Israel has just attacked the largest petrochemical facility in Iran, located in Asaluyeh.
According to the defense minister, two facilities responsible for about 85% of Iran’s petrochemical exports have been put out of operation.
Does that mean it’s no longer necessary to capture Kharg Island?
It means, alarmingly, that the Iranians have no reason at all to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as they would not benefit from it (unless of course their toll systems can be put into operation).
It's also going to *seriously* piss off the Chinese.
The Iranians have no reason to open it anyway. It’s their leverage. If I was them I’d keep it closed and just allow some ships out after a tariff is paid.
Maximum leverage on trump
It has been said that the IRGC is missing payroll, though. Not surprising since Iranian banking has been cut off by their neighbours, and they are not receiving oil revenue.
Don't pay your troops (or don't feed them), and turns out even fanatics have limits.
Agreed.
Israel and the US should go full scorched earth on Iranian petrochemicals and energy and IRGC and military until the Iranian soldiers cave and surrender and oust the regime.
That might have been a tactic - if they could protect water, power, hydrocarbons across the Gulf.
But they can't.
A few weeks back, Barty was arguing gulf war in the basis of liberating Iran's populace. Now he's advocating for the deliberate wreaking of mass destruction on civilians.
For regime change, yes.
If it liberates the civilians then it is a price worth paying.
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.
You'd have an aneurysm if anyone applied that logic to the October 7th attacks.
Absolutely, because they are completely different.
Nope, both are the deliberate targetting of civilians.
You're on the side of the country who will execute Palestinian terrorists but not Israeli terrorists, your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
I oppose the death penalty unconditionally. Always have, always will.
Targeting military, petrochemicals or energy is not targeting civilians. It absolutely could have impacts upon civilians, which all wars can, but they are legitimate military targets.
It is completely different to the deliberate targeting of civilians.
So why have we not heard a peep out of you about the new Israeli law then?
It negates Israel being a democracy when the state murders one group, fun fact these trials will be conducted by IDF military tribubals, who have a 96% conviction rate, and death penalty is carried out within 90 days.
Fun fact a lot of the defence lawyers are IDF personnel who have in the past described Palestinians as a plague to be wiped out.
The evidentiary rules are much more lax, the 'defence' aren't allowed to cross examine if the IDF says this relates to national security.
I have barely been online the past couple of weeks, but for the record I oppose this law as I oppose all forms of the death penalty.
I always form my own opinions and never agree with anyone unconditionally. Israel and America each have plenty of flaws I dislike, and I have said (repeatedly) I want to see both of their leaders defeated democratically.
Indeed I supported the (now) opposition in both countries at the last election in each.
So I hope that makes my position clear. The death penalty should not be the law.
You’re deliberately missing the point.
It’s not about the death penalty it’s about the one sided nature.
It applies to Palestinians but not Israelis.
This is a racist law, this is not the behaviour of a true democracy but a country that doesn’t value life.
I am more forgiving of Israel than most, but this race-based death penalty is like an Adolf Hitler fever dream. Incredible. For once the Nazi/genocide comparisons are entirely justified
What saddens me is how Israel has let itself sink to this level of depraved bigotry. Didn't have to happen
There was so much to admire about Israel. It is horrific what has become of them. They have become the archetypal abusive husband, "Look what you made me do!"
There are genuine "Nazis" in the Israeli government. They reallly think Palestinians are subhuman. AIUI there is a chance this appalling law will be struck down by the Supreme Court in Israel, let's hope that happens
The Israelis are whipping up a worldwide storm of hatred against themselves which will one day break over their heads. It is suicidal, apart from anything else
I think this is key: the Netanyahu government has, I suspect, sown the seeds of Israel's destruction. Should that happen, I will weep for the millions of Jews who did not support his government and who protested it.
I wonder if Israelis have misjudged things on a more fundamental basis.
I think Israel received much sympathy in the western world because of the Holocaust and respect for the way it won wars against multiple larger countries.
But both of those factors have been in decline for years, perhaps since the 1980s, and replacing them is the traditional/ancestral distrust/dislike of Jews.
That is exactly Netanyahu's shtick. All of the shock horror about Israel's barbaric behaviour is apparently an expression of latent antisemitism. It's a self-serving nonsense designed to allow them to act with impunity.
Latent antisemitism does exist though alongside more open varieties.
One of Israel's problems is that its actions are encouraging latent antisemitism to become more active.
Unfortunately, some people who weren’t previously antisemitic will become antisemitic because of Israel’s actions.
Plenty will be accused of anti semitism just for criticism of the current Israeli regime.
That happens, but it doesn't mean the genuinely anti-semitic are not amongst them.
No, but it also doesn’t mean criticism of Israel isn’t justified or anti-Semitic or motivated by Jew hatred.
No, and I would reject those who would dismiss any criticism on that basis, but it is also not hard to find where it is.
Take very early on after October 7th, with people tearing down pictures of Israeli hostages etc. I would say that was motivated by Jew hatred, and there was plenty of comments leaning in that direction, which people would attempt to defend as being anti-Israeli rather than anti-Jewish.
I didn't buy that then and don't buy it now, so I consider it reasonable to keep an eye out for anti-semitic motivation, but I'm not about to pretend anyone who raises a criticism is anti-semitic, that would be absurd.
And that accusation does happen, though sometimes it gets used preemptively before the accusation happens.
Puts the visit in a completely different context...
Trump weighed annexing parts of Canada near the U.S. border but backed off after learning King Charles is Canada’s head of state, a new royal book says, citing the president’s deference to the monarch — CBC News https://x.com/TrendPolCa/status/2040954145394286830
(And perhaps also the efforts on the right to pretend that Charles is Muslim.)
How stupid do you have to be, as Head of State, to not know the name of the head of state of your neighbour?
I'd be wary of believing anything in a 'royal book', even one with an anecdote about Trump being dumb - aren't they usually just gossip and sensationalist claims?
On top of all the sins attributed to Trump, fairly, I'd like to emphasise the extent to which he has demeaned the office of POTUS. If you'd asked me years ago if the President of the USA would ever write 'fuckin'' and 'bastards' in a tweet, or refer to Newsom as 'Newscum', I'd have laughed with disbelief. But here we are, along with lots of other examples.
He has not a shred of dignity or decency, both of which should be essential attributes for any POTUS.
Didn't they give Obama shit for wearing a tan suit?
Whereas Trump wore one of his merch hats to greet the return of his fallen troops.
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Trump pretending he gives a flying fxck about the pilot . With the military on show taking turns to blow him .
Now Hegseth is droning on about God .
Ah, now I understand Trump's "Praise be to Allah" from yesterday. Allah is God is Trump, and He does at least appreciate the praise.
I'm confused - King Charles is the Muslim, or is it Trump?
Trump is apparently so credulous - and so in awe of the British monarchy - that he is praising Allah in a misguided attempt to impress KCIII in advance of the State visit.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
On top of all the sins attributed to Trump, fairly, I'd like to emphasise the extent to which he has demeaned the office of POTUS. If you'd asked me years ago if the President of the USA would ever write 'fuckin'' and 'bastards' in a tweet, or refer to Newsom as 'Newscum', I'd have laughed with disbelief. But here we are, along with lots of other examples.
He has not a shred of dignity or decency, both of which should be essential attributes for any POTUS.
The UK equivalent would have been if Andrew M-W had been King Andrew I.
Perish the thought.
Of course, some say that with monarchy you cannot choose in such situations, except of course you can and we have forced out the 'real' monarch for being unacceptable in some fashion.
Firing the monarch and replacing him/her with a cheaper immigrant is a standard procedure in the U.Ks unwritten constitution.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Trump pretending he gives a flying fxck about the pilot . With the military on show taking turns to blow him .
Now Hegseth is droning on about God .
Ah, now I understand Trump's "Praise be to Allah" from yesterday. Allah is God is Trump, and He does at least appreciate the praise.
I'm confused - King Charles is the Muslim, or is it Trump?
Trump is apparently so credulous - and so in awe of the British monarchy - that he is praising Allah in a misguided attempt to impress KCIII in advance of the State visit.
As he burns his alliances, he's making Allah-inces.
On top of all the sins attributed to Trump, fairly, I'd like to emphasise the extent to which he has demeaned the office of POTUS. If you'd asked me years ago if the President of the USA would ever write 'fuckin'' and 'bastards' in a tweet, or refer to Newsom as 'Newscum', I'd have laughed with disbelief. But here we are, along with lots of other examples.
He has not a shred of dignity or decency, both of which should be essential attributes for any POTUS.
The UK equivalent would have been if Andrew M-W had been King Andrew I.
Perish the thought.
