Oh, that's my vintage showing. Carry On My Wayward Son is one of my favourites.
*nerd alert*
My record collection is enormous - I've got 1200 songs [50s to now plus ancient jazz] on my favourites list... The lyrics to so many are just brilliant. A much under appreciated medium IMO.
I've just tripped across a great punky number at the end of a HBO tv show from 2007 and hunted all over teh interwebs for it. No dice - so have clipped it from the video and converted it to MP3. Will stick it on YouTube next for those who can't find it either.
My next task is the showgirls song from Citizen Kane - I've got the OST and just need to find the one I want from the dozens on there...
Tull, Yes and Genesis - I've a few of theirs. Saw Tull back in the early 80s - marvellous. I rather like The Yardbirds too.
What ever happened to all those policy initiatives and thingies that Labour have been talking about for YEARS?
All just dust in the wind [to quote a Kansas song] ?
We've had Blue, Red, Black, Purple Labour - what's actually coming out of the sausage machine now? Nowt that I can see. And surely, Labour's Conf should have been the rallying call for the next 8 months - not the squibfest we saw.
The big point about this week is the dog that didn't bark.
We heard for 4 years that Ed had his poker hand hidden and that policy review teams were coming up with great ideas that would be revealed at the final conference before the GE.
We had nothing this week - nada.
Plato I'm impressed by your evident knowledge of Seventies rock and prog rock given you must have been quite young when that song was first released.. Kansas are a rare American example of that genre as most prog was very British (Tull, Genesis, Yes etc). The song you refer to is quite moving.
As for Labour I guess after the referendum their conference was always going to be an anti-climax. To state the obvious they need someone more charismatic than Ed to present new initiatives - with the right leader they could be polling 40% rather than mid 30's. Having their conference before both Government parties may also act to their disadvantage in the short term.
Guys: I'm going to pull the server off-line and update it properly next week when I'm in Canada. I'll try and give plenty of notice. Please remember that you can go direct to vanillaforums.com if there are problems on this site.
Unemployment is clearly low given the difficult situation and it's reasonable to give some credit for that, but it's the flip side of the acceptance of real falls in income, which in turn is a primary reason why Osborne isn't making serious inroads on the deficit
I loove the way you criticise Osborne for failing to solve the problem you caused quickly enough.
You are rather confirming my suspicion that Labour actually wants periods of Conservative government. You need the Tories in to fix the economy for you, so you can get back in and f>ck it all over again. There's no point for Labour to being in power if there isn't a supply of wealth for you to pillage.
This explains rather well the lack of enthusiasm for winning in 2015 that pervaded the Labour party conference. You need at least another term of the Coalition or better so there'll be some money to piss away.
If someone told me that I'd get clobbered with a Mansion Tax - I'd simply split it in two with the Land Registry and sell both bits to the same person.
What no-one seems to have commented on yet is the knock-on effect of the proposed Mansion Tax. It is not just those houses that are in the £2m range, but those priced not much above a million that people are now reluctant to buy, for fear of being caught. This is already happening, I am told.
The great irony is that Ed's lasting legacy might be in reducing house price inflation. And as a raft of people can't sell their £2m+ houses, they have to reduce the price to below the threshold for capture by the tax. So by threatening to introduce it, Mr Market reduces the number of properties that would ever pay it. Not that that will stop the army of valuers, who will be employed on contracts that incentivise them for every £2m property they can locate. Which would become an early source of outrage in Ed's premiership.
I also suspect that to defeat the tax, a lot of estate agents might find they have many, many properties on their books priced at £1,950,000 where the "sellers" seem remarkably reluctant to show potential buyers around....
I also suspect there will be a large number of flats created in large properties, where granny or the children will live separate from the main house. A £2m property becomes a £1.6m and a £400k property. How are you going to deal with that, Ed?
I doubt any of these dodges would work. All HMRC need do is declare a value for Hate Tax purposes, then tax anyone who owns such a property. The value it declares need not be current market value, on the grounds that such values fluctuate. Council tax is based on the values of 1991 so there is no reason the Hate Tax need be based on relevant real-world price.
So if you live in a £2 million house that you can't actually sell for £2 million - because to pay that for it exposes the buyer to the tax - HMRC can simply rule that its value for Hate Tax purposes is £2 million and thus it's liable to the tax anyway, regardless of sale price. Any actual sale at a lesser value is simply a ruse for the purposes of tax evasion.
This approach exists already with property. You can't sell your house to your children for less than market value with any advantage because HMRC can argue that you've done so to dodge stamp duty, IHT, or whatever, and will go ahead and take the tax anyway. So what we are likely to see is a lot of people living in £1 million 3-bed semis in Conservative constituencies, upon whom Labour via HMRC levies its hate tax anyway..
I don't find it so odd that people view companion animals differently from livestock.
There's much to be said for eating free-range, though. I recently bought a free range pig, and the meat was delicious.
I don't know.... There's part of me that is a radical anti meat eater, that is disgusted by the whole process but hypocritically I do still eat it, though not as much as I used to, and not mammals.... Except bacon which I have just fallen off the wagon after 18 months abstinence
Then again other animal eat animals.... And maybe we are just supposed to
Ones man meat is another mans companion though, depends on where you were brought up in the world
I'm fine with eating pretty much any breed of animals, although I'd prefer them not to be cruelly treated in how they are raised or killed. If the're free range, then they get a fairly decent life where they otherwise wouldn't have existed. It's cruel deaths like cutting their throats while still alive that I find disgusting, and should be banned, religion be damned.
I have a dream was a speech MLK had given several times before. In fact, he hadn't planned on giving it : he thought one of his other speeches would play better. But his mind was changed, though I can't recall why.
In thread headers like this, isn't there normally a hat tip to a poster who told everyone to get on a bet at 10/1 which is now 3/1?
Not if they got on at 5/2 with another poster before the bookies opened a market... ;-)
Thinking about the 'London' issue and Westminster not being responsive to the rest of the country - would a potential solution not be for Westminster to move to somewhere more sensible and more representative of the country as a whole. Clearly politicians are never going to actually go for it, but it would split the London Finance centre with the Media/Political gravity of the country as well.
Heywood is a funny area, different attitude than the areas that surround it or that i have seen people make comparisons too. I used to teach in Rochdale a few years ago, there has been trouble for years between local white youths and asian youths. It was the main hotspot for the trouble that went on during the grooming trials, a takeaway and a few cars were smashed up. It is definitely fertile ground for UKIP, and the constituents are not your average northern tribal labour voters. With the grooming gangs back in the news, newspaper stands around Rochdale featuring Danczuk criticising Ed, and given how well UKIP did in the local elections despite quality of campaigns, funding, and candidates then Labour definitely have something to think about. The opening odds were way out, though i think Labour will win, those that got on UKIP early got great value.
Also we should have it up on our website soon for anyone interested in spread betting.
@FraserNelson: The no1 threat to British democracy? PPE - an Oxford degree which produces an automaton governing class. Nick Cohen: http://t.co/53HcVrvAUL
I propose a simple law to start with. No one who has ever done PPE at Oxbridge is ever allowed into the Cabinet ever again. That gets rid of half these cretins overnight. Who’s with me?
This is really a legacy problem. The huge increase of immigration in the last 20 years along with the gift of citizenship has created a group of several million Britons who were either born abroad or whose parents were born abroad and a good number of these were from outside the EU.
