Standard economic theory tells you that the people who stand on the hard shoulder on dual carriageways selling roses must sell roses. But damned if I have ever seen it or can imagine a set of circumstances whereby a rose bought from those people is the answer to any need for roses I may have.
Woman worth an estimated 11 million pounds doesn't support a mansion tax shocker ! Only on PB.
Working single Mum critical of Tax policy suggested by millionaire politician who tried not to pay IHT...
As I explained at length several threads back, the Miliband family DOV had no immediate effect on any IHT payable [the bill was zero in any case]. It still has had no effect 20 years later, and only might have an effect upon the death of his mother, provided she has taken no further steps to mitigate her IHT liability.
The Finance Act 2009 has already considerably reduced the notional benefit of the DOV in any case.
Apologies if you've already explained this: why would you do a DoV if it didn't save you any IHT?
Because the way the IHT rules worked in 1994, Ralph Miliband foolishly didn't make use of his Nil Rate Band in his will. He just left everything to his wife, and spousal transfers are tax-free in any case. The DOV was just a belt-and-braces attempt to make use of an entitlement he had forgotten to use.
It had no immediate tax effects, and may still have none, depending on how Mrs Miliband has arranged her affairs in the intervening 20 years...
So - and apologies once again - the nil rate band was used to pass part of his estate onto his sons rather than to his wife?
I had assumed that the only reason for a DoV is that it makes the will more tax efficient i.e. you pay less tax than would otherwise be the case. I can't see the point otherwise.
EDIT: Apologies, apparently Westminster is actually one of the cheapest in the country. Here are some more Band H amounts:
Kensington & Chelsea - £2133.58 (ie. 1% or so) City of London - £1883.58 (ie. 0.9%) Tower Hamlets - £2369.04 (ie. 1.2%)
That's ridiculous! Maybe we should have 4 or 5 more bands, including a superband for the serious mansions and just forget this Mansion Tax idiocy.
It does seem a simpler method to achieve the same outcome, I must say. I'm pretty bemused as to why this isn't the proposal anyway.
I think this is all about totems. Sticking a few extra bands on Council Tax wouldn't make any headlines at all. which is why the smart chancellor would consider it a good option (think: feathers - hissing). But Ed is desperate to firm up his core vote, which is turning out to be a good bit less core than he anticipated, so he needs lots of "soak the rich" dog whistles, as a substitute for concrete policy proposals that won't split the effectively irreconcilable components of what is left of the Labour vote base.
How can it be a mansion? It's a 4 bedroom semi. A large-ish house but no mansion.
That was rather my point. It cost £2m so its covered by the Labour mansion tax proposal, for what is a relatively well positioned, but otherwise unremarkable middle class family home.
Thanks TSE. I saw about half a dozen tweets from OGH referring to it this morning but couldn't find one with the actual numbers. That puts the Tories +5 on the poll of 9th November. From those I have recorded since August, this appears to be the 1st Tory lead with Opinium since at least August if not pre 2012. Happy to stand corrected if I am wrong.
A couple of slightly related thoughts. For all the torrent of anti-Labour and anti-Milliband rhetoric on here, the Labour party has a long tradition and significant place in our country's culture and there are many people who naturally identify with it whether through the welfare state (implemented by Labour based on a Liberal idea) or through a tradition of Union activity or simply through other policies.
It clearly seems bizarre to some on here but Labour supporters have a very different view of the Labour Party to those who don't support the Party. I don't and have never supported Labour but respect what they have stood for and that has clearly resonated with the country on occasion.
On Council Tax versus LIT - the truth is there is no fair method of financing local Government. Adding extra bands for Council Tax seems entirely logical and I'm sure the providers of Council Tax collection software and the surveyors who will need to value the new bands will be laughing all the way to the bank but the deeper question is whether there needs to be a full-scale revaluation of properties and bands to take account of the huge movement in prices and the greater regional disparities.
EDIT: Apologies, apparently Westminster is actually one of the cheapest in the country. Here are some more Band H amounts:
Kensington & Chelsea - £2133.58 (ie. 1% or so) City of London - £1883.58 (ie. 0.9%) Tower Hamlets - £2369.04 (ie. 1.2%)
That's ridiculous! Maybe we should have 4 or 5 more bands, including a superband for the serious mansions and just forget this Mansion Tax idiocy.
It does seem a simpler method to achieve the same outcome, I must say. I'm pretty bemused as to why this isn't the proposal anyway.
I think this is all about totems. Sticking a few extra bands on Council Tax wouldn't make any headlines at all. which is why the smart chancellor would consider it a good option (think: feathers - hissing). But Ed is desperate to firm up his core vote, which is turning out to be a good bit less core than he anticipated, so he needs lots of "soak the rich" dog whistles, as a substitute for concrete policy proposals that won't split the effectively irreconcilable components of what is left of the Labour vote base.
Ironic that Labour seem to have adopted the mansion tax at precisely the moment the Lib Dems abandoned it.
EDIT: Apologies, apparently Westminster is actually one of the cheapest in the country. Here are some more Band H amounts:
Kensington & Chelsea - £2133.58 (ie. 1% or so) City of London - £1883.58 (ie. 0.9%) Tower Hamlets - £2369.04 (ie. 1.2%)
That's ridiculous! Maybe we should have 4 or 5 more bands, including a superband for the serious mansions and just forget this Mansion Tax idiocy.
It does seem a simpler method to achieve the same outcome, I must say. I'm pretty bemused as to why this isn't the proposal anyway.
I think this is all about totems. Sticking a few extra bands on Council Tax wouldn't make any headlines at all. which is why the smart chancellor would consider it a good option (think: feathers - hissing). But Ed is desperate to firm up his core vote, which is turning out to be a good bit less core than he anticipated, so he needs lots of "soak the rich" dog whistles, as a substitute for concrete policy proposals that won't split the effectively irreconcilable components of what is left of the Labour vote base.
Ironic that Labour seem to have adopted the mansion tax at precisely the moment the Lib Dems abandoned it.
This is essential reading for anyone betting on Scottish constituencies. He's actually been rather kind to Labour.
Very intersting Antifrank, thanks.
"Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock would go down to the wire – Labour would have a lead of 167 over the SNP, who are now third, but even a small Conservative boost there would see that party come through the middle."
If you trust this guys analysis (btw, who is he?), Ladbrokes are offering 7/2 on a coin toss.
Personally I've already got a lot of exposure to a Labour meltdown in Scotland, so I'll be giving it a miss. If I hadn't then I'd probably just Buy SNP seats on SPIN @ 21 as a decent(ish) tradeoutable bet, rather than dicking around with constituencies at shortish odds.
Obviously a lot can change between now & May, but it could also change for the worse for Labour.
A very interesting seat. It contains the solidly Tory Ayr seat and is home to South Ayrshire, one of the few Tory run councils in Scotland. The parts of the seat added into the former Ayr seat from George Foulks former Cumnock and Doun Valley is what has made this appear a safe Labour seat.
Thanks TSE. I saw about half a dozen tweets from OGH referring to it this morning but couldn't find one with the actual numbers. That puts the Tories +5 on the poll of 9th November. From those I have recorded since August, this appears to be the 1st Tory lead with Opinium since at least August if not pre 2012. Happy to stand corrected if I am wrong.
By my reckoning it is the first Tory lead with Opinium since March 2012.