Of course, some say that with monarchy you cannot choose in such situations, except of course you can and we have forced out the 'real' monarch for being unacceptable in some fashion.
Firing the monarch and replacing him/her with a cheaper immigrant is a standard procedure in the U.Ks unwritten constitution.
It’s been done often enough
But there's Norman good enough these days.
Even if something could be Oranged.
There's just too big a Hanover from the current lot.
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
The Tories came up with the horror of Making Tax Digital (and I am glad to see everyone else now joining me in disgust). Specifically, it was David Gauke, prompted by Geo Osborne. Arrogant stupid Remainers, in other words
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
So Iran tells Trump to go forth and multiply. Its really hard not to say well done them even if they are contemptible bigots and misogynists. Where the hell does he go now and how many more have to die because of his imbecility?
Don says it is "significant" progress.
Despite all the talk of Iran being turned to molten glass it's still more likely that Trump just takes some shoddy deal which is no better than the situation before he started bombing and claims it the greatest victory in history and walks.
Ins'allah
I also noticed, today, that the Iranians are claiming the US pilot rescue was actually a decoy and a cover for US special forces purloining Iran's enriched uranium (which is or was located in roughly the same region the pilot went down)
There is room there for a face saving deal. Trump can claim he got the uranium, the Iranians can say "we survived America's might" and everyone gets a kind of win, and the Straits reopen, and the world survives
Please God
I doubt the Straits are reopening again in the sense they were before all this for a very long time.
They will, but what will happen now is lots of gas and oil pipelines will be built across the peninsula to derisk this ever happening again.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
In pure per capita terms - the number of people killed as a proportion of the number of people he was ever able to kill - Pol Pot probably takes the trophy. He never had access to more than eight million Cambodians, but he managed to kill maybe 2 million of them. A quarter of his own country
If Mao had done that good, he'd have killed abour 250 million Chinese at least, rather than the mere 60-80m he eventually racked up. Bit of an amateur, Mao, quite frankly. Pol Pot showed what you can do, if you really knuckle down to the job
On top of all the sins attributed to Trump, fairly, I'd like to emphasise the extent to which he has demeaned the office of POTUS. If you'd asked me years ago if the President of the USA would ever write 'fuckin'' and 'bastards' in a tweet, or refer to Newsom as 'Newscum', I'd have laughed with disbelief. But here we are, along with lots of other examples.
He has not a shred of dignity or decency, both of which should be essential attributes for any POTUS.
Didn't they give Obama shit for wearing a tan suit?
Yes.
Though according to a tailor at Turbull & Asser, it was actually a summer suit that happened to be tan. Most but not all summer suits are tan.
When suits were more of a thing, I used wear one in summer. Including to meetings at the Bank of England.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
In pure per capita terms - the number of people killed as a proportion of the number of people he was ever able to kill - Pol Pot probably takes the trophy. He never had access to more than eight million Cambodians, but he managed to kill maybe 2 million of them. A quarter of his own country
If Mao had done that good, he'd have killed abour 250 million Chinese at least, rather than the mere 60-80m he eventually racked up. Bit of an amateur, Mao, quite frankly. Pol Pot showed what you can do, if you really knuckle down to the job
It wouldn't have been quite that many as the population of China was slightly less than half what it is today (around 550 million people) in the early 1950s. So an equivalent ratio to Pol Pot would have been in the order of 135 million people, or about 60% more than he managed.
At some point though, you decide it isn't all relative.
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
Indeed and they’d prefer an Umbrella to self employed as well.
So Iran tells Trump to go forth and multiply. Its really hard not to say well done them even if they are contemptible bigots and misogynists. Where the hell does he go now and how many more have to die because of his imbecility?
Don says it is "significant" progress.
Despite all the talk of Iran being turned to molten glass it's still more likely that Trump just takes some shoddy deal which is no better than the situation before he started bombing and claims it the greatest victory in history and walks.
He was talking about bringing Americans home earlier today. Maybe he will concede a closed American base in the region to get the Strait reopened. That would actually be quite popular with the America First lot, and he could follow it up with closing some European bases so that it looked less like something Iran had forced him into and more like something he wanted to do himself.
It is rumoured that American losses - especially the injured - are being kept from the public. The Iranian strikes on the base in Saudi were quite devastating.
America has shown it cannot protect its own, let alone the Saudis. The point of keeping American bases in the Gulf is moot.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
In pure per capita terms - the number of people killed as a proportion of the number of people he was ever able to kill - Pol Pot probably takes the trophy. He never had access to more than eight million Cambodians, but he managed to kill maybe 2 million of them. A quarter of his own country
If Mao had done that good, he'd have killed abour 250 million Chinese at least, rather than the mere 60-80m he eventually racked up. Bit of an amateur, Mao, quite frankly. Pol Pot showed what you can do, if you really knuckle down to the job
It wouldn't have been quite that many as the population of China was slightly less than half what it is today (around 550 million people) in the early 1950s. So an equivalent ratio to Pol Pot would have been in the order of 135 million people, or about 60% more than he managed.
At some point though, you decide it isn't all relative.
By the time Mao belatedly snuffed it, the population was much higher tho. Hence, in fact, the catastrophic one child policy. Looking back the one child policy was possibly the gravest unforced error by any government in all of world history, and I include Chagos, Making Tax Digital and Britain's entry into World War One in that list
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
An argument along the lines that the end justifies the means is not unusual, and is indeed one sanctioned by the law - you are allowed to break the law in service to a higher objective, such as using violence in self-defence.
Mao and Stalin take this to an extreme, but sometimes people do pursue a logical argument to extreme ends.
Hitler I would put in a category of his own, because the Holocaust was an end in itself. The means and the end were one and the same.
Perhaps you could argue that Pol Pot should also be in this category with Hitler.
Israel has just attacked the largest petrochemical facility in Iran, located in Asaluyeh.
According to the defense minister, two facilities responsible for about 85% of Iran’s petrochemical exports have been put out of operation.
Does that mean it’s no longer necessary to capture Kharg Island?
It means, alarmingly, that the Iranians have no reason at all to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as they would not benefit from it (unless of course their toll systems can be put into operation).
It's also going to *seriously* piss off the Chinese.
The Iranians have no reason to open it anyway. It’s their leverage. If I was them I’d keep it closed and just allow some ships out after a tariff is paid.
Maximum leverage on trump
It has been said that the IRGC is missing payroll, though. Not surprising since Iranian banking has been cut off by their neighbours, and they are not receiving oil revenue.
Don't pay your troops (or don't feed them), and turns out even fanatics have limits.
Agreed.
Israel and the US should go full scorched earth on Iranian petrochemicals and energy and IRGC and military until the Iranian soldiers cave and surrender and oust the regime.
That might have been a tactic - if they could protect water, power, hydrocarbons across the Gulf.
But they can't.
A few weeks back, Barty was arguing gulf war in the basis of liberating Iran's populace. Now he's advocating for the deliberate wreaking of mass destruction on civilians.
For regime change, yes.
If it liberates the civilians then it is a price worth paying.
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.
You'd have an aneurysm if anyone applied that logic to the October 7th attacks.
Absolutely, because they are completely different.
Nope, both are the deliberate targetting of civilians.
You're on the side of the country who will execute Palestinian terrorists but not Israeli terrorists, your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
I oppose the death penalty unconditionally. Always have, always will.
Targeting military, petrochemicals or energy is not targeting civilians. It absolutely could have impacts upon civilians, which all wars can, but they are legitimate military targets.
It is completely different to the deliberate targeting of civilians.
So why have we not heard a peep out of you about the new Israeli law then?
It negates Israel being a democracy when the state murders one group, fun fact these trials will be conducted by IDF military tribubals, who have a 96% conviction rate, and death penalty is carried out within 90 days.
Fun fact a lot of the defence lawyers are IDF personnel who have in the past described Palestinians as a plague to be wiped out.
The evidentiary rules are much more lax, the 'defence' aren't allowed to cross examine if the IDF says this relates to national security.
I have barely been online the past couple of weeks, but for the record I oppose this law as I oppose all forms of the death penalty.
I always form my own opinions and never agree with anyone unconditionally. Israel and America each have plenty of flaws I dislike, and I have said (repeatedly) I want to see both of their leaders defeated democratically.
Indeed I supported the (now) opposition in both countries at the last election in each.
So I hope that makes my position clear. The death penalty should not be the law.
You’re deliberately missing the point.
It’s not about the death penalty it’s about the one sided nature.
It applies to Palestinians but not Israelis.
This is a racist law, this is not the behaviour of a true democracy but a country that doesn’t value life.