When this is combined with the disaster of multi-culturalism and the failure to integrate these immigrants they have a strong tendency to want to bring spouses as well as other relatives to this country. Either we severely restrict such rights or we have to accept that there will continue to be large scale immigration from the sub-continent and elsewhere outside the EU for decades to come.
Then we severely restrict such rights. We have too many unintegrated immigrants and children of immigrants in this country, and they are constantly bringing in more unskilled family members from very poor parts of the world. And it's not just Pakistan and Bangladesh either. The numbers of Somalis, Philippinos and Turks here are rocketing.
There's plenty of stuff we could do: bring back the primary purpose rule, make the English/culture test much tougher, get rid of the 20-year amnesty, ban people that have broken visa laws from ever getting another visa, putting up the income requirement to bring someone here, requiring marriage visas to have a three-year existing relationship etc etc.
In thread headers like this, isn't there normally a hat tip to a poster who told everyone to get on a bet at 10/1 which is now 3/1?
Not if they got on at 5/2 with another poster before the bookies opened a market... ;-)
Thinking about the 'London' issue and Westminster not being responsive to the rest of the country - would a potential solution not be for Westminster to move to somewhere more sensible and more representative of the country as a whole. Clearly politicians are never going to actually go for it, but it would split the London Finance centre with the Media/Political gravity of the country as well.
Haha that doesn't look as bad a bet as I feared now!
If anything it inspired me to smash into the 10/1 and 8/1, so every cloud...
This is really a legacy problem. The huge increase of immigration in the last 20 years along with the gift of citizenship has created a group of several million Britons who were either born abroad or whose parents were born abroad and a good number of these were from outside the EU.
When this is combined with the disaster of multi-culturalism and the failure to integrate these immigrants they have a strong tendency to want to bring spouses as well as other relatives to this country. Either we severely restrict such rights or we have to accept that there will continue to be large scale immigration from the sub-continent and elsewhere outside the EU for decades to come.
Then we severely restrict such rights. We have too many unintegrated immigrants and children of immigrants in this country, and they are constantly bringing in more unskilled family members from very poor parts of the world. And it's not just Pakistan and Bangladesh either. The numbers of Somalis, Philippinos and Turks here are rocketing.
There's plenty of stuff we could do: bring back the primary purpose rule, make the English culture test much tougher, get rid of the 20-year amnesty, ban people that have broken visa laws from ever getting another visa, putting up the income requirement to bring someone here, requiring marriage visas to have a three-year existing relationship etc etc.
Claiming this could be materially changed was simply dishonest.
So why did Cameron make "tens of thousands" a target then?
Many of those proposals are probably incompatible with adhering to the European Convention on Human Rights, although if it's a choice between having a rational immigration policy, or adhering to the ECHR, I'd go for the former.
We've been here before. Prior to 1962, any inhabitant of the British Empire and Commonwealth could settle here. Governments of both stripes subsequently introduced sensible immigration controls.
This is really a legacy problem. The huge increase of immigration in the last 20 years along with the gift of citizenship has created a group of several million Britons who were either born abroad or whose parents were born abroad and a good number of these were from outside the EU.
When this is combined with the disaster of multi-culturalism and the failure to integrate these immigrants they have a strong tendency to want to bring spouses as well as other relatives to this country. Either we severely restrict such rights or we have to accept that there will continue to be large scale immigration from the sub-continent and elsewhere outside the EU for decades to come.
Then we severely restrict such rights. We have too many unintegrated immigrants and children of immigrants in this country, and they are constantly bringing in more unskilled family members from very poor parts of the world. And it's not just Pakistan and Bangladesh either. The numbers of Somalis, Philippinos and Turks here are rocketing.
There's plenty of stuff we could do: bring back the primary purpose rule, make the English culture test much tougher, get rid of the 20-year amnesty, ban people that have broken visa laws from ever getting another visa, putting up the income requirement to bring someone here, requiring marriage visas to have a three-year existing relationship etc etc.
Oh, that's my vintage showing. Carry On My Wayward Son is one of my favourites.
*nerd alert*
My record collection is enormous - I've got 1200 songs [50s to now plus ancient jazz] on my favourites list... The lyrics to so many are just brilliant. A much under appreciated medium IMO.
I've just tripped across a great punky number at the end of a HBO tv show from 2007 and hunted all over teh interwebs for it. No dice - so have clipped it from the video and converted it to MP3. Will stick it on YouTube next for those who can't find it either.
My next task is the showgirls song from Citizen Kane - I've got the OST and just need to find the one I want from the dozens on there...
Tull, Yes and Genesis - I've a few of theirs. Saw Tull back in the early 80s - marvellous. I rather like The Yardbirds too.
What ever happened to all those policy initiatives and thingies that Labour have been talking about for YEARS?
All just dust in the wind [to quote a Kansas song] ?
We've had Blue, Red, Black, Purple Labour - what's actually coming out of the sausage machine now? Nowt that I can see. And surely, Labour's Conf should have been the rallying call for the next 8 months - not the squibfest we saw.
The big point about this week is the dog that didn't bark.
We heard for 4 years that Ed had his poker hand hidden and that policy review teams were coming up with great ideas that would be revealed at the final conference before the GE.
We had nothing this week - nada.
Plato I'm impressed by your evident knowledge of Seventies rock and prog rock given you must have been quite young when that song was first released.. Kansas are a rare American example of that genre as most prog was very British (Tull, Genesis, Yes etc). The song you refer to is quite moving.
As for Labour I guess after the referendum their conference was always going to be an anti-climax. To state the obvious they need someone more charismatic than Ed to present new initiatives - with the right leader they could be polling 40% rather than mid 30's. Having their conference before both Government parties may also act to their disadvantage in the short term.
I have been looking for 30 years for a CD of a 1979 track by a track called Sharks Are Cool, Jets Are Hot, by the Quick. The complete absence of any luck makes me wonder how much of this stuff will ultimately just be lost.
Mr. Bond, it's on Youtube, so one imagines it could be downloaded as an mp3 (beyond my tech knowledge level of luddite) and then put on a CD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJBjvcYSnPM
I think we could have guessed this from the name, but...
Not that 'ordinary', Ed! Woman who inspired Miliband's speech on disillusioned young grew up in £900,000 Oxfordshire mansion and went to same posh school as SamCam
Miss Bazell - whose sister Clemency, 24, is a Labour Party member
The history of immigration controls has shown it is something that has gone hand in hand with the movement from oligarchy to democracy. It is no coincidence that immigration has been allowed to skyrocket as we move back to oligarchy...
And if it was "unrealistic" to reduce immigration by more than 10,000, why did Cameron target a reduction of 150,000? How come you didn't call this out as unrealistic (to the scale of 15) at the time?
I didn't say it was unrealistic to target such a reduction, but in the real world I'm realistic enough to know that things don't always go according to plan. In any case this is one of (rather few) areas where the LibDems have prevented stronger action.
I expect that the Conservative manifesto will include further tightening up on non-EU immigration in addition to what has already been done.
OGH is overestimating the impact of anti-UKIP vote in Heywood. Some Labour voters might be willing to vote Tory to keep UKIP out (depending on the candidate and constituency), but the opposite is not true. I've read the Tories are taking a low profile in Heywood in hopes that their voters vote UKIP, so that they balance their loss in Clacton with a loss for Labour.