EDIT: Apologies, apparently Westminster is actually one of the cheapest in the country. Here are some more Band H amounts:
Kensington & Chelsea - £2133.58 (ie. 1% or so) City of London - £1883.58 (ie. 0.9%) Tower Hamlets - £2369.04 (ie. 1.2%)
That's ridiculous! Maybe we should have 4 or 5 more bands, including a superband for the serious mansions and just forget this Mansion Tax idiocy.
It does seem a simpler method to achieve the same outcome, I must say. I'm pretty bemused as to why this isn't the proposal anyway.
I think this is all about totems. Sticking a few extra bands on Council Tax wouldn't make any headlines at all. which is why the smart chancellor would consider it a good option (think: feathers - hissing). But Ed is desperate to firm up his core vote, which is turning out to be a good bit less core than he anticipated, so he needs lots of "soak the rich" dog whistles, as a substitute for concrete policy proposals that won't split the effectively irreconcilable components of what is left of the Labour vote base.
Ironic that Labour seem to have adopted the mansion tax at precisely the moment the Lib Dems abandoned it.
Why is it ironic ?
I always imagined that one reason why Labour adopted it was to make it easier to do a deal with the Lib Dems should the need arise by adopting one of their favoured policies.
EDIT: Apologies, apparently Westminster is actually one of the cheapest in the country. Here are some more Band H amounts:
Kensington & Chelsea - £2133.58 (ie. 1% or so) City of London - £1883.58 (ie. 0.9%) Tower Hamlets - £2369.04 (ie. 1.2%)
That's ridiculous! Maybe we should have 4 or 5 more bands, including a superband for the serious mansions and just forget this Mansion Tax idiocy.
It does seem a simpler method to achieve the same outcome, I must say. I'm pretty bemused as to why this isn't the proposal anyway.
I think this is all about totems. Sticking a few extra bands on Council Tax wouldn't make any headlines at all. which is why the smart chancellor would consider it a good option (think: feathers - hissing). But Ed is desperate to firm up his core vote, which is turning out to be a good bit less core than he anticipated, so he needs lots of "soak the rich" dog whistles, as a substitute for concrete policy proposals that won't split the effectively irreconcilable components of what is left of the Labour vote base.
I guess the other political angle to this is that if he promised to raise the upper rates of the Council Tax, people would either not hear or not believe the "upper" part, and people in lower bands would assume they were going to get clobbered too.
The mansion tax is much easier to separate out, because most people don't own a mansion. Admittedly not all the houses it covers will be mansions either, but that's a complicated point for opponents to make that wraps them up in something that sounds like, "Look, this 2-million-pound house isn't all that luxurious at all!", which isn't the ideal ground to take a populist stand on...
Thanks TSE. I saw about half a dozen tweets from OGH referring to it this morning but couldn't find one with the actual numbers. That puts the Tories +5 on the poll of 9th November. From those I have recorded since August, this appears to be the 1st Tory lead with Opinium since at least August if not pre 2012. Happy to stand corrected if I am wrong.
By my reckoning it is the first Tory lead with Opinium since March 2012.
The mansion tax is much easier to separate out, because most people don't own a mansion. Admittedly not all the houses it covers will be mansions either, but that's a complicated point for opponents to make that wraps them up in something that sounds like, "Look, this 2-million-pound house isn't all that luxurious at all!", which isn't the ideal ground to take a populist stand on...
@OliverCooper: The Lib-Lab 'mansion tax' would hit more FLATS in London than all properties outside the M25 combined. It's really a London Flat Tax.
A couple of slightly related thoughts. For all the torrent of anti-Labour and anti-Milliband rhetoric on here, the Labour party has a long tradition and significant place in our country's culture and there are many people who naturally identify with it whether through the welfare state (implemented by Labour based on a Liberal idea) or through a tradition of Union activity or simply through other policies.
It clearly seems bizarre to some on here but Labour supporters have a very different view of the Labour Party to those who don't support the Party. I don't and have never supported Labour but respect what they have stood for and that has clearly resonated with the country on occasion.
On Council Tax versus LIT - the truth is there is no fair method of financing local Government. Adding extra bands for Council Tax seems entirely logical and I'm sure the providers of Council Tax collection software and the surveyors who will need to value the new bands will be laughing all the way to the bank but the deeper question is whether there needs to be a full-scale revaluation of properties and bands to take account of the huge movement in prices and the greater regional disparities.
I too have respected (and on occasion) voted for what the Labour party stood for. But the key word in that sentence is "stood". I dislike what they now stand for - and what they have been standing for for some time. Much like SO I would like there to be a sensibe social democratic party in this country. But Labour is not that party and shows no signs of turning into one.
Thanks TSE. I saw about half a dozen tweets from OGH referring to it this morning but couldn't find one with the actual numbers. That puts the Tories +5 on the poll of 9th November. From those I have recorded since August, this appears to be the 1st Tory lead with Opinium since at least August if not pre 2012. Happy to stand corrected if I am wrong.
By my reckoning it is the first Tory lead with Opinium since March 2012.
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
Yup. Even on the Daily Mail site, some of the top-rated comments are criticising Myleene.
PBTories don't want to see it, but in the real world, people are sick and tired of the super-rich acting like such spoilt brats, spitting their dummies out when they're asked to make a fraction of the sacrificies that the rest of us have had to make.
Miliband is labelled a millionaire on here and elsewhere because he lives in a house worth £2 million. By the same logic, every single person affected by the Mansion Tax is a millionaire.
EDIT: Apologies, apparently Westminster is actually one of the cheapest in the country. Here are some more Band H amounts:
Kensington & Chelsea - £2133.58 (ie. 1% or so) City of London - £1883.58 (ie. 0.9%) Tower Hamlets - £2369.04 (ie. 1.2%)
That's ridiculous! Maybe we should have 4 or 5 more bands, including a superband for the serious mansions and just forget this Mansion Tax idiocy.
It does seem a simpler method to achieve the same outcome, I must say. I'm pretty bemused as to why this isn't the proposal anyway.
I think this is all about totems. Sticking a few extra bands on Council Tax wouldn't make any headlines at all. which is why the smart chancellor would consider it a good option (think: feathers - hissing). But Ed is desperate to firm up his core vote, which is turning out to be a good bit less core than he anticipated, so he needs lots of "soak the rich" dog whistles, as a substitute for concrete policy proposals that won't split the effectively irreconcilable components of what is left of the Labour vote base.
I guess the other political angle to this is that if he promised to raise the upper rates of the Council Tax, people would either not hear or not believe the "upper" part, and people in lower bands would assume they were going to get clobbered too.
The mansion tax is much easier to separate out, because most people don't own a mansion. Admittedly not all the houses it covers will be mansions either, but that's a complicated point for opponents to make that wraps them up in something that sounds like, "Look, this 2-million-pound house isn't all that luxurious at all!", which isn't the ideal ground to take a populist stand on...
That's a fair point, I would angle more for
"Have you see how fast property prices are going up in your area, what do you think your house will be worth by the time Labour get this through parliament, do you really believe them when they say its will only be houses over £2m."
The mansion tax is much easier to separate out, because most people don't own a mansion. Admittedly not all the houses it covers will be mansions either, but that's a complicated point for opponents to make that wraps them up in something that sounds like, "Look, this 2-million-pound house isn't all that luxurious at all!", which isn't the ideal ground to take a populist stand on...