I am more forgiving of Israel than most, but this race-based death penalty is like an Adolf Hitler fever dream. Incredible. For once the Nazi/genocide comparisons are entirely justified
What saddens me is how Israel has let itself sink to this level of depraved bigotry. Didn't have to happen
There was so much to admire about Israel. It is horrific what has become of them. They have become the archetypal abusive husband, "Look what you made me do!"
There are genuine "Nazis" in the Israeli government. They reallly think Palestinians are subhuman. AIUI there is a chance this appalling law will be struck down by the Supreme Court in Israel, let's hope that happens
The Israelis are whipping up a worldwide storm of hatred against themselves which will one day break over their heads. It is suicidal, apart from anything else
I think this is key: the Netanyahu government has, I suspect, sown the seeds of Israel's destruction. Should that happen, I will weep for the millions of Jews who did not support his government and who protested it.
I wonder if Israelis have misjudged things on a more fundamental basis.
I think Israel received much sympathy in the western world because of the Holocaust and respect for the way it won wars against multiple larger countries.
But both of those factors have been in decline for years, perhaps since the 1980s, and replacing them is the traditional/ancestral distrust/dislike of Jews.
That is exactly Netanyahu's shtick. All of the shock horror about Israel's barbaric behaviour is apparently an expression of latent antisemitism. It's a self-serving nonsense designed to allow them to act with impunity.
Latent antisemitism does exist though alongside more open varieties.
One of Israel's problems is that its actions are encouraging latent antisemitism to become more active.
Unfortunately, some people who weren’t previously antisemitic will become antisemitic because of Israel’s actions.
Plenty will be accused of anti semitism just for criticism of the current Israeli regime.
That happens, but it doesn't mean the genuinely anti-semitic are not amongst them.
No, but it also doesn’t mean criticism of Israel isn’t justified or anti-Semitic or motivated by Jew hatred.
No, and I would reject those who would dismiss any criticism on that basis, but it is also not hard to find where it is.
Take very early on after October 7th, with people tearing down pictures of Israeli hostages etc. I would say that was motivated by Jew hatred, and there was plenty of comments leaning in that direction, which people would attempt to defend as being anti-Israeli rather than anti-Jewish.
I didn't buy that then and don't buy it now, so I consider it reasonable to keep an eye out for anti-semitic motivation, but I'm not about to pretend anyone who raises a criticism is anti-semitic, that would be absurd.
And that accusation does happen, though sometimes it gets used preemptively before the accusation happens.
I’d agree there was a lot of anti semitism and racism post Oct 7th
Taking down pictures of hostages is inexcusable.
As were some of the posters when people marched
But when we give a soft sentence for the below it simply emboldens them
Puts the visit in a completely different context...
Trump weighed annexing parts of Canada near the U.S. border but backed off after learning King Charles is Canada’s head of state, a new royal book says, citing the president’s deference to the monarch — CBC News https://x.com/TrendPolCa/status/2040954145394286830
(And perhaps also the efforts on the right to pretend that Charles is Muslim.)
How stupid do you have to be, as Head of State, to not know the name of the head of state of your neighbour?
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
In pure per capita terms - the number of people killed as a proportion of the number of people he was ever able to kill - Pol Pot probably takes the trophy. He never had access to more than eight million Cambodians, but he managed to kill maybe 2 million of them. A quarter of his own country
If Mao had done that good, he'd have killed abour 250 million Chinese at least, rather than the mere 60-80m he eventually racked up. Bit of an amateur, Mao, quite frankly. Pol Pot showed what you can do, if you really knuckle down to the job
It wouldn't have been quite that many as the population of China was slightly less than half what it is today (around 550 million people) in the early 1950s. So an equivalent ratio to Pol Pot would have been in the order of 135 million people, or about 60% more than he managed.
At some point though, you decide it isn't all relative.
By the time Mao belatedly snuffed it, the population was much higher tho. Hence, in fact, the catastrophic one child policy. Looking back the one child policy was possibly the gravest unforced error by any government in all of world history, and I include Chagos, Making Tax Digital and Britain's entry into World War One in that list
His main killing spree was from 1958 though, so the point stands.
It's just inspiring to see someone prepared to change their mind.
I've recently completely changed my mind on 20 mph speed limits in villages with narrow streets. I now support them. They ought to be introduced in England as well as Wales imo.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
The Joker: "The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules."
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
An argument along the lines that the end justifies the means is not unusual, and is indeed one sanctioned by the law - you are allowed to break the law in service to a higher objective, such as using violence in self-defence.
Mao and Stalin take this to an extreme, but sometimes people do pursue a logical argument to extreme ends.
Hitler I would put in a category of his own, because the Holocaust was an end in itself. The means and the end were one and the same.
Perhaps you could argue that Pol Pot should also be in this category with Hitler.
I believe that the means illuminate the ends.
If getting to your Utopia requires killing whole digit percentages of the population, then your Utopia is evil.
While a number of people confuse table manners with being a good person, there are plenty of monsters who could turn of the affable charm. Especially to deal with visitors from the outside world.
It's just inspiring to see someone prepared to change their mind.
I've recently completely changed my mind on 20 mph speed limits in villages with narrow streets. I now support them. They ought to be introduced in England as well as Wales imo.
That's not the policy, though.
Wales seemingly just flipped every 30mph speed limit to 20mph, regardless of where it was.
So Iran tells Trump to go forth and multiply. Its really hard not to say well done them even if they are contemptible bigots and misogynists. Where the hell does he go now and how many more have to die because of his imbecility?
Don says it is "significant" progress.
Despite all the talk of Iran being turned to molten glass it's still more likely that Trump just takes some shoddy deal which is no better than the situation before he started bombing and claims it the greatest victory in history and walks.
Ins'allah
I also noticed, today, that the Iranians are claiming the US pilot rescue was actually a decoy and a cover for US special forces purloining Iran's enriched uranium (which is or was located in roughly the same region the pilot went down)
There is room there for a face saving deal. Trump can claim he got the uranium, the Iranians can say "we survived America's might" and everyone gets a kind of win, and the Straits reopen, and the world survives
Please God
I doubt the Straits are reopening again in the sense they were before all this for a very long time.
They will, but what will happen now is lots of gas and oil pipelines will be built across the peninsula to derisk this ever happening again.
Yes, I think that highly likely
According to someone I know, in the oil and gas business, based in Dubai, the contracts are already being let. Big orders for equipment etc.
It's just inspiring to see someone prepared to change their mind.
I've recently completely changed my mind on 20 mph speed limits in villages with narrow streets. I now support them. They ought to be introduced in England as well as Wales imo.
That's not the policy, though.
Wales seemingly just flipped every 30mph speed limit to 20mph, regardless of where it was.
I think there were some national speed limit roads that became 20mph too.
The logic seems to be that, if there was a house on the road, then it was a residential road, and all residential roads should be 20mph.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
The Joker: "The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules."
Genghis Khan is estimated to have killed 11% of the world's population.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
An argument along the lines that the end justifies the means is not unusual, and is indeed one sanctioned by the law - you are allowed to break the law in service to a higher objective, such as using violence in self-defence.
Mao and Stalin take this to an extreme, but sometimes people do pursue a logical argument to extreme ends.
Hitler I would put in a category of his own, because the Holocaust was an end in itself. The means and the end were one and the same.
Perhaps you could argue that Pol Pot should also be in this category with Hitler.
I believe that the means illuminate the ends.
If getting to your Utopia requires killing whole digit percentages of the population, then your Utopia is evil.
While a number of people confuse table manners with being a good person, there are plenty of monsters who could turn of the affable charm. Especially to deal with visitors from the outside world.
A photographer friend of mine, now sadly departed, once had a job interviewing and photographing all the surviving Khmer Rouge leadership he could find, in the 1990s,. There were quite a few
His big takeaway (and he was no fan of the regime) - "they are often amazingly charming, with impeccable manners, they all speak perfect French. They have a disconcertingly good sense of humour" etc etc
U.S. President Donald J. Trump told reporters moments ago during a press conference, that if Iran does not make a deal by Tuesday at 8:00PM Eastern Time, then every bridge in Iran “will be decimated” and every power plant in Iran “will be out of business, burning, exploding, never to be used again,” within four hours of the deadline, or by 12:00AM on Wednesday.
It's just inspiring to see someone prepared to change their mind.
I've recently completely changed my mind on 20 mph speed limits in villages with narrow streets. I now support them. They ought to be introduced in England as well as Wales imo.
That's not the policy, though.
Wales seemingly just flipped every 30mph speed limit to 20mph, regardless of where it was.
I think there were some national speed limit roads that became 20mph too.
The logic seems to be that, if there was a house on the road, then it was a residential road, and all residential roads should be 20mph.