In conclusion I've thought from the beginning that this is a safe Labour seat, despite the Tories aiding UKIP and the local unpopularity of the Labour campaign. The actions of Labour speak louder than their words, they are not scrambling to Heywood.
And if it was "unrealistic" to reduce immigration by more than 10,000, why did Cameron target a reduction of 150,000? How come you didn't call this out as unrealistic (to the scale of 15) at the time?
I didn't say it was unrealistic to target such a reduction, but in the real world I'm realistic enough to know that things don't always go according to plan. In any case this is one of (rather few) areas where the LibDems have prevented stronger action.
I expect that the Conservative manifesto will include further tightening up on non-EU immigration in addition to what has already been done.
It's not like they've missed it a bit though. They've only achieved 5% of what they targeted. Your response would make sense if they missed their target by 20%, but not by 95%!
This sort of mindset is sure appealing to we 'liberal' euro Tories.....
James Chapman (Mail)@jameschappers·5 mins .@SuzanneEvans1: 'Day after Carswell defected, security threat level was raised. Now on day of Ukip conference, PM recalls Parliament'. Mad
@nigelfletcher: If only Ed Miliband had equipped himself with this one-word annotation from his predecessor Michael Foot's papers... http://t.co/DR643y6QL5
Just reading that finally Labour have declared how think they will work out all the £2 million homes, you have to "self assess". This is going to be fun (and yes it is based on an equally stupid scheme for another purpose that Osborne setup).
Surveyors in for bonus business, and I was joking the other day about bringing HIPS inspectors out of retirement.
Following its conference in Manchester this week which was largely ignored in favour of real news, the event will happen again next week in Bournemouth and the following week in Liverpool.
If someone told me that I'd get clobbered with a Mansion Tax - I'd simply split it in two with the Land Registry and sell both bits to the same person.
What no-one seems to have commented on yet is the knock-on effect of the proposed Mansion Tax. It is not just those houses that are in the £2m range, but those priced not much above a million that people are now reluctant to buy, for fear of being caught. This is already happening, I am told.
snipped for space
I also suspect there will be a large number of flats created in large properties, where granny or the children will live separate from the main house. A £2m property becomes a £1.6m and a £400k property. How are you going to deal with that, Ed?
I doubt any of these dodges would work. All HMRC need do is declare a value for Hate Tax purposes, then tax anyone who owns such a property. The value it declares need not be current market value, on the grounds that such values fluctuate. Council tax is based on the values of 1991 so there is no reason the Hate Tax need be based on relevant real-world price.
So if you live in a £2 million house that you can't actually sell for £2 million - because to pay that for it exposes the buyer to the tax - HMRC can simply rule that its value for Hate Tax purposes is £2 million and thus it's liable to the tax anyway, regardless of sale price. Any actual sale at a lesser value is simply a ruse for the purposes of tax evasion.
This approach exists already with property. You can't sell your house to your children for less than market value with any advantage because HMRC can argue that you've done so to dodge stamp duty, IHT, or whatever, and will go ahead and take the tax anyway. So what we are likely to see is a lot of people living in £1 million 3-bed semis in Conservative constituencies, upon whom Labour via HMRC levies its hate tax anyway..
Just reading that finally Labour have declared how think they will work out all the £2 million homes, you have to "self assess". This is going to be fun (and yes it is based on an equally stupid scheme for another purpose that Osborne setup).
Surveyors in for bonus business, and I was joking the other day about bringing HIPS inspectors out of retirement.
I'm going to have to pay for a man to walk round my house, so I can pay even more to the government? Hmmm
Just reading that finally Labour have declared how they will work out all the £2 million homes, you have to "self assess". This is going to be fun (and yes it is based on an equally stupid scheme for another purpose that Osborne setup).
Surveyors in for bonus business, and I was joking the other day about bringing HIPS inspectors out of retirement.
Hmm... Maybe it's not so daft after all. It isn't really a tax at all - the entire point is to stop people wanting to brag about how expensive their houses are, and actually brag about how they aren't having to pay the mansion tax. It's a subtle cultural nudge instead of a tax.
Two examples: 1) a house worth approximately £100,000 2) a house worth approximately £1,800,000
In case 1, can you just say "My house is obviously worth less than two million quid, so I don't need to bother"?
In case 2, if you find your house is less than the £2m threshold can you claim the cost of the survey back from government? One suspects not.
But if not, the policy will piss off not just those who might pay or fear they might pay in the future, but those whose homes are worth anywhere near the threshold.
If someone told me that I'd get clobbered with a Mansion Tax - I'd simply split it in two with the Land Registry and sell both bits to the same person.
What no-one seems to have commented on yet is the knock-on effect of the proposed Mansion Tax. It is not just those houses that are in the £2m range, but those priced not much above a million that people are now reluctant to buy, for fear of being caught. This is already happening, I am told.
snipped for space
I also suspect there will be a large number of flats created in large properties, where granny or the children will live separate from the main house. A £2m property becomes a £1.6m and a £400k property. How are you going to deal with that, Ed?
I doubt any of these dodges would work. All HMRC need do is declare a value for Hate Tax purposes, then tax anyone who owns such a property. The value it declares need not be current market value, on the grounds that such values fluctuate. Council tax is based on the values of 1991 so there is no reason the Hate Tax need be based on relevant real-world price.
So if you live in a £2 million house that you can't actually sell for £2 million - because to pay that for it exposes the buyer to the tax - HMRC can simply rule that its value for Hate Tax purposes is £2 million and thus it's liable to the tax anyway, regardless of sale price. Any actual sale at a lesser value is simply a ruse for the purposes of tax evasion.
This approach exists already with property. You can't sell your house to your children for less than market value with any advantage because HMRC can argue that you've done so to dodge stamp duty, IHT, or whatever, and will go ahead and take the tax anyway. So what we are likely to see is a lot of people living in £1 million 3-bed semis in Conservative constituencies, upon whom Labour via HMRC levies its hate tax anyway..
Well, not really. In either case you're well enough off to own a 2 million pound home. Although I wonder why they don't just extend Council Tax a bit.
Just reading that finally Labour have declared how think they will work out all the £2 million homes, you have to "self assess". This is going to be fun (and yes it is based on an equally stupid scheme for another purpose that Osborne setup).
Surveyors in for bonus business, and I was joking the other day about bringing HIPS inspectors out of retirement.
Sounds like they have modelled it on the Irish property tax - which is literally self-assessed. No surveyors involved. And I thought it was Osborne who idolised Irish governance...
Mr @Bond_James_Bond - if you download this video [using the YTube button, then go to a website www.zamzar.com - you can convert it for free to MP3 and play it on your PC. Takes about 5 mins for them to send it back to you. No need to open an account and no viruses.
It's an excellent little auto formatting engine that allows to change almost any file type into another.
Mr. Bond, it's on Youtube, so one imagines it could be downloaded as an mp3 (beyond my tech knowledge level of luddite) and then put on a CD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJBjvcYSnPM
This sort of mindset is sure appealing to we 'liberal' euro Tories.....