@OliverCooper: The Lib-Lab 'mansion tax' would hit more FLATS in London than all properties outside the M25 combined. It's really a London Flat Tax.
Not complicated.
That's quite an elaborate formulation, and even if it wasn't it's still going to conjure up the sounds of the world's smallest violin to the vast majority of people who are nowhere near owning a 2 million pound house, or a 2 million pound flat, or a 2 million pound anything else. This includes people in London, where IIRC the mansion tax polls pretty well.
A local income tax would go down tremendously well with pensioners if it replaced council tax I think... ^_~
I dunno about that, Mr. Star. As a pensioner and a council tax payer I am not sure I would object if my council tax were to be replaced by an income tax. Provided that the income tax were to levied on all residents in the area it could be a more equitable method of raising funds for essential local services than any other (second homes in the area could be dealt with by a flat rate levy - say £10,000 p.a payable in advance).
EDIT: Apologies, apparently Westminster is actually one of the cheapest in the country. Here are some more Band H amounts:
Kensington & Chelsea - £2133.58 (ie. 1% or so) City of London - £1883.58 (ie. 0.9%) Tower Hamlets - £2369.04 (ie. 1.2%)
That's ridiculous! Maybe we should have 4 or 5 more bands, including a superband for the serious mansions and just forget this Mansion Tax idiocy.
It does seem a simpler method to achieve the same outcome, I must say. I'm pretty bemused as to why this isn't the proposal anyway.
I think this is all about totems. Sticking a few extra bands on Council Tax wouldn't make any headlines at all. which is why the smart chancellor would consider it a good option (think: feathers - hissing). But Ed is desperate to firm up his core vote, which is turning out to be a good bit less core than he anticipated, so he needs lots of "soak the rich" dog whistles, as a substitute for concrete policy proposals that won't split the effectively irreconcilable components of what is left of the Labour vote base.
I guess the other political angle to this is that if he promised to raise the upper rates of the Council Tax, people would either not hear or not believe the "upper" part, and people in lower bands would assume they were going to get clobbered too.
The mansion tax is much easier to separate out, because most people don't own a mansion. Admittedly not all the houses it covers will be mansions either, but that's a complicated point for opponents to make that wraps them up in something that sounds like, "Look, this 2-million-pound house isn't all that luxurious at all!", which isn't the ideal ground to take a populist stand on...
That's a fair point, I would angle more for
"Have you see how fast property prices are going up in your area, what do you think your house will be worth by the time Labour get this through parliament, do you really believe them when they say its will only be houses over £2m."
Yup, that's the right way to play it. It's a rock they have to push uphill though, unlike the equivalent council tax thing where they'd just be able to say, "LABOUR WILL PUT UP COUNCIL TAX".
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
Yup. Even on the Daily Mail site, some of the top-rated comments are criticising Myleene.
PBTories don't want to see it, but in the real world, people are sick and tired of the super-rich acting like such spoilt brats, spitting their dummies out when they're asked to make a fraction of the sacrificies that the rest of us have had to make.
Miliband is labelled a millionaire on here and elsewhere because he lives in a house worth £2 million. By the same logic, every single person affected by the Mansion Tax is a millionaire.
Indeed. But then every one of those people isn't going around telling people with £2m houses that they are rich and should pay more tax, whilst (perfectly legally) ensuring that he didn't pay any more than was necessary himself". (and one might add, being able to claim any mansion taxes they might be levied as an MPs expense)
Thanks TSE. I saw about half a dozen tweets from OGH referring to it this morning but couldn't find one with the actual numbers. That puts the Tories +5 on the poll of 9th November. From those I have recorded since August, this appears to be the 1st Tory lead with Opinium since at least August if not pre 2012. Happy to stand corrected if I am wrong.
By my reckoning it is the first Tory lead with Opinium since March 2012.
I've always had a vague gut feeling against local income tax. I've never known why though. Is there a decent guide to the pro's and cons of Local Income Tax over Council Tax?
EDIT: Apologies, apparently Westminster is actually one of the cheapest in the country. Here are some more Band H amounts:
Kensington & Chelsea - £2133.58 (ie. 1% or so) City of London - £1883.58 (ie. 0.9%) Tower Hamlets - £2369.04 (ie. 1.2%)
That's ridiculous! Maybe we should have 4 or 5 more bands, including a superband for the serious mansions and just forget this Mansion Tax idiocy.
It does seem a simpler method to achieve the same outcome, I must say. I'm pretty bemused as to why this isn't the proposal anyway.
I think this is all about totems. Sticking a few extra bands on Council Tax wouldn't make any headlines at all. which is why the smart chancellor would consider it a good option (think: feathers - hissing). But Ed is desperate to firm up his core vote, which is turning out to be a good bit less core than he anticipated, so he needs lots of "soak the rich" dog whistles, as a substitute for concrete policy proposals that won't split the effectively irreconcilable components of what is left of the Labour vote base.
I guess the other political angle to this is that if he promised to raise the upper rates of the Council Tax, people would either not hear or not believe the "upper" part, and people in lower bands would assume they were going to get clobbered too.
The mansion tax is much easier to separate out, because most people don't own a mansion. Admittedly not all the houses it covers will be mansions either, but that's a complicated point for opponents to make that wraps them up in something that sounds like, "Look, this 2-million-pound house isn't all that luxurious at all!", which isn't the ideal ground to take a populist stand on...
I think it would be pretty hard to add a few bands to council tax without also doing a full revaluation at the same time. That's become a political no-go area because of the bad feeling it would generate.
With that being the case it's pretty clear that the banding of council tax is part of the problem, and a different system of property taxation which doesn't have such large jumps in tax liable is needed - ie Land Value Tax.
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
Yup. Even on the Daily Mail site, some of the top-rated comments are criticising Myleene.
PBTories don't want to see it, but in the real world, people are sick and tired of the super-rich acting like such spoilt brats, spitting their dummies out when they're asked to make a fraction of the sacrificies that the rest of us have had to make.
Miliband is labelled a millionaire on here and elsewhere because he lives in a house worth £2 million. By the same logic, every single person affected by the Mansion Tax is a millionaire.
Of course they are. If we add in pensions, lots of people (particularly those with a final salary scheme) are quite a lot richer than they may think they are. And if we adopt Labour's logic that the rich should pay more lots of people not just those who buy multi-million pound houses would have to pay more.
But "rich" - as in the phrase "the rich should pay more" - seems to be defined as someone who has more money than the person making the statement.
I think it would be pretty hard to add a few bands to council tax without also doing a full revaluation at the same time. That's become a political no-go area because of the bad feeling it would generate.
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
Yup. Even on the Daily Mail site, some of the top-rated comments are criticising Myleene.
PBTories don't want to see it, but in the real world, people are sick and tired of the super-rich acting like such spoilt brats, spitting their dummies out when they're asked to make a fraction of the sacrificies that the rest of us have had to make.
Miliband is labelled a millionaire on here and elsewhere because he lives in a house worth £2 million. By the same logic, every single person affected by the Mansion Tax is a millionaire.
Lost me on that, Mr. Observer. If a person with assets above one million pounds is not the definition of a millionaire, then what is?
