? Even if its hypothecated, there's no individual pot lying there.
Do you mean hypothecated on an individual basis rather than a collective basis? If so, that's just private savings, so abolish it.
What happens to your pot if you go your career never being unemployed? What funds your pot if you're regularly unemployed?
The whole thing is done collectively so there can't be a hypothecated match since they're counter-cyclical.
There is if hypothecated, everybody will have built up their own pot if needed. If you never end up unemployed you just don't tap into it, if you are regularly unemployed but have used up your pot you then go on universal credit
"The polling shows that Farage’s own satisfaction ratings have hit their highest level, with 37 per cent of voters saying they are satisfied with his performance, as opposed to 32 per cent who are dissatisfied, giving a net rating of +5 per cent."
How much trouble do people think Rayner is going to be in with the ethics advisor on her house dealings? I have no clue and would be interested if anyone has a handle on this and whether it is just a storm in a teacup/opponents making something out of nothing or something that could see her in real trouble?
The issue for me is contradictory declarations: he has told HMRC that Hove is her principal residence (stamp duty) as well as telling Tameside Council that it’s Manchester (council tax)
"The Bell Hotel ruling will haunt Labour Yvette Cooper has made clear that the ‘human rights’ of illegal migrants trump the concerns of citizens. Tom Slater"
Comments
It's possible that when in the constituency she is in a spare bedroom in the former family house, either permanently or as an interim arrangement.
And for constituency work surely she'll just have a rented office like any normal MP? Don't they all have 2-3 staff in the Constituency, and 2-3 in London?
Timothy Olyphant's best role in a while, too.
https://youtu.be/U87zVkIXNI0?si=qtac7Kz2wqO9jUts
I think I'd want an actual home I owned as a backup, with so many people wanting her out of the job
How does she even have time to enjoy her Hove flat what with being Deputy PM and other London political duties and the demands of being a constituency MP?
Are they mostly getting visas for other things (students/work/?) and then claiming once they get here, or some other means?
You could easily include those earning between £6500 and £12500 in those required to pay NI too in order to get the state pension.
If they don't want to do that they can opt out and just get taxpayer funded pension credit instead
Whilst she wouldn't need to testify as a defendant, it'd be hard not to in this case if the defence was that she meant something else. You can't, as a lawyer, just come up with a credible defence and hope it all holds together. The prosecution would've kicked the tyres pretty damned hard, and she might very well be the sort of character who'd just blow the best laid plans out of the water in the witness box. Indeed, the whole reason she was there was (to put it at its most charitable) her tendency to say incredibly stupid, nasty things.
The ones coming over on boats are a much higher proportion of successful asylum applicants. The ones already here are more likely to be "bogus" and "economic migrants".
And those coming over on boats aren't all men. They're 76% adult men and 14% children... so presumably 10% adult women.
The policeman turned out to have been returned to uniform and demoted for being on the edges of the West Midlands Serious Crimes Squad comedy.
Excluding withdrawals and administrative decisions, around 68% of all initial decisions on asylum applications from people who arrived by small boat – a total of 47,000 – were grants of protection. That was higher than the grant rate for asylum applications generally, which stood at 57% for the 2018-24 period.
I'm slightly reminded of the Tony Martin case. He had a fairly credible defence on paper, but was a nightmare defendant who wouldn't, couldn't, and didn't help himself in any way.
I'm also reminded of a case I attended of a group of youths accused of murder by pushing a guy they were robbing off a bridge. Their defence was basically each blamed each other (i.e. they said they robbed him but were totally against chucking him off the bridge). This was before changes in the law of joint enterprise so it was quite a credible defence on paper. The trouble was the stupid bastards were giggling and passing notes to each other in the dock, so obviously nobody on the jury believed the defence for one millisecond.
If it's the case that this is simply her buying a house after a divorce, then the stamp duty doesn't seem to be an issue, as it would be odd to indefinitely stay on the deeds of a house you've handed over in the divorce.