James Chapman (Mail)@jameschappers·5 mins .@SuzanneEvans1: 'Day after Carswell defected, security threat level was raised. Now on day of Ukip conference, PM recalls Parliament'. Mad
Perhaps he thinks Ukip is a major threat to national security?
In conclusion I've thought from the beginning that this is a safe Labour seat, despite the Tories aiding UKIP and the local unpopularity of the Labour campaign.
I'd have thought turnout might be important here. Big reason for kipper supporters to turn out. Not so labour, perhaps.
If you have to self-access then clearly it's going to actually effect more people. Anyone now 'close' to the £2m mark will have to access. If you have a house you think worth £1.5m, is it actually? or is over £2m on a good day, or will be...
I think the argument against council tax is that a percentage of people who own large properties don't pay council tax. Also, well fiddling the council tax bands and raising the same amount, doesn't give you the same headlines. Think about how we got to council tax being eye watering in the first place, constant year upon year above inflation rises during Labour's time in government.
If you want to raise the most amount of money and minimize the nudge to people into looking into avoiding tax, Gordon had one thing right, fiscal drag is your friend. 50p tax rate comes in, people start looking at all sorts of way to avoid it, net nothing basically raised. I bet if he had just fiddled the IC / NI boundaries a bit, would have raised even more, very little said and people would hardly notice.
Even now, Osborne has dragged loads more people into 40p and although it does come up a bit, nowhere near as much as if he had declared a big instance tax rise. And on the flip side, the increase in personal allowance, I bet most people who have benefited from it, don't even realise what it is worth to them a year.
If someone told me that I'd get clobbered with a Mansion Tax - I'd simply split it in two with the Land Registry and sell both bits to the same person.
What no-one seems to have commented on yet is the knock-on effect of the proposed Mansion Tax. It is not just those houses that are in the £2m range, but those priced not much above a million that people are now reluctant to buy, for fear of being caught. This is already happening, I am told.
snipped for space
I also suspect there will be a large number of flats created in large properties, where granny or the children will live separate from the main house. A £2m property becomes a £1.6m and a £400k property. How are you going to deal with that, Ed?
I doubt any of these dodges would work. All HMRC need do is declare a value for Hate Tax purposes, then tax anyone who owns such a property. The value it declares need not be current market value, on the grounds that such values fluctuate. Council tax is based on the values of 1991 so there is no reason the Hate Tax need be based on relevant real-world price.
So if you live in a £2 million house that you can't actually sell for £2 million - because to pay that for it exposes the buyer to the tax - HMRC can simply rule that its value for Hate Tax purposes is £2 million and thus it's liable to the tax anyway, regardless of sale price. Any actual sale at a lesser value is simply a ruse for the purposes of tax evasion.
This approach exists already with property. You can't sell your house to your children for less than market value with any advantage because HMRC can argue that you've done so to dodge stamp duty, IHT, or whatever, and will go ahead and take the tax anyway. So what we are likely to see is a lot of people living in £1 million 3-bed semis in Conservative constituencies, upon whom Labour via HMRC levies its hate tax anyway..
Well, not really. In either case you're well enough off to own a 2 million pound home. Although I wonder why they don't just extend Council Tax a bit.
The mansion tax is stupid not because it hits London more than elsewhere - there's a reason why a two million pound flat in Mayfair is worth more than a big house in Cumbria - but because it only affects those moving house.
The only way to curb the effects of it being a Geography Tax is to have regional variations. So it may kick in at £2m in London, but £500,000 in Birmingham and £100,000 in Liverpool.
This sort of mindset is sure appealing to we 'liberal' euro Tories.....
James Chapman (Mail)@jameschappers·5 mins .@SuzanneEvans1: 'Day after Carswell defected, security threat level was raised. Now on day of Ukip conference, PM recalls Parliament'. Mad
Perhaps he thinks Ukip is a major threat to national security?
Just UKIP thinking the whole world revolves around them at the moment
This absurdly obvious point doesn't appear to be registering with a lot of folk.
As someone with property in London, this is a bit silly. Of course your assets with high value equals wealth. You can argue that it's unfair to tax people who have illiquid wealth, but you can't pretend a stonkingly valuable property isn't wealth.
If someone told me that I'd get clobbered with a Mansion Tax - I'd simply split it in two with the Land Registry and sell both bits to the same person.
What no-one seems to have commented on yet is the knock-on effect of the proposed Mansion Tax. It is not just those houses that are in the £2m range, but those priced not much above a million that people are now reluctant to buy...
snipped for space
I also suspect there will be a large number of flats created in large properties, where granny or the children will live separate from the main house. A £2m property becomes a £1.6m and a £400k property. How are you going to deal with that, Ed?
I doubt any of these dodges would work. All HMRC need do is declare a value for Hate Tax purposes, then tax anyone who owns such a property. The value it declares need not be current market value, on the grounds that such values fluctuate. Council tax is based on the values of 1991 so there is no reason the Hate Tax need be based on relevant real-world price.
So if you live in a £2 million house that you can't actually sell for £2 million - because to pay that for it exposes the buyer to the tax - HMRC can simply rule that its value for Hate Tax purposes is £2 million and thus it's liable to the tax anyway, regardless of sale price. Any actual sale at a lesser value is simply a ruse for the purposes of tax evasion.
This approach exists already with property. You can't sell your house to your children for less than market value with any advantage because HMRC can argue that you've done so to dodge stamp duty, IHT, or whatever, and will go ahead and take the tax anyway. So what we are likely to see is a lot of people living in £1 million 3-bed semis in Conservative constituencies, upon whom Labour via HMRC levies its hate tax anyway..
Well, not really. In either case you're well enough off to own a 2 million pound home. Although I wonder why they don't just extend Council Tax a bit.
Because of the elephant in the room that is 1991 prices.
If they had the balls, they could do both. In some areas, a new rather of Council tax (less than 2me though) would mean that band C might need to pay what band B did, and so the reassessment could have fewer objectors than usual. You'd have to force councils to make the take the same, or limited, so it wouldn't help funding...
The mansion tax is stupid not because it hits London more than elsewhere - there's a reason why a two million pound flat in Mayfair is worth more than a big house in Cumbria - but because it only affects those moving house.
This sort of mindset is sure appealing to we 'liberal' euro Tories.....
James Chapman (Mail)@jameschappers·5 mins .@SuzanneEvans1: 'Day after Carswell defected, security threat level was raised. Now on day of Ukip conference, PM recalls Parliament'. Mad
Perhaps he thinks Ukip is a major threat to national security?
Just UKIP thinking the whole world revolves around them at the moment
What is it with these deluded Nationalists.
The ScotNats thought MI5 was actively influencing the Indyref.
Now the Kippers thinks there's this vast conspiracy involving Obama, Islamic terrorists and Cameron to bugger up the Kipper conference.
Christ can you imagine if we have an in out referendum on the EU and the Kippers lose?
You could use their whining as an unlimited power source for centuries.
Just reading that finally Labour have declared how think they will work out all the £2 million homes, you have to "self assess". This is going to be fun (and yes it is based on an equally stupid scheme for another purpose that Osborne setup). .
Are you referring to Child Benefit self assessment ?
If so I would suggest that working out your annual salary is slightly less onerous than working out the value of your house.
The only way to curb the effects of it being a Geography Tax is to have regional variations. So it may kick in at £2m in London, but £500,000 in Birmingham and £100,000 in Liverpool.