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
Yup. Even on the Daily Mail site, some of the top-rated comments are criticising Myleene.
PBTories don't want to see it, but in the real world, people are sick and tired of the super-rich acting like such spoilt brats, spitting their dummies out when they're asked to make a fraction of the sacrificies that the rest of us have had to make.
Miliband is labelled a millionaire on here and elsewhere because he lives in a house worth £2 million. By the same logic, every single person affected by the Mansion Tax is a millionaire.
Of course they are. If we add in pensions, lots of people (particularly those with a final salary scheme) are quite a lot richer than they may think they are. And if we adopt Labour's logic that the rich should pay more lots of people not just those who buy multi-million pound houses would have to pay more.
But "rich" - as in the phrase "the rich should pay more" - seems to be defined as someone who has more money than the person making the statement.
Miliband is a millionaire and clearly believes he should pay more tax.
Thanks TSE. I saw about half a dozen tweets from OGH referring to it this morning but couldn't find one with the actual numbers. That puts the Tories +5 on the poll of 9th November. From those I have recorded since August, this appears to be the 1st Tory lead with Opinium since at least August if not pre 2012. Happy to stand corrected if I am wrong.
By my reckoning it is the first Tory lead with Opinium since March 2012.
Surely 1-3 on Tories in Solihull is buying money with polls like this ?
You could have said the same at various stages of the last parliament.
But the Lib Dems are harder to get rid off than the clap.
Their 7% in the latest Populus was weighted UP. This is the most marginal LD-Tory seat in the country, and surely must go !
Or well if the Tories can't win here then next May will be utterly miserable for them.
The Tories were well ahead in Lord Ashcroft's poll in the constituency (a 9% lead). What will probably do for the Lib Dems is the fact that for the first time a Green candidate is standing and he's a prominent councillor who defected from the Lib Dems in protest of them going into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010.
@Cyclefree Yes, the NRB was used to pass on 40% shares in the house to the sons [20% each]. We can deduce that this was to the value of the 1994 NRB of £150k.
The only benefit was notional. If Mrs Miliband had died not long after Ralph, the entire estate would have been IHT taxable with the benefit of only one NRB (hers) to set off against it. So, had that eventuated, the DOV would have saved them £150k * 40% = £60k by making use, as it did, of Ralph's NRB.
But Mrs M is still alive and well, so there is as yet, still no benefit. The Finance Act 2009 also made redundant the benefit of such will-writing (either ante or post-mortem), since now widow/ers can make use of a deceased spouse's unused NRB.
So the Milibands gained no tax saving (except hypothetical) either in 1994 or since, and still may not upon their mother's death, as she has had 20 years to think of other ways to mitigate any tax due on her death...
Pity Shadsy put up his SNP seats bar up to 22.5 this morning. The over 20.5 was a decent bet.
I still managed to get on the SNP at 5/2 in East Dunbartonshire before he cut to 2/1 which is nice. Personally I'd go 7/4 on all three LD/LAB/SNP right now. Hard to believe the SNP were 80/1 as recently as September.
I suspect Ladbrokes will take a hammering if the SNP poll anywhere near their current levels in May. I hope Shadsy keeps his job, anyway.
He's a good bloke.
I imagine that Shadsy himself might be looking for a career move following Ladbrokes' dismal performance of late. By general consensus its website is unfriendly and difficult to navigate despite any number of no doubt hugely expensive, yet seemingly unsuccessful revamps. Having bought Betdaq, the would-be rival to Betfair which it never was, the Magic Sign failed to develop the brand, deciding instead, rather strangely, to start-up an exchange betting operation under its own name which frankly can't hold a candle to the market leader. In the meantime it has seen its share price collapse to around 125p or less, where its market capitalisation is £1.14 bn, barely one third that of William Hill which it once dwarfed, as well as rather humiliatingly finding itself having recently being overtaken by Betfair which now has a market value of £1.40bn. This reminds me, incidentally, of a certain prominent PBer, unnamed to save his blushes, who recommended that I should sell sell my modest shareholding in Betfair since when this has increased in value by almost 40%. Speaking of Betfair, perhaps Shadsy could do worse than join this Hammersmith-based operation. After all, they have recently expanded into the fixed odds market, thereby directly taking on Ladbrokes and could certainly benefit hugely from someone who is a renowned expert of political markets, an area in which the "Machine Operator" has shown itself to be still wet behind the ears and rather unimaginative in terms of its very limited offering. Come on Shadsy, perhaps it's time dust down that old CV, after all there's no better time for such a move with the huge General Election markets now less than six months away!
Thanks TSE. I saw about half a dozen tweets from OGH referring to it this morning but couldn't find one with the actual numbers. That puts the Tories +5 on the poll of 9th November. From those I have recorded since August, this appears to be the 1st Tory lead with Opinium since at least August if not pre 2012. Happy to stand corrected if I am wrong.
By my reckoning it is the first Tory lead with Opinium since March 2012.
Surely 1-3 on Tories in Solihull is buying money with polls like this ?
You could have said the same at various stages of the last parliament.
But the Lib Dems are harder to get rid off than the clap.
Their 7% in the latest Populus was weighted UP. This is the most marginal LD-Tory seat in the country, and surely must go !
Or well if the Tories can't win here then next May will be utterly miserable for them.
The Solihull odds make no sense to me, for precisely that reason. In any case, we have one Ashcroft poll of the seat:
General question: Con 41/LD 19 Constituency Q: Con 37/LD 28
Lorely Burt is a popular MP, no denying it. But even if the LD's revive I don't see how she can hold a majority of practically nothing if the party loses 50%, or even 33% of their votes.
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
Yup. Even on the Daily Mail site, some of the top-rated comments are criticising Myleene.
PBTories don't want to see it, but in the real world, people are sick and tired of the super-rich acting like such spoilt brats, spitting their dummies out when they're asked to make a fraction of the sacrificies that the rest of us have had to make.
Miliband is labelled a millionaire on here and elsewhere because he lives in a house worth £2 million. By the same logic, every single person affected by the Mansion Tax is a millionaire.
Indeed. But then every one of those people isn't going around telling people with £2m houses that they are rich and should pay more tax, whilst (perfectly legally) ensuring that he didn't pay any more than was necessary himself". (and one might add, being able to claim any mansion taxes they might be levied as an MPs expense)
I am not sure Ed did anything except sign a piece of paper he was asked to sign by his parents when he was in his early 20s and not an MP. Of course, if his government made it possible for people to avoid paying the mansion tax then they would be perfectly entitled to do so - and Ed would clearly agree otherwise he would not legislate for it to be possible.
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
Yup. Even on the Daily Mail site, some of the top-rated comments are criticising Myleene.
PBTories don't want to see it, but in the real world, people are sick and tired of the super-rich acting like such spoilt brats, spitting their dummies out when they're asked to make a fraction of the sacrificies that the rest of us have had to make.
Miliband is labelled a millionaire on here and elsewhere because he lives in a house worth £2 million. By the same logic, every single person affected by the Mansion Tax is a millionaire.
Lost me on that, Mr. Observer. If a person with assets above one million pounds is not the definition of a millionaire, then what is?
A person with NET assets worth more than £1m I'd define it as.
I guess the other political angle to this is that if he promised to raise the upper rates of the Council Tax, people would either not hear or not believe the "upper" part, and people in lower bands would assume they were going to get clobbered too.