If she stays with her ex and the kids when in Manchester, which seems ideal if it's an amicable divorce - as it wouldn't make much sense renting somewhere or getting hotels and moving the kids about.
The council tax then needs to be paid on a second home in either Brighton or Ashton. It doesn't seem to make much difference financially which way round it is.
One might also wonder, what has happened to GDPR and personal data security?
NI goes into general Goverment expenditure which includes Pensions and healthcare. We should recognise that reality and now merge them so that everyone is paying the same amount of taxation on the same amount of income, whatever its source.
We already have one of the least contributory welfare and healthcare systems in the developed world and you clearly want to make welfare even more dependency based and non contributory by making it entirely tax funded from income tax.
All eliminating NI would do is end one of the few elements of contributory welfare we have, with state pensions and contributions based JSA reliant on NI contributions.
Which is why your proposal must be vehemently opposed by anyone but the socialist welfare dependency loving left who clearly you want to encourage. Instead we should be hypothecating NI to fund state pensions and JSA and also start having state backed insurance for healthcare like most OECD nations too not just a taxpayer funded NHS
If you want a contributory system its entirely possible to have a genuine contributory system based on income tax. It shouldn't make a difference how you earn your income, whether salaried or otherwise, you should make the same contribution then get the same contributory-based benefits.
No reason to keep the broken NI system which isn't contribution based already today and isn't fit for purpose.
@Steven_Swinford
EXCLUSIVE:
Pat McFadden says it's time for Britain to embrace digital ID to make it easier to access public services and to help tackle illegal migration
He says Britain risks being left 'behind the curve' and argues that modern technology has changed the debate
https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1961495478031515761
If you haven't paid in enough for a state pension or JSA you should only get pension credit or UC.
Income tax funds the majority of departments, trying to identify how much each person had contributed in it and allocating a set percentage for that to the state pension or JSA would be vastly more expensive to administer than having NI ringfenced only for the state pension or JSA.
If you want a real, contributory system then great, lets design one. No reason it can't be based off a merged income tax though.
If a merged income tax was used to make contributions then would that satisfy your concerns?
If a result in a court is not what their street and online mob want then the system is wrong and should be torn down.
This is rule by mob.
Twenty years ago any conservative would run a bloody mile from this.
Trump cabinet officials told a federal appeals court that ruling president’s global tariffs illegal would seriously harm US foreign policy, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warning of “dangerous diplomatic embarrassment.”
https://bsky.app/profile/bloomberg.com/post/3lxksaqyplz2o
However, if the court in October rules that hotels housing asylum seekers full time is no change of use and no planning permission required then it will be very difficult for the Starmer government to maintain public order if the Home Office insists on keeping such hotels open for migrants funded by them
BREAKING: Most Trump tariffs are not legal, US appeals court rules
A huge loss for the President and his trade agenda this afternoon as an appeals court upholds a ruling that all of the tariffs he has imposed under the IEEPA statute — which is the vast majority of the country-specific tariffs we’ve seen so far this term — are illegal.
Much more to come here. This will all but certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court. The most immediate question is whether the tariffs are allowed to remain in place as the appeals process continues to play out.
Trying to identify how much anyone has contributed [in income tax] would cost nothing - HMRC already tracks this. You can log on to HMRC and see that quite easily: https://www.gov.uk/check-income-tax-current-year
But if you want to check NI you need to log on to a different system and check elsewhere.
So there'd be no issues saying that a threshold of having paid income tax in a year is the requirement to get pension and other contributions instead of NI.
Both already go into the same pot and spending comes out of the same pot already. There's no hypothecation already. So having it be unified rather having multiple systems would be cheaper, what is vastly more expensive is duplicating work unnecessarily that could be axed with a single system that is used for contributions.
Whereas NI could automatically just be ringfenced solely for JSA and state pensions
Reform 35% Labour 20% Conservative 17% Lib Dem 13%
And for @HYUFD
Reform majority 236
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=17&LAB=20&LIB=13&Reform=35&Green=7&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024base
@GavinNewsom
·
29m
Donald Trump LOSES big time in court.