This absurdly obvious point doesn't appear to be registering with a lot of folk.
As someone with property in London, this is a bit silly. Of course your assets with high value equals wealth. You can argue that it's unfair to tax people who have illiquid wealth, but you can't pretend a stonkingly valuable property isn't wealth.
Well it does... 'real' wealth would be assets-liabilities. You could live in a £2m mansion and have a £2m mortgage and be penniless. (whether that would be wise is another issue).
The mansion tax is stupid not because it hits London more than elsewhere - there's a reason why a two million pound flat in Mayfair is worth more than a big house in Cumbria - but because it only affects those moving house.
Why? It's an annual tax. Not sure of the details, or if they've been stated, but I think the standard version is a flat percentage of however much the property is worth over £2million
Just reading that finally Labour have declared how think they will work out all the £2 million homes, you have to "self assess". This is going to be fun (and yes it is based on an equally stupid scheme for another purpose that Osborne setup). .
Are you referring to Child Benefit self assessment ?
If so I would suggest that working out your annual salary is slightly less onerous than working out the value of your house.
No, the scheme Osborne put in place to catch, especially foreign buyers, trying to avoid tax using corporate structures. If you do that, and the property is worth over £500k, you have to report it to the tax man.
The man from the government doesn't come around, you have to tell them yourself. But I believe it is a really small number and I don't think many people are using this setup for a property worth anyway near the boundary of £500k, they are using it on multi-million pound properties, so I don't think there is much is it / isn't it about it.
However, for the £2 million mark, the reports are saying currently 250,000 homes are around that level or above.
This sort of mindset is sure appealing to we 'liberal' euro Tories.....
James Chapman (Mail)@jameschappers·5 mins .@SuzanneEvans1: 'Day after Carswell defected, security threat level was raised. Now on day of Ukip conference, PM recalls Parliament'. Mad
Perhaps he thinks Ukip is a major threat to national security?
Just UKIP thinking the whole world revolves around them at the moment
You could use their whining as an unlimited power source for centuries.
As I've argued on here before, the Mansion Tax is a small answer to a much bigger solution which is the financing of local Government and whether a property tax should be part of that.
On topic, I don't know why anyone should be surprised - it's a standard campaigning technique when defending a "safe" seat whether it be Newark or Heywood. The need to motivate your own supporters to vote is the key and if you can't rely on them, make the alternative seem worse. In its own way, far from undermining the current politics, UKIP is doing its best to maintain it.
Another year, another Parliamentary recall tomorrow. I'm deeply sceptical about Cameron's proposal and having listened to seven minutes of Nick "how many times can I see the words vile and barbaric in one interview?" Clegg my scepticism is undiminished.
There are only two ways of waging war - all or nothing. Anything in between risks disaster as we've seen so many times in so many places. If we manage through a combination of air strikes to fragment IS, then wre risk creating a new tranche of terrorists who will find their way and the circle will start anew.
In any case, if all we do is push them out of Iraq (if we can), IS will still be in Syria in force and no one seems to have any clear idea of how to move things forward in that tortured land.
This sort of mindset is sure appealing to we 'liberal' euro Tories.....
James Chapman (Mail)@jameschappers·5 mins .@SuzanneEvans1: 'Day after Carswell defected, security threat level was raised. Now on day of Ukip conference, PM recalls Parliament'. Mad
Perhaps he thinks Ukip is a major threat to national security?
Just UKIP thinking the whole world revolves around them at the moment
What is it with these deluded Nationalists.
The ScotNats thought MI5 was actively influencing the Indyref.
Now the Kippers thinks there's this vast conspiracy involving Obama, Islamic terrorists and Cameron to bugger up the Kipper conference.
Christ can you imagine if we have an in out referendum on the EU and the Kippers lose?
You could use their whining as an unlimited power source for centuries.
Who needs cold fusion ?
If Carswell wins, it'll be undeniable proof that UKIP is an active terrorist organisation and should be banned.
@TheScreamingEagles - I've been thinking of a possible guest article on the general subject of 'Ed is crap' but with a new slant and with betting implications. Is there likely to be any interest, or do you already have a long queue of people wanting to explore that subject?
@TheScreamingEagles - I've been thinking of a possible guest article on the general subject of 'Ed is crap' but with a new slant and with betting implications. Is there likely to be any itnerest, or do you already have a long queue of people wanting to explore that subject?
I'd be very interested in that.
I have two guest articles in the pipeline. One goes up today. One tomorrow.
This sort of mindset is sure appealing to we 'liberal' euro Tories.....
James Chapman (Mail)@jameschappers·5 mins .@SuzanneEvans1: 'Day after Carswell defected, security threat level was raised. Now on day of Ukip conference, PM recalls Parliament'. Mad
Perhaps he thinks Ukip is a major threat to national security?
Just UKIP thinking the whole world revolves around them at the moment
You could use their whining as an unlimited power source for centuries.
Who needs cold fusion ?
Is that Eds plan to de-carbonise the UK?
It would certainly be better for global warming than the constant hot air spouted by the Tories.
@TheScreamingEagles - I've been thinking of a possible guest article on the general subject of 'Ed is crap' but with a new slant and with betting implications. Is there likely to be any interest, or do you already have a long queue of people wanting to explore that subject?
This sort of mindset is sure appealing to we 'liberal' euro Tories.....
James Chapman (Mail)@jameschappers·5 mins .@SuzanneEvans1: 'Day after Carswell defected, security threat level was raised. Now on day of Ukip conference, PM recalls Parliament'. Mad
Perhaps he thinks Ukip is a major threat to national security?
Just UKIP thinking the whole world revolves around them at the moment
You could use their whining as an unlimited power source for centuries.
This absurdly obvious point doesn't appear to be registering with a lot of folk.
As someone with property in London, this is a bit silly. Of course your assets with high value equals wealth. You can argue that it's unfair to tax people who have illiquid wealth, but you can't pretend a stonkingly valuable property isn't wealth.
Well it does... 'real' wealth would be assets-liabilities. You could live in a £2m mansion and have a £2m mortgage and be penniless. (whether that would be wise is another issue).
This sort of mindset is sure appealing to we 'liberal' euro Tories.....
James Chapman (Mail)@jameschappers·5 mins .@SuzanneEvans1: 'Day after Carswell defected, security threat level was raised. Now on day of Ukip conference, PM recalls Parliament'. Mad
Perhaps he thinks Ukip is a major threat to national security?
Just UKIP thinking the whole world revolves around them at the moment
What is it with these deluded Nationalists.
The ScotNats thought MI5 was actively influencing the Indyref.
Now the Kippers thinks there's this vast conspiracy involving Obama, Islamic terrorists and Cameron to bugger up the Kipper conference.
Christ can you imagine if we have an in out referendum on the EU and the Kippers lose?
You could use their whining as an unlimited power source for centuries.
Who needs cold fusion ?
If Carswell wins, it'll be undeniable proof that UKIP is an active terrorist organisation and should be banned.
[Dear MI5. I'm joking. ]
First I want to see Alex Salmond charged with treason and sedition.
Just reading that finally Labour have declared how think they will work out all the £2 million homes, you have to "self assess". This is going to be fun (and yes it is based on an equally stupid scheme for another purpose that Osborne setup). .
Are you referring to Child Benefit self assessment ?