We have a 20mph limit on the trunk road through our village, although there appears to be an exemption for white van drivers.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
In pure per capita terms - the number of people killed as a proportion of the number of people he was ever able to kill - Pol Pot probably takes the trophy. He never had access to more than eight million Cambodians, but he managed to kill maybe 2 million of them. A quarter of his own country
If Mao had done that good, he'd have killed abour 250 million Chinese at least, rather than the mere 60-80m he eventually racked up. Bit of an amateur, Mao, quite frankly. Pol Pot showed what you can do, if you really knuckle down to the job
I was going to mention Pol Pot, but he was not running things for very long, no doubt part of the reason for his rapidity.
As I've mentioned before that he died (probably) peacefully in the late 90s, blows my mind.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump told reporters moments ago during a press conference, that if Iran does not make a deal by Tuesday at 8:00PM Eastern Time, then every bridge in Iran “will be decimated” and every power plant in Iran “will be out of business, burning, exploding, never to be used again,” within four hours of the deadline, or by 12:00AM on Wednesday.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
The Joker: "The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules."
"I'm A Dog Chasing Cars. I Wouldn't Know What To Do With One If I Caught It!"
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
An argument along the lines that the end justifies the means is not unusual, and is indeed one sanctioned by the law - you are allowed to break the law in service to a higher objective, such as using violence in self-defence.
Mao and Stalin take this to an extreme, but sometimes people do pursue a logical argument to extreme ends.
Hitler I would put in a category of his own, because the Holocaust was an end in itself. The means and the end were one and the same.
Perhaps you could argue that Pol Pot should also be in this category with Hitler.
I believe that the means illuminate the ends.
If getting to your Utopia requires killing whole digit percentages of the population, then your Utopia is evil.
While a number of people confuse table manners with being a good person, there are plenty of monsters who could turn of the affable charm. Especially to deal with visitors from the outside world.
Many a sci-fi story has explored the idea of utopia - and the good ones can often show how getting to that utopia requires some pretty dystopic acts and restrictions.
I'm personally of the opinion the Culture is such an example.
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
The Tories came up with the horror of Making Tax Digital (and I am glad to see everyone else now joining me in disgust). Specifically, it was David Gauke, prompted by Geo Osborne. Arrogant stupid Remainers, in other words
Genuine question - why is doing your tax online so grim? I do mine online, I log in to my gov portal, fill the fields with all the numbers, it’s done. They might ask for back up docs but generally I just get an email saying thanks for submitting. Is it the system the UK uses, a bad website or is it that they make it hard to allow you to submit complicated situations?
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
In pure per capita terms - the number of people killed as a proportion of the number of people he was ever able to kill - Pol Pot probably takes the trophy. He never had access to more than eight million Cambodians, but he managed to kill maybe 2 million of them. A quarter of his own country
If Mao had done that good, he'd have killed abour 250 million Chinese at least, rather than the mere 60-80m he eventually racked up. Bit of an amateur, Mao, quite frankly. Pol Pot showed what you can do, if you really knuckle down to the job
I was going to mention Pol Pot, but he was not running things for very long, no doubt part of the reason for his rapidity.
As I've mentioned before that he died (probably) peacefully in the late 90s, blows my mind.
Likewise I've probably mentioned before that I have a Piece of Pol Pot's Patio, his very last patio, in a framed box, in my living room
In the early noughties I made an evil pilgrimage to his final house - a dire and dismal concrete bunker - in the jungles of Anlong Veng, in the remote north west of the country, hard by the Thai border
Back then it was very difficult to reach, I only did the last 10km through the jungle by bribing a local kid to take me down the bush-trails on his moped. When I got there I took a few photos and stared at the sad concrete house. Then I realised I was standing on POL POT'S PATIO, albeit somewhat shabby and broken, and I could not resist the alliteration. I took three pieces as my guide diplomatically looked away
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
The Tories came up with the horror of Making Tax Digital (and I am glad to see everyone else now joining me in disgust). Specifically, it was David Gauke, prompted by Geo Osborne. Arrogant stupid Remainers, in other words
Genuine question - why is doing your tax online so grim? I do mine online, I log in to my gov portal, fill the fields with all the numbers, it’s done. They might ask for back up docs but generally I just get an email saying thanks for submitting. Is it the system the UK uses, a bad website or is it that they make it hard to allow you to submit complicated situations?
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
The Tories came up with the horror of Making Tax Digital (and I am glad to see everyone else now joining me in disgust). Specifically, it was David Gauke, prompted by Geo Osborne. Arrogant stupid Remainers, in other words
Genuine question - why is doing your tax online so grim? I do mine online, I log in to my gov portal, fill the fields with all the numbers, it’s done. They might ask for back up docs but generally I just get an email saying thanks for submitting. Is it the system the UK uses, a bad website or is it that they make it hard to allow you to submit complicated situations?
It's genuinely too depressing to essay an answer. Ask someone else
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
The Tories came up with the horror of Making Tax Digital (and I am glad to see everyone else now joining me in disgust). Specifically, it was David Gauke, prompted by Geo Osborne. Arrogant stupid Remainers, in other words
Genuine question - why is doing your tax online so grim? I do mine online, I log in to my gov portal, fill the fields with all the numbers, it’s done. They might ask for back up docs but generally I just get an email saying thanks for submitting. Is it the system the UK uses, a bad website or is it that they make it hard to allow you to submit complicated situations?
You do know that service is going to be withdrawn, don't you?
(I also continue to be baffled the Tories thought this was anything other than idiocy given how many pensioners it will hit.)
Edit x technically this is only being withdrawn for companies for now, but it will be being revoked for individuals too in the fairly near future.
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
The Tories came up with the horror of Making Tax Digital (and I am glad to see everyone else now joining me in disgust). Specifically, it was David Gauke, prompted by Geo Osborne. Arrogant stupid Remainers, in other words
Genuine question - why is doing your tax online so grim? I do mine online, I log in to my gov portal, fill the fields with all the numbers, it’s done. They might ask for back up docs but generally I just get an email saying thanks for submitting. Is it the system the UK uses, a bad website or is it that they make it hard to allow you to submit complicated situations?
You do know that service is going to be withdrawn, don't you?
(I also continue to be baffled the Tories thought this was anything other than idiocy given how many pensioners it will hit.)
Edit x technically this is only being withdrawn for companies for now, but it will be being revoked for individuals too in the fairly near future.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
An argument along the lines that the end justifies the means is not unusual, and is indeed one sanctioned by the law - you are allowed to break the law in service to a higher objective, such as using violence in self-defence.
Mao and Stalin take this to an extreme, but sometimes people do pursue a logical argument to extreme ends.
Hitler I would put in a category of his own, because the Holocaust was an end in itself. The means and the end were one and the same.
Perhaps you could argue that Pol Pot should also be in this category with Hitler.
I believe that the means illuminate the ends.
If getting to your Utopia requires killing whole digit percentages of the population, then your Utopia is evil.
While a number of people confuse table manners with being a good person, there are plenty of monsters who could turn of the affable charm. Especially to deal with visitors from the outside world.
A photographer friend of mine, now sadly departed, once had a job interviewing and photographing all the surviving Khmer Rouge leadership he could find, in the 1990s,. There were quite a few
His big takeaway (and he was no fan of the regime) - "they are often amazingly charming, with impeccable manners, they all speak perfect French. They have a disconcertingly good sense of humour" etc etc
Cf Goebbels
Stalin knew how to be affable to reporters. Apparently he could really turn on the charm. Hitler, before he became a monomaniac bore, was apparently very good at posh cocktail & dinner parties.
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
The Tories came up with the horror of Making Tax Digital (and I am glad to see everyone else now joining me in disgust). Specifically, it was David Gauke, prompted by Geo Osborne. Arrogant stupid Remainers, in other words
Genuine question - why is doing your tax online so grim? I do mine online, I log in to my gov portal, fill the fields with all the numbers, it’s done. They might ask for back up docs but generally I just get an email saying thanks for submitting. Is it the system the UK uses, a bad website or is it that they make it hard to allow you to submit complicated situations?
You do know that service is going to be withdrawn, don't you?
(I also continue to be baffled the Tories thought this was anything other than idiocy given how many pensioners it will hit.)
Edit x technically this is only being withdrawn for companies for now, but it will be being revoked for individuals too in the fairly near future.
Why will many pensioners have to fill this in ?
Out of interest.
Because of issues around having more than one pension, if you are not on a single company pension.
"You know who else didn't help us? South Korea didn't help us. We've got 45,000 soldiers in South Korea to protect them from Kim Jong Un, who I get along with very well. He said very nice things about me. He used to call Joe Biden a mentally retarded person."