Would be very terrible if this went viral!
https://x.com/GavinNewsom/status/1961544715012378728
NI isn't ringfenced today.
You are pretending NI is something that its not.
https://bsky.app/profile/josephpolitano.bsky.social/post/3lxl3bfton224
Heh.
Be far cheaper and easier to get rid of NI, and create a truly contributory system based on income tax contributions.
No contributions? No pension, no JSA etc
Ref 35%
Lab 20%
Awaiting other figures.
https://x.com/JAHeale/status/1961529441776984102
edit — just seen BigG's post with the other parties.
Ref 35% (+3)
Lab 20% (-3)
Con 17% (-1)
LD 13% (nc)
Grn 7% (-1)
SNP 2% (nc)
PC 1% (nc)
Oth 5% (+2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2025
They would be a vast administrative cost trying to work out contributions for pensions and JSA from income tax when it also funds so much else
It is tax and spend. Be far cheaper to have one tax and make it truly contributions-based on that one tax? Or do you oppose contributions-based reforms?
There would be zero administrative cost to work out contributions for pension and JSA from income tax, just set a threshold that has to be met to earn the contribution - just as already happens today with NI.
No doubt the SCOTUS will issue a single page in October with "He's the King" scrawled across it in black crayon.
Income tax is a tax not an insurance there would be huge admin costs to work out what funds pensions and JSA from it given it also has to fund defence, the police, transport, customs, courts etc unlike ringfenced NI
NI isn't, never has been, and never will be ringfenced.
Ringfencing any tax doesn't work since the amount spent or raised will vary - if we go into a recession and unemployment surges then tax payments (including NI) can fall while JSA etc benefit payments rise, it is quite literally impossible to link the tax and spend so they balance every year as they are countercyclical.
Which is why it is and always has been just a tax. A tax with thresholds. Income tax can be the same tax, with thresholds.
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6377384186112
Croydon S, Ruislip, Harrow E, East Grinstead, Godalming,
Farnham, Romsey, Runnymede, Windsor, Beaconsfield,
Epping Forest, Stone, Tatton, Hexham, Dumfriesshire,
Berwickshire, Aberdeenshire West
Although there weren't Reform candidates last time in Epping Forest, Stone, East Grinstead, Hexham.
Given JSA funds will have been ringfenced in any recession they will already be ready for those newly unemployed who would not have needed to claim them beforehand.
No Tory MPs in the South West or Wales either but 3 Tory MPs left in London and 7 in the South East
Lets say we hit a major recession this Parliament that results in five million becoming unemployed. That instantly means all those 5 million aren't paying a penny in your beloved NI, but they're all entitled to JSA. You expect that to be ringfenced balanced?
Not possible. Never been possible. That's why it all goes into, and all comes out of, the same HMRC pot as all our other taxes, spending and our deficit and borrowing.
https://rss.org.uk/training-events/conference-2025/
Do you think there's some mythical pot of JSA money lying around somewhere with your own name on it? Are you frigging kidding yourself!? You can't actually believe that!?
If you want a private fund you need to do so privately. Abolish NI and have private savings then if that's what you're on about, but tax and spend is done nationally.
Do you mean hypothecated on an individual basis rather than a collective basis? If so, that's just private savings, so abolish it.
What happens to your pot if you go your career never being unemployed? What funds your pot if you're regularly unemployed?
The whole thing is done collectively so there can't be a hypothecated match since they're counter-cyclical.
It's like something out of a dystopian novel.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/pat-mcfadden-digital-id-migration-8hq3j0gxs
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/reform-shock-15-point-lead-labour-farage-power-3887857
Yvette Cooper has made clear that the ‘human rights’ of illegal migrants trump the concerns of citizens.
Tom Slater"
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/29/the-bell-hotel-ruling-will-haunt-labour