If so I would suggest that working out your annual salary is slightly less onerous than working out the value of your house.
No, the scheme Osborne put in place to catch, especially foreign buyers, trying to avoid tax using corporate structures. If you do that, and the property is worth over £500k, you have to report it to the tax man.
The man from the government doesn't come around, you have to tell them yourself. But I believe it is a really small number and I don't think many people are using this setup for a property worth anyway near the boundary of £500k, they are using it on multi-million pound properties, so I don't think there is much is it / isn't it about it.
However, for the £2 million mark, the reports are saying currently 250,000 homes are around that level or above.
That is for people who actively want to avoid stamp duty and CGT taxes by putting a property in a special scheme.
Ed's scheme is for everyone who has the temerity to own a house.
Just reading that finally Labour have declared how think they will work out all the £2 million homes, you have to "self assess". This is going to be fun (and yes it is based on an equally stupid scheme for another purpose that Osborne setup). .
Are you referring to Child Benefit self assessment ?
If so I would suggest that working out your annual salary is slightly less onerous than working out the value of your house.
No, the scheme Osborne put in place to catch, especially foreign buyers, trying to avoid tax using corporate structures. If you do that, and the property is worth over £500k, you have to report it to the tax man.
The man from the government doesn't come around, you have to tell them yourself. But I believe it is a really small number and I don't think many people are using this setup for a property worth anyway near the boundary of £500k, they are using it on multi-million pound properties, so I don't think there is much is it / isn't it about it.
However, for the £2 million mark, the reports are saying currently 250,000 homes are around that level or above.
Ed's scheme is for everyone who has the temerity to own a house.
Ed's scheme is for everyone who has the temerity to own a house in the South East.
Completely off-topic, is there any chance at all the lib dems will go into coalition with the conservatives again next election? I think their "die in a ditch" promises are going to include a mansion tax and they'll probably require no EU referendum in a coalition agreement. I don't see how the Tories could agree to that.
Mr @Bond_James_Bond - if you download this video [using the YTube button, then go to a website www.zamzar.com - you can convert it for free to MP3 and play it on your PC. Takes about 5 mins for them to send it back to you. No need to open an account and no viruses.
It's an excellent little auto formatting engine that allows to change almost any file type into another.
Mr. Bond, it's on Youtube, so one imagines it could be downloaded as an mp3 (beyond my tech knowledge level of luddite) and then put on a CD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJBjvcYSnPM
Thanks both, I will try this - I always thought you couldn't download from YouTube!
Completely off-topic, is there any chance at all the lib dems will go into coalition with the conservatives again next election? I think their "die in a ditch" promises are going to include a mansion tax and they'll probably require no EU referendum in a coalition agreement. I don't see how the Tories could agree to that.
Tuition fees? That was a die in a ditch policy....
Also the no EU referendum, they swing in the wind with that. At one point remember they were the only one saying they would offer an in/out choice.
Just reading that finally Labour have declared how think they will work out all the £2 million homes, you have to "self assess". This is going to be fun (and yes it is based on an equally stupid scheme for another purpose that Osborne setup). .
Are you referring to Child Benefit self assessment ?
If so I would suggest that working out your annual salary is slightly less onerous than working out the value of your house.
No, the scheme Osborne put in place to catch, especially foreign buyers, trying to avoid tax using corporate structures. If you do that, and the property is worth over £500k, you have to report it to the tax man.
The man from the government doesn't come around, you have to tell them yourself. But I believe it is a really small number and I don't think many people are using this setup for a property worth anyway near the boundary of £500k, they are using it on multi-million pound properties, so I don't think there is much is it / isn't it about it.
However, for the £2 million mark, the reports are saying currently 250,000 homes are around that level or above.
Ed's scheme is for everyone who has the temerity to own a house.
Ed's scheme is for everyone who has the temerity to own a house in the South East.
Completely off-topic, is there any chance at all the lib dems will go into coalition with the conservatives again next election? I think their "die in a ditch" promises are going to include a mansion tax and they'll probably require no EU referendum in a coalition agreement. I don't see how the Tories could agree to that.
I don't think they would insist on no EU referendum. In fact if anything they seem to have been moving very slightly in the direction of supporting one.
I think the bigger obstacle is that, whilst the leadership might be amenable to Coalition Mk 2, the party as a whole is not. This isn't really to do with policy as such.
Completely off-topic, is there any chance at all the lib dems will go into coalition with the conservatives again next election? I think their "die in a ditch" promises are going to include a mansion tax and they'll probably require no EU referendum in a coalition agreement. I don't see how the Tories could agree to that.
I think the LibDems will show a remarkable flexibility of principle if it means they get to stay in power. Especially if the alternative is signing up with Ed&Ed's Comedy Economic Roadshow with a teeny-weeny (i.e. borderline unworkable) majority.
Completely off-topic, is there any chance at all the lib dems will go into coalition with the conservatives again next election? I think their "die in a ditch" promises are going to include a mansion tax and they'll probably require no EU referendum in a coalition agreement. I don't see how the Tories could agree to that.
No idea, but I'm not looking forward to the endless months of interviewers asking Clegg and the response being "its up to the voters to decide".
The only way to curb the effects of it being a Geography Tax is to have regional variations. So it may kick in at £2m in London, but £500,000 in Birmingham and £100,000 in Liverpool.
What? That's only fair.....
To put it another way, they could levy it on square footage, so that someone in a huge house in the north pays more than someone in a small one in the south that happens to have inflated to a higher value.
This absurdly obvious point doesn't appear to be registering with a lot of folk.
As someone with property in London, this is a bit silly. Of course your assets with high value equals wealth. You can argue that it's unfair to tax people who have illiquid wealth, but you can't pretend a stonkingly valuable property isn't wealth.
As has been pointed out, the "stonkingly valuable property" may have a 110% mortgage on it in which case there is no net wealth at all. The tax is then a tax on borrowing.
Completely off-topic, is there any chance at all the lib dems will go into coalition with the conservatives again next election? I think their "die in a ditch" promises are going to include a mansion tax and they'll probably require no EU referendum in a coalition agreement. I don't see how the Tories could agree to that.
I think the LibDems will show a remarkable flexibility of principle if it means they get to stay in power. Especially if the alternative is signing up with Ed&Ed's Comedy Economic Roadshow with a teeny-weeny (i.e. borderline unworkable) majority.
Well from what I remember, their red-line policies will be in their manifesto, so they won't have any wiggle room left by the time the election has actually happened.
Completely off-topic, is there any chance at all the lib dems will go into coalition with the conservatives again next election? I think their "die in a ditch" promises are going to include a mansion tax and they'll probably require no EU referendum in a coalition agreement. I don't see how the Tories could agree to that.
I don't think they would insist on no EU referendum. In fact if anything they seem to have been moving very slightly in the direction of supporting one.
I think the bigger obstacle is that, whilst the leadership might be amenable to Coalition Mk 2, the party as a whole is not. This isn't really to do with policy as such.
I would be truly shocked if the Lib Dems agree to an EU referendum. Every political party in the UK for the last twenty five years have avoided giving us an EU referendum of any sort when in government, and always make pledges that neatly fall outside of their time in government. You really think the Lib Dems, the more Europhile party, who gave their best attempt at an argument against Farage and already lost, are going to risk having a public decision on their most cherished ideology?