South Koreans are just about the most America-loving people on earth. He is deliberately destroying all the USA's most valuable alliances. And he's doing this because he likes the leader of North Korea???
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
An argument along the lines that the end justifies the means is not unusual, and is indeed one sanctioned by the law - you are allowed to break the law in service to a higher objective, such as using violence in self-defence.
Mao and Stalin take this to an extreme, but sometimes people do pursue a logical argument to extreme ends.
Hitler I would put in a category of his own, because the Holocaust was an end in itself. The means and the end were one and the same.
Perhaps you could argue that Pol Pot should also be in this category with Hitler.
I believe that the means illuminate the ends.
If getting to your Utopia requires killing whole digit percentages of the population, then your Utopia is evil.
While a number of people confuse table manners with being a good person, there are plenty of monsters who could turn of the affable charm. Especially to deal with visitors from the outside world.
Many a sci-fi story has explored the idea of utopia - and the good ones can often show how getting to that utopia requires some pretty dystopic acts and restrictions.
I'm personally of the opinion the Culture is such an example.
I am not sure I would count the Culture as Utopia but at the same time I am not clear on what the dystopic acts and restrictions are/were that preceeded what we see in the books.
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
An argument along the lines that the end justifies the means is not unusual, and is indeed one sanctioned by the law - you are allowed to break the law in service to a higher objective, such as using violence in self-defence.
Mao and Stalin take this to an extreme, but sometimes people do pursue a logical argument to extreme ends.
Hitler I would put in a category of his own, because the Holocaust was an end in itself. The means and the end were one and the same.
Perhaps you could argue that Pol Pot should also be in this category with Hitler.
I believe that the means illuminate the ends.
If getting to your Utopia requires killing whole digit percentages of the population, then your Utopia is evil.
While a number of people confuse table manners with being a good person, there are plenty of monsters who could turn of the affable charm. Especially to deal with visitors from the outside world.
Many a sci-fi story has explored the idea of utopia - and the good ones can often show how getting to that utopia requires some pretty dystopic acts and restrictions.
I'm personally of the opinion the Culture is such an example.
I actually spoke with Banks about the Culture at a book signing. He really thought that you could get round the uncertainty principle with enough compute power. My point was that his Minds were just guessing (though at a higher level) and Special Circumstances was just being the CIA.
Note that they employed the Chairmaker, after they knew what he was.
"But I do ill in the name of Justice" has been the cry of everyone with blood up to their elbows, since before Troy.
"You know who else didn't help us? South Korea didn't help us. We've got 45,000 soldiers in South Korea to protect them from Kim Jong Un, who I get along with very well. He said very nice things about me. He used to call Joe Biden a mentally retarded person."
South Koreans are just about the most America-loving people on earth. He is deliberately destroying all the USA's most valuable alliances. And he's doing this because he likes the leader of North Korea???
Trump is that petty. Note that he likes Kim Jong Un only because Kim said nice things about him and denigrated Biden. Compare to his hatred of Zelensky who wouldn't provide evidence to go after Hunter Biden.
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
The Tories came up with the horror of Making Tax Digital (and I am glad to see everyone else now joining me in disgust). Specifically, it was David Gauke, prompted by Geo Osborne. Arrogant stupid Remainers, in other words
Genuine question - why is doing your tax online so grim? I do mine online, I log in to my gov portal, fill the fields with all the numbers, it’s done. They might ask for back up docs but generally I just get an email saying thanks for submitting. Is it the system the UK uses, a bad website or is it that they make it hard to allow you to submit complicated situations?
Your system sounds like our outgoing one.
Five times a year. May only use commercial software (no gov portal). Actual transactions required, not just balance sheet and P&L. Oh, and as of 2027 your limited company's P&L becomes public, so your foreign competitors can slag off to potential clients how small your business is whilst lying about theirs. And your friends and family can laugh about how badly you're doing.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump told reporters moments ago during a press conference, that if Iran does not make a deal by Tuesday at 8:00PM Eastern Time, then every bridge in Iran “will be decimated” and every power plant in Iran “will be out of business, burning, exploding, never to be used again,” within four hours of the deadline, or by 12:00AM on Wednesday.
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
The Tories came up with the horror of Making Tax Digital (and I am glad to see everyone else now joining me in disgust). Specifically, it was David Gauke, prompted by Geo Osborne. Arrogant stupid Remainers, in other words
Genuine question - why is doing your tax online so grim? I do mine online, I log in to my gov portal, fill the fields with all the numbers, it’s done. They might ask for back up docs but generally I just get an email saying thanks for submitting. Is it the system the UK uses, a bad website or is it that they make it hard to allow you to submit complicated situations?
How is MTD different from Self Assessment?
How is the Israeli Army different from a traffic warden?
Joking aside - it is a classic of making people bend to the process rather than create something ergonomic.
MTD means that individuals with a qualifying income of over £50k (this year) or £20k (which I think is form next year) will have to submit quarterly returns using specialist tax software. Not the free portal that you send in the figures through annually. That is closed to businesses from this year and will prob lay be closed to everyone within about three years.
You can either get a bank account that has the software attached, or pay for the software, or pay an accountant.
Reasons why this is foolish:
1) The first rule of tax is you don't make it more complicated or expensive for people to pay it. This does both.
2) It imposes a lot of extra work on everyone to do quarterly returns, which as the tax is still played annually is not merely unnecessary but arguably counterproductive.
3) It imposes considerable additional costs of both time and labour on ordinary people, as a transfer from the government.
4) as a result, despite the claims of the Treasury to the contrary, it probably will reduce the amount of tax they actually end up collecting.
5) In doing so, it will piss everyone off for no good reason.
If tax collection were being made quarterly there would be a logic to it, but it isn't. If it was possible to do it using free, or common, software it would be understandable, but it isn't either.
So it is a bad policy. Not perhaps the poll tax, but possessed of similar lack of thought.
"You know who else didn't help us? South Korea didn't help us. We've got 45,000 soldiers in South Korea to protect them from Kim Jong Un, who I get along with very well. He said very nice things about me. He used to call Joe Biden a mentally retarded person."
South Koreans are just about the most America-loving people on earth. He is deliberately destroying all the USA's most valuable alliances. And he's doing this because he likes the leader of North Korea???
To be fair, I can imagine he does like Kim Jong Un. He's the only world leader fatter, stupider, more openly corrupt, deeper in family scandal and possessed of a smaller penis than Trump.
"You know who else didn't help us? South Korea didn't help us. We've got 45,000 soldiers in South Korea to protect them from Kim Jong Un, who I get along with very well. He said very nice things about me. He used to call Joe Biden a mentally retarded person."
South Koreans are just about the most America-loving people on earth. He is deliberately destroying all the USA's most valuable alliances. And he's doing this because he likes the leader of North Korea???
Trump is that petty. Note that he likes Kim Jong Un only because Kim said nice things about him and denigrated Biden. Compare to his hatred of Zelensky who wouldn't provide evidence to go after Hunter Biden.
Zelensky should just give Trump anything on the Biden in return for military and diplomatic support just so Trump feels good and says “I told you so”. He’s a narcissistic idiot so will be exciting for him.
It's just inspiring to see someone prepared to change their mind.
I've recently completely changed my mind on 20 mph speed limits in villages with narrow streets. I now support them. They ought to be introduced in England as well as Wales imo.
That's not the policy, though.
Wales seemingly just flipped every 30mph speed limit to 20mph, regardless of where it was.
That's basically the policy in Scotland now, too, the Scottish government just hasn't publicised it in the way Wales did. All 30mph roads are to be moved to 20mph unless the local council finds a strong reason they should not be. In my area that means over 1000 roads are being reduced to 20mph later this month, with about 70 keeping the 30mph limit.
As a motorcyclist this pisses me off. It's already hard for drivers to notice a bike approaching at 30mph, going down to 20 makes it harder still. On existing 20 roads I've noticed drivers at junctions are much more likely to pull out in to my path because they didn't see me coming.
MTD means that individuals with a qualifying income of over £50k (this year) or £20k (which I think is form next year) will have to submit quarterly returns using specialist tax software. Not the free portal that you send in the figures through annually. That is closed to businesses from this year and will prob lay be closed to everyone within about three years.
You can either get a bank account that has the software attached, or pay for the software, or pay an accountant.
Reasons why this is foolish:
1) The first rule of tax is you don't make it more complicated or expensive for people to pay it. This does both.
2) It imposes a lot of extra work on everyone to do quarterly returns, which as the tax is still played annually is not merely unnecessary but arguably counterproductive.
3) It imposes considerable additional costs of both time and labour on ordinary people, as a transfer from the government.
4) as a result, despite the claims of the Treasury to the contrary, it probably will reduce the amount of tax they actually end up collecting.