The mansion tax is much easier to separate out, because most people don't own a mansion. Admittedly not all the houses it covers will be mansions either, but that's a complicated point for opponents to make that wraps them up in something that sounds like, "Look, this 2-million-pound house isn't all that luxurious at all!", which isn't the ideal ground to take a populist stand on...
That's a fair point, I would angle more for
"Have you see how fast property prices are going up in your area, what do you think your house will be worth by the time Labour get this through parliament, do you really believe them when they say its will only be houses over £2m."
Yup, that's the right way to play it. It's a rock they have to push uphill though, unlike the equivalent council tax thing where they'd just be able to say, "LABOUR WILL PUT UP COUNCIL TAX".
The bit I dont get is that there was no real imperative to say anything. I know they are under a bit of pressure to say where they various spending commitments are going to be paid for from, but 1.5bn of mansion tax isn't going to change anything. Given that the mansion tax isn't going to raise enough money (even on Balls' figures) to be more than a rounding error, and that no one believes it will make that much anyway. Much better to get in power, and then just add on some bands to council tax quietly. As it is they appear to have bought a few dog whistles at the expense of pissing off the luvvie segment of their voting coalition.
The mansion tax is much easier to separate out, because most people don't own a mansion. Admittedly not all the houses it covers will be mansions either, but that's a complicated point for opponents to make that wraps them up in something that sounds like, "Look, this 2-million-pound house isn't all that luxurious at all!", which isn't the ideal ground to take a populist stand on...
@OliverCooper: The Lib-Lab 'mansion tax' would hit more FLATS in London than all properties outside the M25 combined. It's really a London Flat Tax.
Not complicated.
That's quite an elaborate formulation, and even if it wasn't it's still going to conjure up the sounds of the world's smallest violin to the vast majority of people who are nowhere near owning a 2 million pound house, or a 2 million pound flat, or a 2 million pound anything else. This includes people in London, where IIRC the mansion tax polls pretty well.
A good point. The reason it polls well is because London is rapidly becoming a city where no-one other than emigre billionaires will be able to live. Housing - its availability, cost and quality - is, or will rapidly become, a key political issue IMO.
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
Yup. Even on the Daily Mail site, some of the top-rated comments are criticising Myleene.
PBTories don't want to see it, but in the real world, people are sick and tired of the super-rich acting like such spoilt brats, spitting their dummies out when they're asked to make a fraction of the sacrificies that the rest of us have had to make.
Miliband is labelled a millionaire on here and elsewhere because he lives in a house worth £2 million. By the same logic, every single person affected by the Mansion Tax is a millionaire.
Quite ironic considering Labour were so against ensuring only millionaires paid IHT.
'"Have you see how fast property prices are going up in your area, what do you think your house will be worth by the time Labour get this through parliament, do you really believe them when they say its will only be houses over £2m."
-A three bedroom terraced house in central London is not a mansion,but will be subject to this tax.
-The threshold for the tax will not rise in line with inflation,despite what Balls says.
-When they discover it doesn't raise what they expected it will be moved lower to houses over £1.5m.
A person with NET assets worth more than £1m I'd define it as.
It must also be remembered that many of these assets are jointly owned by the married or co-habiting. Many want to pass them down to the next generation too.
So the concept of them being millionaires, whilst true, is often a bit misleading
I think it would be pretty hard to add a few bands to council tax without also doing a full revaluation at the same time. That's become a political no-go area because of the bad feeling it would generate.
Also required for any Mansion Tax...
Not in the same way - You could value everyone's homes but not use the information to change council tax bands - just for the new mansion tax.
It would be a massive waste of time and a cowardly mess, but it would avoid the huge creating of ill-feeling that a revaluation of council tax banding would create.
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
Yup. Even on the Daily Mail site, some of the top-rated comments are criticising Myleene.
PBTories don't want to see it, but in the real world, people are sick and tired of the super-rich acting like such spoilt brats, spitting their dummies out when they're asked to make a fraction of the sacrificies that the rest of us have had to make.
Miliband is labelled a millionaire on here and elsewhere because he lives in a house worth £2 million. By the same logic, every single person affected by the Mansion Tax is a millionaire.
Of course they are. If we add in pensions, lots of people (particularly those with a final salary scheme) are quite a lot richer than they may think they are. And if we adopt Labour's logic that the rich should pay more lots of people not just those who buy multi-million pound houses would have to pay more.
But "rich" - as in the phrase "the rich should pay more" - seems to be defined as someone who has more money than the person making the statement.
Miliband is a millionaire and clearly believes he should pay more tax.
Other than the mansion tax, since Labour has confirmed (I believe) that this could be claimed back by MPs as part of their expenses (though EdM himself may not do this).
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
Yup. Even on the Daily Mail site, some of the top-rated comments are criticising Myleene.
PBTories don't want to see it, but in the real world, people are sick and tired of the super-rich acting like such spoilt brats, spitting their dummies out when they're asked to make a fraction of the sacrificies that the rest of us have had to make.
Miliband is labelled a millionaire on here and elsewhere because he lives in a house worth £2 million. By the same logic, every single person affected by the Mansion Tax is a millionaire.
Of course they are. If we add in pensions, lots of people (particularly those with a final salary scheme) are quite a lot richer than they may think they are. And if we adopt Labour's logic that the rich should pay more lots of people not just those who buy multi-million pound houses would have to pay more.
But "rich" - as in the phrase "the rich should pay more" - seems to be defined as someone who has more money than the person making the statement.
Miliband is a millionaire and clearly believes he should pay more tax.
Corrected Miliband is a millionaire and clearly believes OTHERS should pay more tax.
@Cyclefree Yes, the NRB was used to pass on 40% shares in the house to the sons [20% each]. We can deduce that this was to the value of the 1994 NRB of £150k.
The only benefit was notional. If Mrs Miliband had died not long after Ralph, the entire estate would have been IHT taxable with the benefit of only one NRB (hers) to set off against it. So, had that eventuated, the DOV would have saved them £150k * 40% = £60k by making use, as it did, of Ralph's NRB.
But Mrs M is still alive and well, so there is as yet, still no benefit. The Finance Act 2009 also made redundant the benefit of such will-writing (either ante or post-mortem), since now widow/ers can make use of a deceased spouse's unused NRB.
So the Milibands gained no tax saving (except hypothetical) either in 1994 or since, and still may not upon their mother's death, as she has had 20 years to think of other ways to mitigate any tax due on her death...
So they took a precautionary step which could have saved them £60,000 if their mother had died soon after.
@Cyclefree Yes, the NRB was used to pass on 40% shares in the house to the sons [20% each]. We can deduce that this was to the value of the 1994 NRB of £150k.
The only benefit was notional. If Mrs Miliband had died not long after Ralph, the entire estate would have been IHT taxable with the benefit of only one NRB (hers) to set off against it. So, had that eventuated, the DOV would have saved them £150k * 40% = £60k by making use, as it did, of Ralph's NRB.
But Mrs M is still alive and well, so there is as yet, still no benefit. The Finance Act 2009 also made redundant the benefit of such will-writing (either ante or post-mortem), since now widow/ers can make use of a deceased spouse's unused NRB.
So the Milibands gained no tax saving (except hypothetical) either in 1994 or since, and still may not upon their mother's death, as she has had 20 years to think of other ways to mitigate any tax due on her death...