Just reading that finally Labour have declared how think they will work out all the £2 million homes, you have to "self assess". This is going to be fun (and yes it is based on an equally stupid scheme for another purpose that Osborne setup). .
Are you referring to Child Benefit self assessment ?
If so I would suggest that working out your annual salary is slightly less onerous than working out the value of your house.
No, the scheme Osborne put in place to catch, especially foreign buyers, trying to avoid tax using corporate structures. If you do that, and the property is worth over £500k, you have to report it to the tax man.
The man from the government doesn't come around, you have to tell them yourself. But I believe it is a really small number and I don't think many people are using this setup for a property worth anyway near the boundary of £500k, they are using it on multi-million pound properties, so I don't think there is much is it / isn't it about it.
However, for the £2 million mark, the reports are saying currently 250,000 homes are around that level or above.
That is for people who actively want to avoid stamp duty and CGT taxes by putting a property in a special scheme.
Ed's scheme is for everyone who has the temerity to own a house.
That scheme (Osbornes) was very clearly designed to stop that practice. It was never designed to actually raise any money, in fact they didn't want it to.
Just reading that finally Labour have declared how think they will work out all the £2 million homes, you have to "self assess". This is going to be fun (and yes it is based on an equally stupid scheme for another purpose that Osborne setup). .
Are you referring to Child Benefit self assessment ?
If so I would suggest that working out your annual salary is slightly less onerous than working out the value of your house.
No, the scheme Osborne put in place to catch, especially foreign buyers, trying to avoid tax using corporate structures. If you do that, and the property is worth over £500k, you have to report it to the tax man.
The man from the government doesn't come around, you have to tell them yourself. But I believe it is a really small number and I don't think many people are using this setup for a property worth anyway near the boundary of £500k, they are using it on multi-million pound properties, so I don't think there is much is it / isn't it about it.
However, for the £2 million mark, the reports are saying currently 250,000 homes are around that level or above.
Ed's scheme is for everyone who has the temerity to own a house.
Ed's scheme is for everyone who has the temerity to own a house in the South East.
Yeah as a rough estimate I think 90+% of Tory voters own houses worth £2 million
As has been pointed out, the "stonkingly valuable property" may have a 110% mortgage on it in which case there is no net wealth at all. The tax is then a tax on borrowing.
Yeah and the last thing any government would ever want to do is create a disincentive to taking out a 110% mortgage on a property worth £2 million
The Lib Dem price for another coalition will be electoral reform without a referendum in exchange for an in out referendum.
You read it here first.
I've been thinking along these lines, but it would be extremely unpopular just 4 years after we pretty solidly rejected the idea in a referendum. I guess they could pick another system and say we only rejected AV, but generally it'd be a publicity nightmare.
The Lib Dem price for another coalition will be electoral reform without a referendum in exchange for an in out referendum.
You read it here first.
What system though? Tories might come around to AV now that UKIP is a thorn in their side.
Multi member STV constituencies.
Tories won't go for that.
They might agree to STV for local council elections though. But generally I think Tories will not do coalition again - it will be minority and then 2nd election in a year. They can afford it.
The Lib Dem price for another coalition will be electoral reform without a referendum in exchange for an in out referendum.
You read it here first.
I've been thinking along these lines, but it would be extremely unpopular just 4 years after we pretty solidly rejected the idea in a referendum. I guess they could pick another system and say we only rejected AV, but generally it'd be a publicity nightmare.
If the Tories, LD and Kippers backed it would make it more palatable for the public.
This absurdly obvious point doesn't appear to be registering with a lot of folk.
As someone with property in London, this is a bit silly. Of course your assets with high value equals wealth. You can argue that it's unfair to tax people who have illiquid wealth, but you can't pretend a stonkingly valuable property isn't wealth.
Well it does... 'real' wealth would be assets-liabilities. You could live in a £2m mansion and have a £2m mortgage and be penniless. (whether that would be wise is another issue).
You hit on a massive issue - should the tax be on the net wealth in a property?
Although Ed can't acknowledge the issue, or else everyone in a £2m+ property would go and get mortgages. Which would make it even more impossible for first time buyers to get on the property ladder. It will particularly hurt anyone borrowing to improve a property, where those improvements take the value over £2m - so why would you? Which will further hurt local builders and materials suppliers.
The lurking issue that has not been spelt out though is I suspect a land tax. I will not be remotely surprised to see the next Labour Chancellor have to introduce one, to plug the hole in their receipts from the Mansion Tax. They probably have the plans drawn up already.
Comments
*nerd alert*
My record collection is enormous - I've got 1200 songs [50s to now plus ancient jazz] on my favourites list... The lyrics to so many are just brilliant. A much under appreciated medium IMO.
I've just tripped across a great punky number at the end of a HBO tv show from 2007 and hunted all over teh interwebs for it. No dice - so have clipped it from the video and converted it to MP3. Will stick it on YouTube next for those who can't find it either.
My next task is the showgirls song from Citizen Kane - I've got the OST and just need to find the one I want from the dozens on there...
Tull, Yes and Genesis - I've a few of theirs. Saw Tull back in the early 80s - marvellous. I rather like The Yardbirds too.
So if you live in a £2 million house that you can't actually sell for £2 million - because to pay that for it exposes the buyer to the tax - HMRC can simply rule that its value for Hate Tax purposes is £2 million and thus it's liable to the tax anyway, regardless of sale price. Any actual sale at a lesser value is simply a ruse for the purposes of tax evasion.
This approach exists already with property. You can't sell your house to your children for less than market value with any advantage because HMRC can argue that you've done so to dodge stamp duty, IHT, or whatever, and will go ahead and take the tax anyway. So what we are likely to see is a lot of people living in £1 million 3-bed semis in Conservative constituencies, upon whom Labour via HMRC levies its hate tax anyway..
Once you've anthropormorphised them - they're saved from the cooking pot.
Thinking about the 'London' issue and Westminster not being responsive to the rest of the country - would a potential solution not be for Westminster to move to somewhere more sensible and more representative of the country as a whole. Clearly politicians are never going to actually go for it, but it would split the London Finance centre with the Media/Political gravity of the country as well.
Also we should have it up on our website soon for anyone interested in spread betting.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100286606/pity-england-pity-scotland-governed-by-fools-and-charlatans/
I propose a simple law to start with. No one who has ever done PPE at Oxbridge is ever allowed into the Cabinet ever again. That gets rid of half these cretins overnight. Who’s with me?
There's plenty of stuff we could do: bring back the primary purpose rule, make the English/culture test much tougher, get rid of the 20-year amnesty, ban people that have broken visa laws from ever getting another visa, putting up the income requirement to bring someone here, requiring marriage visas to have a three-year existing relationship etc etc. So why did Cameron make "tens of thousands" a target then?
If anything it inspired me to smash into the 10/1 and 8/1, so every cloud...
We've been here before. Prior to 1962, any inhabitant of the British Empire and Commonwealth could settle here. Governments of both stripes subsequently introduced sensible immigration controls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJBjvcYSnPM
Not that 'ordinary', Ed! Woman who inspired Miliband's speech on disillusioned young grew up in £900,000 Oxfordshire mansion and went to same posh school as SamCam
Miss Bazell - whose sister Clemency, 24, is a Labour Party member
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2769176/Woman-inspired-Ed-Milibands-speech-disillusioned-young-grew-900-000-Oxfordshire-mansion.html
So Gareth and Beatrice, neither exactly "ordinary" folk.