5) In doing so, it will piss everyone off for no good reason.
If tax collection were being made quarterly there would be a logic to it, but it isn't. If it was possible to do it using free, or common, software it would be understandable, but it isn't either.
So it is a bad policy. Not perhaps the poll tax, but possessed of similar lack of thought.
What is especially stupid, is that it is very easy to create software that would automate tax returns, accounts, and other paperwork.
I nearly persuaded one bank to do a project to do a business account offering with this stuff built in - I was working as a developer there.
Israel has just attacked the largest petrochemical facility in Iran, located in Asaluyeh.
According to the defense minister, two facilities responsible for about 85% of Iran’s petrochemical exports have been put out of operation.
Does that mean it’s no longer necessary to capture Kharg Island?
It means, alarmingly, that the Iranians have no reason at all to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as they would not benefit from it (unless of course their toll systems can be put into operation).
It's also going to *seriously* piss off the Chinese.
The Iranians have no reason to open it anyway. It’s their leverage. If I was them I’d keep it closed and just allow some ships out after a tariff is paid.
Maximum leverage on trump
It has been said that the IRGC is missing payroll, though. Not surprising since Iranian banking has been cut off by their neighbours, and they are not receiving oil revenue.
Don't pay your troops (or don't feed them), and turns out even fanatics have limits.
Agreed.
Israel and the US should go full scorched earth on Iranian petrochemicals and energy and IRGC and military until the Iranian soldiers cave and surrender and oust the regime.
That might have been a tactic - if they could protect water, power, hydrocarbons across the Gulf.
But they can't.
A few weeks back, Barty was arguing gulf war in the basis of liberating Iran's populace. Now he's advocating for the deliberate wreaking of mass destruction on civilians.
For regime change, yes.
If it liberates the civilians then it is a price worth paying.
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.
You'd have an aneurysm if anyone applied that logic to the October 7th attacks.
Absolutely, because they are completely different.
Nope, both are the deliberate targetting of civilians.
You're on the side of the country who will execute Palestinian terrorists but not Israeli terrorists, your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
I oppose the death penalty unconditionally. Always have, always will.
Targeting military, petrochemicals or energy is not targeting civilians. It absolutely could have impacts upon civilians, which all wars can, but they are legitimate military targets.
It is completely different to the deliberate targeting of civilians.
So why have we not heard a peep out of you about the new Israeli law then?
It negates Israel being a democracy when the state murders one group, fun fact these trials will be conducted by IDF military tribubals, who have a 96% conviction rate, and death penalty is carried out within 90 days.
Fun fact a lot of the defence lawyers are IDF personnel who have in the past described Palestinians as a plague to be wiped out.
The evidentiary rules are much more lax, the 'defence' aren't allowed to cross examine if the IDF says this relates to national security.
I have barely been online the past couple of weeks, but for the record I oppose this law as I oppose all forms of the death penalty.
I always form my own opinions and never agree with anyone unconditionally. Israel and America each have plenty of flaws I dislike, and I have said (repeatedly) I want to see both of their leaders defeated democratically.
Indeed I supported the (now) opposition in both countries at the last election in each.
So I hope that makes my position clear. The death penalty should not be the law.
You’re deliberately missing the point.
It’s not about the death penalty it’s about the one sided nature.
It applies to Palestinians but not Israelis.
This is a racist law, this is not the behaviour of a true democracy but a country that doesn’t value life.
I oppose the law as I oppose all racism and death penalty.
There is much they do I dislike. This is one. It is wrong. What more do you want me to say?
Never repeat that Israel is a democracy, a real democracy doesn’t pass laws like this.
Bullshit.
Democracies can pass repugnant laws.
Hopefully it is democratically revoked.
I see you’re becoming abusive when wrong, I’ll no longer engage with you on this topic.
It is an interesting question - I’ve encountered people who believe that you can’t be a democracy if have he death penalty.
Which seems to me to be a muddling up of democracy and being liberal.
The truth is that many hideous things could get 50%+ support, in many countries. And have, in the past
You can be a democracy with the death penalty, you cannot be a democracy with such a once sided racist law like this.
It’s a bit of a philosophical question.
Previously I had thought that people who claimed Israel was an apartheid society were overegging it (eg Arab Israelis). But this is a clear apartheid law - question is whether apartheid is completely incompatible with democracy or not.
MTD means that individuals with a qualifying income of over £50k (this year) or £20k (which I think is form next year) will have to submit quarterly returns using specialist tax software. Not the free portal that you send in the figures through annually. That is closed to businesses from this year and will prob lay be closed to everyone within about three years.
You can either get a bank account that has the software attached, or pay for the software, or pay an accountant.
Reasons why this is foolish:
1) The first rule of tax is you don't make it more complicated or expensive for people to pay it. This does both.
2) It imposes a lot of extra work on everyone to do quarterly returns, which as the tax is still played annually is not merely unnecessary but arguably counterproductive.
3) It imposes considerable additional costs of both time and labour on ordinary people, as a transfer from the government.
4) as a result, despite the claims of the Treasury to the contrary, it probably will reduce the amount of tax they actually end up collecting.
5) In doing so, it will piss everyone off for no good reason.
If tax collection were being made quarterly there would be a logic to it, but it isn't. If it was possible to do it using free, or common, software it would be understandable, but it isn't either.
So it is a bad policy. Not perhaps the poll tax, but possessed of similar lack of thought.
A good summary of SOME of the horror herein. Tho it kicks in at £30k next year and £20k the year after
I have a strong suspicion that this first year will go so badly, with so many people struggling (and not filing) they will end up scrapping it. Or postponing it "indefinitely". It is the fiscal equivalent of HS2
Josef Stalin was more humane than Trump, and certainly never engaged in anything like this rhetoric.
That shows a level of ignorance so profound that it is astonishing that the author thinks their views on anything are worth sharing with the world. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, probably in that order, are the greatest mass murderers the world has ever seen. Trump is an ignorant, greedy, dishonest buffoon who has no problem killing people if he thinks it helps him make an extra buck or two but he is strictly amateur hour.
That's definitely the podium, but I think Mao gets gold, and Hitler and Stalin share silver
It baffles me that there are unironic Stalinists and Maoists in the world.
Power worshippers of the kind who worship transgressive power - “Real Men Don’t Need Rules”
An argument along the lines that the end justifies the means is not unusual, and is indeed one sanctioned by the law - you are allowed to break the law in service to a higher objective, such as using violence in self-defence.
Mao and Stalin take this to an extreme, but sometimes people do pursue a logical argument to extreme ends.
Hitler I would put in a category of his own, because the Holocaust was an end in itself. The means and the end were one and the same.
Perhaps you could argue that Pol Pot should also be in this category with Hitler.
I believe that the means illuminate the ends.
If getting to your Utopia requires killing whole digit percentages of the population, then your Utopia is evil.
While a number of people confuse table manners with being a good person, there are plenty of monsters who could turn of the affable charm. Especially to deal with visitors from the outside world.
Many a sci-fi story has explored the idea of utopia - and the good ones can often show how getting to that utopia requires some pretty dystopic acts and restrictions.
I'm personally of the opinion the Culture is such an example.
I actually spoke with Banks about the Culture at a book signing. He really thought that you could get round the uncertainty principle with enough compute power. My point was that his Minds were just guessing (though at a higher level) and Special Circumstances was just being the CIA.
Note that they employed the Chairmaker, after they knew what he was.
"But I do ill in the name of Justice" has been the cry of everyone with blood up to their elbows, since before Troy.
The first time I finished Use of Weapons I was completely gobsmacked and went straight back to page 1. It was a completely different book the second time around.
I think Inversions was one of the books where the gloves of the AI/drones came off and you got a glimpse of the underlying ferocity. It is why I agreed with @kle4's observation.
It's just inspiring to see someone prepared to change their mind.
I've recently completely changed my mind on 20 mph speed limits in villages with narrow streets. I now support them. They ought to be introduced in England as well as Wales imo.
That's not the policy, though.
Wales seemingly just flipped every 30mph speed limit to 20mph, regardless of where it was.
That's basically the policy in Scotland now, too, the Scottish government just hasn't publicised it in the way Wales did. All 30mph roads are to be moved to 20mph unless the local council finds a strong reason they should not be. In my area that means over 1000 roads are being reduced to 20mph later this month, with about 70 keeping the 30mph limit.
As a motorcyclist this pisses me off. It's already hard for drivers to notice a bike approaching at 30mph, going down to 20 makes it harder still. On existing 20 roads I've noticed drivers at junctions are much more likely to pull out in to my path because they didn't see me coming.
Not that they're expecting you to be doing 20mph? You'll have to explain why a slower speed, meaning you're visible for longer, makes you harder to see.