So they took a precautionary step which could have saved them £60,000 if their mother had died soon after.
Thank you for the explanation.
You're welcome. I think it's a non-story. What say you?
@Cyclefree Yes, the NRB was used to pass on 40% shares in the house to the sons [20% each]. We can deduce that this was to the value of the 1994 NRB of £150k.
The only benefit was notional. If Mrs Miliband had died not long after Ralph, the entire estate would have been IHT taxable with the benefit of only one NRB (hers) to set off against it. So, had that eventuated, the DOV would have saved them £150k * 40% = £60k by making use, as it did, of Ralph's NRB.
But Mrs M is still alive and well, so there is as yet, still no benefit. The Finance Act 2009 also made redundant the benefit of such will-writing (either ante or post-mortem), since now widow/ers can make use of a deceased spouse's unused NRB.
So the Milibands gained no tax saving (except hypothetical) either in 1994 or since, and still may not upon their mother's death, as she has had 20 years to think of other ways to mitigate any tax due on her death...
So they took a precautionary step which could have saved them £60,000 if their mother had died soon after.
Thank you for the explanation.
It's called tax avoidance not evasion.
The same tax planning he screams his head off about when others do it.
Support for the London Tax wasn't that strong when polled in August for the London Standard.
Strong Support 20% Total Support 49%
Even a third of Labour voters didn't express support for the idea.
Start a narrative about Londoners already disproportionate tax bills and how the rest of the country will contribute nothing and it will lose even more support.
Lob in the grenade of the tax being levied at a lower level and there will be a lot of frightened middle class people contemplating being taxed into moving from places they like to places they avoid.
It looks like one potential payer of the mansion tax is looking to hedge his position:
Ladbrokes Politics @LadPolitics · 47 secs47 seconds ago One Ladbrokes customer has just had £15,000 at 1/8 for Ed Miliband to remain as Labour leader until next election.
@Cyclefree Yes, the NRB was used to pass on 40% shares in the house to the sons [20% each]. We can deduce that this was to the value of the 1994 NRB of £150k.
The only benefit was notional. If Mrs Miliband had died not long after Ralph, the entire estate would have been IHT taxable with the benefit of only one NRB (hers) to set off against it. So, had that eventuated, the DOV would have saved them £150k * 40% = £60k by making use, as it did, of Ralph's NRB.
But Mrs M is still alive and well, so there is as yet, still no benefit. The Finance Act 2009 also made redundant the benefit of such will-writing (either ante or post-mortem), since now widow/ers can make use of a deceased spouse's unused NRB.
So the Milibands gained no tax saving (except hypothetical) either in 1994 or since, and still may not upon their mother's death, as she has had 20 years to think of other ways to mitigate any tax due on her death...
So they took a precautionary step which could have saved them £60,000 if their mother had died soon after.
Thank you for the explanation.
It's called tax avoidance not evasion.
The same tax planning he screams his head off about when others do it.
Ralph could have achieved the same effect if he'd received proper advice. 'Mirror wills' and equalization of estates were bread-and-butter fare for solicitors prior to the FA 2009...
@Cyclefree Yes, the NRB was used to pass on 40% shares in the house to the sons [20% each]. We can deduce that this was to the value of the 1994 NRB of £150k.
The only benefit was notional. If Mrs Miliband had died not long after Ralph, the entire estate would have been IHT taxable with the benefit of only one NRB (hers) to set off against it. So, had that eventuated, the DOV would have saved them £150k * 40% = £60k by making use, as it did, of Ralph's NRB.
But Mrs M is still alive and well, so there is as yet, still no benefit. The Finance Act 2009 also made redundant the benefit of such will-writing (either ante or post-mortem), since now widow/ers can make use of a deceased spouse's unused NRB.
So the Milibands gained no tax saving (except hypothetical) either in 1994 or since, and still may not upon their mother's death, as she has had 20 years to think of other ways to mitigate any tax due on her death...
So they took a precautionary step which could have saved them £60,000 if their mother had died soon after.
Thank you for the explanation.
You're welcome. I think it's a non-story. What say you?
It should be a non story but I suspect it will rear its ugly head during the campaign. Nothing illegal was done and the shout that "I was keeping within the rules" will come out. While it is perfectly legal there is a certain whiff about it all.
I guess the other political angle to this is that if he promised to raise the upper rates of the Council Tax, people would either not hear or not believe the "upper" part, and people in lower bands would assume they were going to get clobbered too.
The mansion tax is much easier to separate out, because most people don't own a mansion. Admittedly not all the houses it covers will be mansions either, but that's a complicated point for opponents to make that wraps them up in something that sounds like, "Look, this 2-million-pound house isn't all that luxurious at all!", which isn't the ideal ground to take a populist stand on...
That's a fair point, I would angle more for
"Have you see how fast property prices are going up in your area, what do you think your house will be worth by the time Labour get this through parliament, do you really believe them when they say its will only be houses over £2m."
Yup, that's the right way to play it. It's a rock they have to push uphill though, unlike the equivalent council tax thing where they'd just be able to say, "LABOUR WILL PUT UP COUNCIL TAX".
The bit I dont get is that there was no real imperative to say anything. I know they are under a bit of pressure to say where they various spending commitments are going to be paid for from, but 1.5bn of mansion tax isn't going to change anything. Given that the mansion tax isn't going to raise enough money (even on Balls' figures) to be more than a rounding error, and that no one believes it will make that much anyway. Much better to get in power, and then just add on some bands to council tax quietly. As it is they appear to have bought a few dog whistles at the expense of pissing off the luvvie segment of their voting coalition.
This is how elections are done in a two-party system. It doesn't matter how much of what the parties are saying is the same: The media focus on the points of difference. Meanwhile the voters have no idea what these large-sounding sums of money mean. So even though the 1.5bn is the kind of money George Osborne loses down the back of his sofa, it'll be turned into a big deal in the campaign. Meanwhile the opposition can't run on nothing, but it also doesn't have any more money than the government does, so it needs some kind of memorable, understandable way to say it's going to raise money.
It looks like one potential payer of the mansion tax is looking to hedge his position:
Ladbrokes Politics @LadPolitics · 47 secs47 seconds ago One Ladbrokes customer has just had £15,000 at 1/8 for Ed Miliband to remain as Labour leader until next election.
I think it would be pretty hard to add a few bands to council tax without also doing a full revaluation at the same time. That's become a political no-go area because of the bad feeling it would generate.
Also required for any Mansion Tax...
I think the proposal is rather more unpleasant that that. It relies on the owner either valuing their property themselves, or regularly paying for their property to be valued. HMRC would from time to time challenge valuations, and if you appeared to be undervaluing your property without acting on the advice of a professional valuation, you would be liable for back taxes and penalties. Property owners a bit under 2m would either have to fork out for their own valuations every year (especially in inner London) or live with the worry that HMRC would challenge their valuation, and without a valuation certificate to fall back on they would be in line for swinging fines and back taxes.
I think the hardest LD-Tory marginal in the country to call is Torbay.
I agree totally, all the more so after the 2010 Tory candidate Marcus Wood, well known to PBers at the time was well and truly defeated by the LibDem candidate who secured an increased majority of over 4,000 votes. What was especially disappointing (especially for the likes of me who had backed Marcus quite heavily) was the fact that he seemed totally convinced that victory would be his, yet in all honesty he failed by a very wide margin.