The history of immigration controls has shown it is something that has gone hand in hand with the movement from oligarchy to democracy. It is no coincidence that immigration has been allowed to skyrocket as we move back to oligarchy...
I expect that the Conservative manifesto will include further tightening up on non-EU immigration in addition to what has already been done.
Some Labour voters might be willing to vote Tory to keep UKIP out (depending on the candidate and constituency), but the opposite is not true.
I've read the Tories are taking a low profile in Heywood in hopes that their voters vote UKIP, so that they balance their loss in Clacton with a loss for Labour.
In conclusion I've thought from the beginning that this is a safe Labour seat, despite the Tories aiding UKIP and the local unpopularity of the Labour campaign. The actions of Labour speak louder than their words, they are not scrambling to Heywood.
Of course it's a most unfair criticism. Ed has talked to a representative sample of ordinary people in Primrose Hill.
James Chapman (Mail)@jameschappers·5 mins
.@SuzanneEvans1: 'Day after Carswell defected, security threat level was raised. Now on day of Ukip conference, PM recalls Parliament'. Mad
@nigelfletcher: If only Ed Miliband had equipped himself with this one-word annotation from his predecessor Michael Foot's papers... http://t.co/DR643y6QL5
Ed's speech was wholly underpinned by the unpleasant notion that wealth was wicked, privilege perverse. It was the only discernible content.
Surveyors in for bonus business, and I was joking the other day about bringing HIPS inspectors out of retirement.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/labour-conference-to-keep-happening-until-somebody-notices-2014092591075
Following its conference in Manchester this week which was largely ignored in favour of real news, the event will happen again next week in Bournemouth and the following week in Liverpool.
If you're unfortunate enough to live in a flat in Mayfair - that cost £2m - that's not a Mansion Tax - it's a Geography Tax.
You could live in a huge country pile in Wales and not pay a penny extra.
It's nonsense and evil politics on stilts.
Two examples:
1) a house worth approximately £100,000
2) a house worth approximately £1,800,000
In case 1, can you just say "My house is obviously worth less than two million quid, so I don't need to bother"?
In case 2, if you find your house is less than the £2m threshold can you claim the cost of the survey back from government? One suspects not.
But if not, the policy will piss off not just those who might pay or fear they might pay in the future, but those whose homes are worth anywhere near the threshold.
A Rip roaringly funny ruse combined with a Rik from the young ones bleeding heart
It's an excellent little auto formatting engine that allows to change almost any file type into another.
I'd have thought turnout might be important here. Big reason for kipper supporters to turn out. Not so labour, perhaps.
Reasonable turnout = good labour performance.
Can of worms.
If you want to raise the most amount of money and minimize the nudge to people into looking into avoiding tax, Gordon had one thing right, fiscal drag is your friend. 50p tax rate comes in, people start looking at all sorts of way to avoid it, net nothing basically raised. I bet if he had just fiddled the IC / NI boundaries a bit, would have raised even more, very little said and people would hardly notice.
Even now, Osborne has dragged loads more people into 40p and although it does come up a bit, nowhere near as much as if he had declared a big instance tax rise. And on the flip side, the increase in personal allowance, I bet most people who have benefited from it, don't even realise what it is worth to them a year.
This absurdly obvious point doesn't appear to be registering with a lot of folk.
What? That's only fair.....
If they had the balls, they could do both. In some areas, a new rather of Council tax (less than 2me though) would mean that band C might need to pay what band B did, and so the reassessment could have fewer objectors than usual. You'd have to force councils to make the take the same, or limited, so it wouldn't help funding...
The ScotNats thought MI5 was actively influencing the Indyref.
Now the Kippers thinks there's this vast conspiracy involving Obama, Islamic terrorists and Cameron to bugger up the Kipper conference.
Christ can you imagine if we have an in out referendum on the EU and the Kippers lose?
You could use their whining as an unlimited power source for centuries.
Who needs cold fusion ?
If so I would suggest that working out your annual salary is slightly less onerous than working out the value of your house.
Why focus on a single asset? If you've a £1.9m mortgage on a £2m property - you pay, if you own 10 outright at £1m each you don't.
It's a crap idea that doesn't bear the tiniest bit of logic given it's a Geography Tax.
You could live in a £2m mansion and have a £2m mortgage and be penniless. (whether that would be wise is another issue).
The man from the government doesn't come around, you have to tell them yourself. But I believe it is a really small number and I don't think many people are using this setup for a property worth anyway near the boundary of £500k, they are using it on multi-million pound properties, so I don't think there is much is it / isn't it about it.
However, for the £2 million mark, the reports are saying currently 250,000 homes are around that level or above.
As I've argued on here before, the Mansion Tax is a small answer to a much bigger solution which is the financing of local Government and whether a property tax should be part of that.
On topic, I don't know why anyone should be surprised - it's a standard campaigning technique when defending a "safe" seat whether it be Newark or Heywood. The need to motivate your own supporters to vote is the key and if you can't rely on them, make the alternative seem worse. In its own way, far from undermining the current politics, UKIP is doing its best to maintain it.
Another year, another Parliamentary recall tomorrow. I'm deeply sceptical about Cameron's proposal and having listened to seven minutes of Nick "how many times can I see the words vile and barbaric in one interview?" Clegg my scepticism is undiminished.
There are only two ways of waging war - all or nothing. Anything in between risks disaster as we've seen so many times in so many places. If we manage through a combination of air strikes to fragment IS, then wre risk creating a new tranche of terrorists who will find their way and the circle will start anew.
In any case, if all we do is push them out of Iraq (if we can), IS will still be in Syria in force and no one seems to have any clear idea of how to move things forward in that tortured land.
[Dear MI5. I'm joking. ]
I have two guest articles in the pipeline. One goes up today. One tomorrow.
So yours could be up by the weekend.
Why isn't laser eye treatment free on the NHS?
It is a disability to be very short sighted, something that prevents me from living a normal life (-6)
NHS specs have been around for years, but now that corrective surgery is commonplace privately surely it should be available on the NHS
Or failing that, NHS Contact lenses.... I have to pay £1 a day for vision!
Ed's scheme is for everyone who has the temerity to own a house.
Ed's scheme is for everyone who has the temerity to own a house in the South East.
aha Thanks both, I will try this - I always thought you couldn't download from YouTube!
Also the no EU referendum, they swing in the wind with that. At one point remember they were the only one saying they would offer an in/out choice.
I think the bigger obstacle is that, whilst the leadership might be amenable to Coalition Mk 2, the party as a whole is not. This isn't really to do with policy as such.
You read it here first.
Although Ed can't acknowledge the issue, or else everyone in a £2m+ property would go and get mortgages. Which would make it even more impossible for first time buyers to get on the property ladder. It will particularly hurt anyone borrowing to improve a property, where those improvements take the value over £2m - so why would you? Which will further hurt local builders and materials suppliers.
The lurking issue that has not been spelt out though is I suspect a land tax. I will not be remotely surprised to see the next Labour Chancellor have to introduce one, to plug the hole in their receipts from the Mansion Tax. They probably have the plans drawn up already.