Israel has just attacked the largest petrochemical facility in Iran, located in Asaluyeh.
According to the defense minister, two facilities responsible for about 85% of Iran’s petrochemical exports have been put out of operation.
Does that mean it’s no longer necessary to capture Kharg Island?
It means, alarmingly, that the Iranians have no reason at all to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as they would not benefit from it (unless of course their toll systems can be put into operation).
It's also going to *seriously* piss off the Chinese.
The Iranians have no reason to open it anyway. It’s their leverage. If I was them I’d keep it closed and just allow some ships out after a tariff is paid.
Maximum leverage on trump
It has been said that the IRGC is missing payroll, though. Not surprising since Iranian banking has been cut off by their neighbours, and they are not receiving oil revenue.
Don't pay your troops (or don't feed them), and turns out even fanatics have limits.
Agreed.
Israel and the US should go full scorched earth on Iranian petrochemicals and energy and IRGC and military until the Iranian soldiers cave and surrender and oust the regime.
That might have been a tactic - if they could protect water, power, hydrocarbons across the Gulf.
But they can't.
A few weeks back, Barty was arguing gulf war in the basis of liberating Iran's populace. Now he's advocating for the deliberate wreaking of mass destruction on civilians.
For regime change, yes.
If it liberates the civilians then it is a price worth paying.
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.
You'd have an aneurysm if anyone applied that logic to the October 7th attacks.
Absolutely, because they are completely different.
Nope, both are the deliberate targetting of civilians.
You're on the side of the country who will execute Palestinian terrorists but not Israeli terrorists, your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
I oppose the death penalty unconditionally. Always have, always will.
Targeting military, petrochemicals or energy is not targeting civilians. It absolutely could have impacts upon civilians, which all wars can, but they are legitimate military targets.
It is completely different to the deliberate targeting of civilians.
So why have we not heard a peep out of you about the new Israeli law then?
It negates Israel being a democracy when the state murders one group, fun fact these trials will be conducted by IDF military tribubals, who have a 96% conviction rate, and death penalty is carried out within 90 days.
Fun fact a lot of the defence lawyers are IDF personnel who have in the past described Palestinians as a plague to be wiped out.
The evidentiary rules are much more lax, the 'defence' aren't allowed to cross examine if the IDF says this relates to national security.
I have barely been online the past couple of weeks, but for the record I oppose this law as I oppose all forms of the death penalty.
I always form my own opinions and never agree with anyone unconditionally. Israel and America each have plenty of flaws I dislike, and I have said (repeatedly) I want to see both of their leaders defeated democratically.
Indeed I supported the (now) opposition in both countries at the last election in each.
So I hope that makes my position clear. The death penalty should not be the law.
You’re deliberately missing the point.
It’s not about the death penalty it’s about the one sided nature.
It applies to Palestinians but not Israelis.
This is a racist law, this is not the behaviour of a true democracy but a country that doesn’t value life.
I am more forgiving of Israel than most, but this race-based death penalty is like an Adolf Hitler fever dream. Incredible. For once the Nazi/genocide comparisons are entirely justified
What saddens me is how Israel has let itself sink to this level of depraved bigotry. Didn't have to happen
The Israeli entity has been racist since the beginning. Maybe start by looking at the naqba, then at the Law of Return, and then at how Arabs who managed not to be expelled from the territories forcefully occupied in 1948 were under military occupation until 1966.
I think there’s a difference between racism and discrimination. “Go live elsewhere, this place is now for the jews” is different to “fuck off and die”, for example.
Ethnic Germans were expelled from many parts of Europe after the wars but I don’t think we generally call that racism.
I wouldn't argue so much about the words. The expulsions of 1948 and 1967 could accurately be characterised as telling hundreds of thousands of people of an unwanted ethnic group to "fuck off and die".
The expulsion of Germans from territories after 1945 was unjustifiable too.
Perhaps. But we don’t call it racism. It was just a consequence of losing the war.
It is ethical cleansing though which is generally disapproved of by most people on here
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
The Tories came up with the horror of Making Tax Digital (and I am glad to see everyone else now joining me in disgust). Specifically, it was David Gauke, prompted by Geo Osborne. Arrogant stupid Remainers, in other words
Genuine question - why is doing your tax online so grim? I do mine online, I log in to my gov portal, fill the fields with all the numbers, it’s done. They might ask for back up docs but generally I just get an email saying thanks for submitting. Is it the system the UK uses, a bad website or is it that they make it hard to allow you to submit complicated situations?
Your system sounds like our outgoing one.
Five times a year. May only use commercial software (no gov portal). Actual transactions required, not just balance sheet and P&L. Oh, and as of 2027 your limited company's P&L becomes public, so your foreign competitors can slag off to potential clients how small your business is whilst lying about theirs. And your friends and family can laugh about how badly you're doing.
Just a taste.
Just to clarify a few things because I think there is some misunderstanding here.
MTD already affects Limited companies if they are VAT registered. You have to make digital VAT submissions every quarter.
However that is the limit of the changes for Limited companies. The new MTD rules only apply to sole traders and landlords. Limited companies will continue to make their tax submissions on an annual basis.
MTD does not apply to individuals unless they are earning as a sole trader or a landlord. If their income is pensions or interest on savings or dividends from investments then it does not apply. At least not yet. And there has been no indication that it will be extended so far.
Perfectly fine. Just call them terrorists or make a spurious claim about Hezbollah to justify the annexation ongoing
How do you know the claim about Hezbollah isn’t legitimate?
How do you know they made that claim. I’m just saying that’s how they usually justify destroying civilian homes. Even Christian ones
Israel are in the process of annexing Lebanon up to the Litani River, as stated wa their intent by Smotrich two weeks ago. Christian villages have been damaged and razed too. Guess they’re Hezbollah too 🤷♂️
Anybody who supports Israel annexing part of Lebanon but doesn’t support Russia annexing part of Ukraine is a two-faced f*cker. I am finding increasingly difficult to think that Netanyahu is any better than Putin.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an autocrat under pressure, must be in want of a war
"Charles Moore Making Tax Digital is a miserable example of creeping state control In the hands of an incompetent authority, computer software can become a tool of persecution" (£)
If only our government were that decisive or competent.
In fact, MTD has all the hallmarks of a classic public sector project - uncertain in purpose, incompetent in execution, expensive in delivery and counter-productive in effects.
Oh no, the purpose is there. Make running a non-VAT business almost as hard as running a VAT business, paving the way for a future government to reduce the VAT limit to zero.
Also to minimise the number of self-employed. PAYE suits HMRC better.
There will be a great flowering of pur economy and society when these malevolent sociopaths are voted out, never to return.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
The Tories came up with the horror of Making Tax Digital (and I am glad to see everyone else now joining me in disgust). Specifically, it was David Gauke, prompted by Geo Osborne. Arrogant stupid Remainers, in other words
Genuine question - why is doing your tax online so grim? I do mine online, I log in to my gov portal, fill the fields with all the numbers, it’s done. They might ask for back up docs but generally I just get an email saying thanks for submitting. Is it the system the UK uses, a bad website or is it that they make it hard to allow you to submit complicated situations?
Your system sounds like our outgoing one.
Five times a year. May only use commercial software (no gov portal). Actual transactions required, not just balance sheet and P&L. Oh, and as of 2027 your limited company's P&L becomes public, so your foreign competitors can slag off to potential clients how small your business is whilst lying about theirs. And your friends and family can laugh about how badly you're doing.
Just a taste.
Just to clarify a few things because I think there is some misunderstanding here.
MTD already affects Limited companies if they are VAT registered. You have to make digital VAT submissions every quarter.
However that is the limit of the changes for Limited companies. The new MTD rules only apply to sole traders and landlords. Limited companies will continue to make their tax submissions on an annual basis.
MTD does not apply to individuals unless they are earning as a sole trader or a landlord. If their income is pensions or interest on savings or dividends from investments then it does not apply. At least not yet. And there has been no indication that it will be extended so far.
I have a non-VAT registered business, and have been told the portal closed on March 31st so next year's return will have to be done with commercial software.
But yes, my business is not on Quarterly yet.
I am also self-employed as a sole trader, but luckily don't earn enough to be caught yet.
I confess I have only once before felt such dire, inescapable foreboding. And that was in February 2020
If we are really lucky, and the war ends tonight and the Straits reopen tomorrow, we face severe economic dislocation. And the Iranian regime will stay in place, and the Israelis will carry on their smiting
More likely is that the war will continue, and maybe worsen, and the "dislocation" will turn into catastrophe
On the other hand, I did buy my sourdough
March 2020 happened and here most of us are. It was utterly shit but we muddled through.