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
The legacy of the interview will be:
a) "You can't just point at things and tax them"; and b) the nastiness that is emerging towards Mylene Klass
a) Just smacks of special pleading
b) Tory Beliebers. Don't diss their favourite pop stars or heaven help you.
Lot of Beliebers voting in that Metro poll. 94% backing Myleene over Ed.
A positive aspect of Filipino immigration
People always vote for a candidate if they're from the same ethnic background as them. As a UKIP voter of Indian(?) ethnicity, you'll be very familiar with that...
I think the hardest LD-Tory marginal in the country to call is Torbay.
I agree totally, all the more so after the 2010 Tory candidate Marcus Wood, well known to PBers at the time was well and truly defeated by the LibDem candidate who secured an increased majority of over 4,000 votes. What was especially disappointing (especially for the likes of me who had backed Marcus quite heavily) was the fact that he seemed totally convinced that victory would be his, yet in all honesty he failed by a very wide margin.
Kevin Foster would make a fine MP but he has his work cut out with Sanders of the bay.
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
The legacy of the interview will be:
a) "You can't just point at things and tax them"; and b) the nastiness that is emerging towards Mylene Klass
a) Just smacks of special pleading
b) Tory Beliebers. Don't diss their favourite pop stars or heaven help you.
Lot of Beliebers voting in that Metro poll. 94% backing Myleene over Ed.
A positive aspect of Filipino immigration
People always vote for a candidate if they're from the same ethnic background as them. As a UKIP voter of Indian(?) ethnicity, you'll be very familiar with that...
How do you mean? Farage isn't Indian is he?
Ultimately French I believe, Farage is a Huguenot surname.
It looks like one potential payer of the mansion tax is looking to hedge his position:
Ladbrokes Politics @LadPolitics · 47 secs47 seconds ago One Ladbrokes customer has just had £15,000 at 1/8 for Ed Miliband to remain as Labour leader until next election.
Sky Bet are 1-5 on this.
Probably worth checking the max bet before uploading £15k to your skybet account...
@Cyclefree Yes, the NRB was used to pass on 40% shares in the house to the sons [20% each]. We can deduce that this was to the value of the 1994 NRB of £150k.
The only benefit was notional. If Mrs Miliband had died not long after Ralph, the entire estate would have been IHT taxable with the benefit of only one NRB (hers) to set off against it. So, had that eventuated, the DOV would have saved them £150k * 40% = £60k by making use, as it did, of Ralph's NRB.
But Mrs M is still alive and well, so there is as yet, still no benefit. The Finance Act 2009 also made redundant the benefit of such will-writing (either ante or post-mortem), since now widow/ers can make use of a deceased spouse's unused NRB.
So the Milibands gained no tax saving (except hypothetical) either in 1994 or since, and still may not upon their mother's death, as she has had 20 years to think of other ways to mitigate any tax due on her death...
So they took a precautionary step which could have saved them £60,000 if their mother had died soon after.
Thank you for the explanation.
You're welcome. I think it's a non-story. What say you?
It should be a non story but I suspect it will rear its ugly head during the campaign. Nothing illegal was done and the shout that "I was keeping within the rules" will come out. While it is perfectly legal there is a certain whiff about it all.
What the general public will think - we'll see.
Exactly. The family utilised a tax avoidance scheme which was perfectly legal and, just like ISAs and so forth, was available to anyone who wanted to do use one.
Thing is...
...Lab have gone off full steam on conflating tax avoidance and evasion and have talked about "aggressive" tax avoidance (what that? @RodCrosby?) and so the General Public can hardly be blamed if they fail to distinguish between, say, multi-nationals tax resident in Luxembourg and Ed's DOV.
It looks like one potential payer of the mansion tax is looking to hedge his position:
Ladbrokes Politics @LadPolitics · 47 secs47 seconds ago One Ladbrokes customer has just had £15,000 at 1/8 for Ed Miliband to remain as Labour leader until next election.
Sky Bet are 1-5 on this.
Probably worth checking the max bet before uploading £15k to your skybet account...
Well I don't play for those stakes but they took 1% of that.
Just seen the Ken Livingstone nonsense on Daily Politics.. what a contemptible man he is
What did he do/say?
Referring to the people in charge of investigating the dealings of Lutfur Rahmn, Mayor of Tower Hamlets...
"To a crowd of about 1,000 people, Mr Livingstone said the commissioners should be "ashamed of themselves" if they take the job.
He added: "When these commissioners turn up, find out where they live and then have a peaceful demonstration outside their homes so their neighbours know that these are the type of people that turn out and overturn a democratically elected mayor.
"Make their lives intolerable. Fight them, expose them, make sure everybody knows what they're doing."
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
Yup. Even on the Daily Mail site, some of the top-rated comments are criticising Myleene.
PBTories don't want to see it, but in the real world, people are sick and tired of the super-rich acting like such spoilt brats, spitting their dummies out when they're asked to make a fraction of the sacrificies that the rest of us have had to make.
Miliband is labelled a millionaire on here and elsewhere because he lives in a house worth £2 million. By the same logic, every single person affected by the Mansion Tax is a millionaire.
Indeed. But then every one of those people isn't going around telling people with £2m houses that they are rich and should pay more tax, whilst (perfectly legally) ensuring that he didn't pay any more than was necessary himself". (and one might add, being able to claim any mansion taxes they might be levied as an MPs expense)
I am not sure Ed did anything except sign a piece of paper he was asked to sign by his parents when he was in his early 20s and not an MP. Of course, if his government made it possible for people to avoid paying the mansion tax then they would be perfectly entitled to do so - and Ed would clearly agree otherwise he would not legislate for it to be possible.
IIRC the only people who have to sign, in the decision-making sense, are the beneficiaries affected by the deed of variation - presumably Mrs M senior, under legal and financial advice.
Ed might have had to sign a receipt for the executor, presumably, but I'm not even sure that was necessary if the house was put partly in his name.
Woman worth an estimated 11 million pounds doesn't support a mansion tax shocker ! Only on PB.
Working single Mum critical of Tax policy suggested by millionaire politician who tried not to pay IHT...
Myleen Klass is single? She should find herself a nice local lad. IIRC Myleen lives in Potters Bar
Formerly married and of Potter's Bar
"The 36-year-old star sold her luxury home last year for £1.8 million – after the breakdown of her marriage - and is now living in a rented property in Highgate, north London with her children, according to the MailOnline."
Woman worth an estimated 11 million pounds doesn't support a mansion tax shocker ! Only on PB.
Working single Mum critical of Tax policy suggested by millionaire politician who tried not to pay IHT...
Myleen Klass is single? She should find herself a nice local lad. IIRC Myleen lives in Potters Bar
Formerly married and of Potter's Bar
"The 36-year-old star sold her luxury home last year for £1.8 million – after the breakdown of her marriage - and is now living in a rented property in Highgate, north London with her children, according to the MailOnline."
I could be wrong, but I am not sure that very rich people attacking Ed Miliband about the mansion tax is going to play that badly for Labour.
The legacy of the interview will be:
a) "You can't just point at things and tax them"; and b) the nastiness that is emerging towards Mylene Klass
a) Just smacks of special pleading
b) Tory Beliebers. Don't diss their favourite pop stars or heaven help you.