It was fucking horrific, for me (and worse for others, of course)
On top of all the sins attributed to Trump, fairly, I'd like to emphasise the extent to which he has demeaned the office of POTUS. If you'd asked me years ago if the President of the USA would ever write 'fuckin'' and 'bastards' in a tweet, or refer to Newsom as 'Newscum', I'd have laughed with disbelief. But here we are, along with lots of other examples.
He has not a shred of dignity or decency, both of which should be essential attributes for any POTUS.
The UK equivalent would have been if Andrew M-W had been King Andrew I.
Perish the thought.
Of course, some say that with monarchy you cannot choose in such situations, except of course you can and we have forced out the 'real' monarch for being unacceptable in some fashion.
Firing the monarch and replacing him/her with a cheaper immigrant is a standard procedure in the U.Ks unwritten constitution.
It’s been done often enough
But there's Norman good enough these days.
Even if something could be Oranged.
There's just too big a Hanover from the current lot.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump told reporters moments ago during a press conference, that if Iran does not make a deal by Tuesday at 8:00PM Eastern Time, then every bridge in Iran “will be decimated” and every power plant in Iran “will be out of business, burning, exploding, never to be used again,” within four hours of the deadline, or by 12:00AM on Wednesday.
Comments
Take very early on after October 7th, with people tearing down pictures of Israeli hostages etc. I would say that was motivated by Jew hatred, and there was plenty of comments leaning in that direction, which people would attempt to defend as being anti-Israeli rather than anti-Jewish.
I didn't buy that then and don't buy it now, so I consider it reasonable to keep an eye out for anti-semitic motivation, but I'm not about to pretend anyone who raises a criticism is anti-semitic, that would be absurd.
And that accusation does happen, though sometimes it gets used preemptively before the accusation happens.
Sad that they still have so many apologists.
It’s been done often enough
I love my wife and wouldn’t swap her for the world. The best thing about marriage is you find out all your faults and it’s unprompted.
Even if something could be Oranged.
There's just too big a Hanover from the current lot.
If Mao had done that good, he'd have killed abour 250 million Chinese at least, rather than the mere 60-80m he eventually racked up. Bit of an amateur, Mao, quite frankly. Pol Pot showed what you can do, if you really knuckle down to the job
Though according to a tailor at Turbull & Asser, it was actually a summer suit that happened to be tan. Most but not all summer suits are tan.
When suits were more of a thing, I used wear one in summer. Including to meetings at the Bank of England.
At some point though, you decide it isn't all relative.
America has shown it cannot protect its own, let alone the Saudis. The point of keeping American bases in the Gulf is moot.
Mao and Stalin take this to an extreme, but sometimes people do pursue a logical argument to extreme ends.
Hitler I would put in a category of his own, because the Holocaust was an end in itself. The means and the end were one and the same.
Perhaps you could argue that Pol Pot should also be in this category with Hitler.
Taking down pictures of hostages is inexcusable.
As were some of the posters when people marched
But when we give a soft sentence for the below it simply emboldens them
https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/three-women-convicted-displaying-paraglider-stickers-london-protest
Trump hails relentless bombing of Iran alongside a giant Easter Bunny as kids descend on White House
Ranting now in WH about not letting "sick", "mentally disturbed" people near nuclear weapons
If getting to your Utopia requires killing whole digit percentages of the population, then your Utopia is evil.
While a number of people confuse table manners with being a good person, there are plenty of monsters who could turn of the affable charm. Especially to deal with visitors from the outside world.
Wales seemingly just flipped every 30mph speed limit to 20mph, regardless of where it was.
The logic seems to be that, if there was a house on the road, then it was a residential road, and all residential roads should be 20mph.
@Timodc
This doesn’t sound like a person that is about to end this war to me.
https://x.com/Timodc/status/2041218903414546684
His big takeaway (and he was no fan of the regime) - "they are often amazingly charming, with impeccable manners, they all speak perfect French. They have a disconcertingly good sense of humour" etc etc
Cf Goebbels
OSINTdefender
@sentdefender
U.S. President Donald J. Trump told reporters moments ago during a press conference, that if Iran does not make a deal by Tuesday at 8:00PM Eastern Time, then every bridge in Iran “will be decimated” and every power plant in Iran “will be out of business, burning, exploding, never to be used again,” within four hours of the deadline, or by 12:00AM on Wednesday.
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2041226195774079164
As I've mentioned before that he died (probably) peacefully in the late 90s, blows my mind.
I'm personally of the opinion the Culture is such an example.
In the early noughties I made an evil pilgrimage to his final house - a dire and dismal concrete bunker - in the jungles of Anlong Veng, in the remote north west of the country, hard by the Thai border
Back then it was very difficult to reach, I only did the last 10km through the jungle by bribing a local kid to take me down the bush-trails on his moped. When I got there I took a few photos and stared at the sad concrete house. Then I realised I was standing on POL POT'S PATIO, albeit somewhat shabby and broken, and I could not resist the alliteration. I took three pieces as my guide diplomatically looked away
(I also continue to be baffled the Tories thought this was anything other than idiocy given how many pensioners it will hit.)
Edit x technically this is only being withdrawn for companies for now, but it will be being revoked for individuals too in the fairly near future.
Out of interest.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2041223186784665861?s=20
South Koreans are just about the most America-loving people on earth. He is deliberately destroying all the USA's most valuable alliances. And he's doing this because he likes the leader of North Korea???
Note that they employed the Chairmaker, after they knew what he was.
"But I do ill in the name of Justice" has been the cry of everyone with blood up to their elbows, since before Troy.
Five times a year. May only use commercial software (no gov portal). Actual transactions required, not just balance sheet and P&L. Oh, and as of 2027 your limited company's P&L becomes public, so your foreign competitors can slag off to potential clients how small your business is whilst lying about theirs. And your friends and family can laugh about how badly you're doing.
Just a taste.
Joking aside - it is a classic of making people bend to the process rather than create something ergonomic.
MTD means that individuals with a qualifying income of over £50k (this year) or £20k (which I think is form next year) will have to submit quarterly returns using specialist tax software. Not the free portal that you send in the figures through annually. That is closed to businesses from this year and will prob lay be closed to everyone within about three years.
You can either get a bank account that has the software attached, or pay for the software, or pay an accountant.
Reasons why this is foolish:
1) The first rule of tax is you don't make it more complicated or expensive for people to pay it. This does both.
2) It imposes a lot of extra work on everyone to do quarterly returns, which as the tax is still played annually is not merely unnecessary but arguably counterproductive.
3) It imposes considerable additional costs of both time and labour on ordinary people, as a transfer from the government.
4) as a result, despite the claims of the Treasury to the contrary, it probably will reduce the amount of tax they actually end up collecting.
5) In doing so, it will piss everyone off for no good reason.
If tax collection were being made quarterly there would be a logic to it, but it isn't. If it was possible to do it using free, or common, software it would be understandable, but it isn't either.
So it is a bad policy. Not perhaps the poll tax, but possessed of similar lack of thought.
As a motorcyclist this pisses me off. It's already hard for drivers to notice a bike approaching at 30mph, going down to 20 makes it harder still. On existing 20 roads I've noticed drivers at junctions are much more likely to pull out in to my path because they didn't see me coming.
https://www.latintimes.com/pentagon-good-friday-service-excluding-catholics-sparks-religious-bias-concerns-amid-broader-596355
I nearly persuaded one bank to do a project to do a business account offering with this stuff built in - I was working as a developer there.
NEW THREAD
Previously I had thought that people who claimed Israel was an apartheid society were overegging it (eg Arab Israelis). But this is a clear apartheid law - question is whether apartheid is completely incompatible with democracy or not.
I have a strong suspicion that this first year will go so badly, with so many people struggling (and not filing) they will end up scrapping it. Or postponing it "indefinitely". It is the fiscal equivalent of HS2
I think Inversions was one of the books where the gloves of the AI/drones came off and you got a glimpse of the underlying ferocity. It is why I agreed with @kle4's observation.
You'll have to explain why a slower speed, meaning you're visible for longer, makes you harder to see.
MTD already affects Limited companies if they are VAT registered. You have to make digital VAT submissions every quarter.
However that is the limit of the changes for Limited companies. The new MTD rules only apply to sole traders and landlords. Limited companies will continue to make their tax submissions on an annual basis.
MTD does not apply to individuals unless they are earning as a sole trader or a landlord. If their income is pensions or interest on savings or dividends from investments then it does not apply. At least not yet. And there has been no indication that it will be extended so far.
But yes, my business is not on Quarterly yet.
I am also self-employed as a sole trader, but luckily don't earn enough to be caught yet.