Lot of Beliebers voting in that Metro poll. 94% backing Myleene over Ed.
A positive aspect of Filipino immigration
People always vote for a candidate if they're from the same ethnic background as them. As a UKIP voter of Indian(?) ethnicity, you'll be very familiar with that...
How do you mean? Farage isn't Indian is he?
Ultimately French I believe, Farage is a Huguenot surname.
Of course. But Anorak seemed to be suggesting above that I'm a fan of Farage because he's "from the same ethnic background" as I am.
Is it just me or does this ad demand the response, "Neither, they're both about as useful as a chocolate teapot"? I mean, David Cameron's "confrontation" seems to consist of standing there looking uncomfortable, and Putin's response to it seems to have been to send a bunch more tanks into Ukraine, something which everybody knows Cameron is neither ready, willing or able to do anything about. Then you imagine Ed Miliband in the same situation, and maybe he'd blink at him or something, resulting in exactly the same outcome.
Woman worth an estimated 11 million pounds doesn't support a mansion tax shocker ! Only on PB.
Working single Mum critical of Tax policy suggested by millionaire politician who tried not to pay IHT...
Myleen Klass is single? She should find herself a nice local lad. IIRC Myleen lives in Potters Bar
Formerly married and of Potter's Bar
"The 36-year-old star sold her luxury home last year for £1.8 million – after the breakdown of her marriage - and is now living in a rented property in Highgate, north London with her children, according to the MailOnline."
Just seen the Ken Livingstone nonsense on Daily Politics.. what a contemptible man he is
What did he do/say?
Referring to the people in charge of investigating the dealings of Lutfur Rahmn, Mayor of Tower Hamlets...
"To a crowd of about 1,000 people, Mr Livingstone said the commissioners should be "ashamed of themselves" if they take the job.
He added: "When these commissioners turn up, find out where they live and then have a peaceful demonstration outside their homes so their neighbours know that these are the type of people that turn out and overturn a democratically elected mayor.
"Make their lives intolerable. Fight them, expose them, make sure everybody knows what they're doing."
Comments
@Conservatives: RT if you know who you'd trust to secure Britain's future. http://t.co/LyWKSy9okI
Standard economic theory tells you that the people who stand on the hard shoulder on dual carriageways selling roses must sell roses. But damned if I have ever seen it or can imagine a set of circumstances whereby a rose bought from those people is the answer to any need for roses I may have.
Apologies if you've already explained this: why would you do a DoV if it didn't save you any IHT?
It was a perfectly legal tax avoidance measure the Millipedes took. Which is why they are happy for it not to be publicised too much.
I had assumed that the only reason for a DoV is that it makes the will more tax efficient i.e. you pay less tax than would otherwise be the case. I can't see the point otherwise.
Will Labour's new immigration policy lead to the expulsion of the 3m imported voters?
Thought not. So closing the door long after the horse has bolted. While no doubt also leaving it ajar on the quiet.
Con 34 (+5), Lab 33 (+1) LD 5 (-4) UKIP 18 (-1)
Entries close at 7pm tomorrow:
http://www.electiongame.co.uk/rochester-strood/
Thanks,
DC
A couple of slightly related thoughts. For all the torrent of anti-Labour and anti-Milliband rhetoric on here, the Labour party has a long tradition and significant place in our country's culture and there are many people who naturally identify with it whether through the welfare state (implemented by Labour based on a Liberal idea) or through a tradition of Union activity or simply through other policies.
It clearly seems bizarre to some on here but Labour supporters have a very different view of the Labour Party to those who don't support the Party. I don't and have never supported Labour but respect what they have stood for and that has clearly resonated with the country on occasion.
On Council Tax versus LIT - the truth is there is no fair method of financing local Government. Adding extra bands for Council Tax seems entirely logical and I'm sure the providers of Council Tax collection software and the surveyors who will need to value the new bands will be laughing all the way to the bank but the deeper question is whether there needs to be a full-scale revaluation of properties and bands to take account of the huge movement in prices and the greater regional disparities.
Only politics says taxes should be progressive.
The mansion tax is much easier to separate out, because most people don't own a mansion. Admittedly not all the houses it covers will be mansions either, but that's a complicated point for opponents to make that wraps them up in something that sounds like, "Look, this 2-million-pound house isn't all that luxurious at all!", which isn't the ideal ground to take a populist stand on...
Surely 1-3 on Tories in Solihull is buying money with polls like this ?
Not complicated.
But the Lib Dems are harder to get rid off than the clap.
This is a real Ron Manager view of the labour party.
Clem Atlee....oooh wasn;t he??? Marvellous....pickets in the park...playing football with the coppers....braziers for goalposts....seminal image...
Most of the brickbats aimed at labour here are because they are so far from the party they used to be.
"Have you see how fast property prices are going up in your area, what do you think your house will be worth by the time Labour get this through parliament, do you really believe them when they say its will only be houses over £2m."
Or well if the Tories can't win here then next May will be utterly miserable for them.
With that being the case it's pretty clear that the banding of council tax is part of the problem, and a different system of property taxation which doesn't have such large jumps in tax liable is needed - ie Land Value Tax.
But "rich" - as in the phrase "the rich should pay more" - seems to be defined as someone who has more money than the person making the statement.
National Opinion Poll (Opinium):
CON - 34% (+5)
LAB - 33% (+1)
UKIP - 18% (-1)
GRN - 5% (+1)
LDEM - 5% (-4)
Yes, the NRB was used to pass on 40% shares in the house to the sons [20% each]. We can deduce that this was to the value of the 1994 NRB of £150k.
The only benefit was notional. If Mrs Miliband had died not long after Ralph, the entire estate would have been IHT taxable with the benefit of only one NRB (hers) to set off against it. So, had that eventuated, the DOV would have saved them £150k * 40% = £60k by making use, as it did, of Ralph's NRB.
But Mrs M is still alive and well, so there is as yet, still no benefit. The Finance Act 2009 also made redundant the benefit of such will-writing (either ante or post-mortem), since now widow/ers can make use of a deceased spouse's unused NRB.
So the Milibands gained no tax saving (except hypothetical) either in 1994 or since, and still may not upon their mother's death, as she has had 20 years to think of other ways to mitigate any tax due on her death...
By general consensus its website is unfriendly and difficult to navigate despite any number of no doubt hugely expensive, yet seemingly unsuccessful revamps.
Having bought Betdaq, the would-be rival to Betfair which it never was, the Magic Sign failed to develop the brand, deciding instead, rather strangely, to start-up an exchange betting operation under its own name which frankly can't hold a candle to the market leader.
In the meantime it has seen its share price collapse to around 125p or less, where its market capitalisation is £1.14 bn, barely one third that of William Hill which it once dwarfed, as well as rather humiliatingly finding itself having recently being overtaken by Betfair which now has a market value of £1.40bn. This reminds me, incidentally, of a certain prominent PBer, unnamed to save his blushes, who recommended that I should sell sell my modest shareholding in Betfair since when this has increased in value by almost 40%.
Speaking of Betfair, perhaps Shadsy could do worse than join this Hammersmith-based operation. After all, they have recently expanded into the fixed odds market, thereby directly taking on Ladbrokes and could certainly benefit hugely from someone who is a renowned expert of political markets, an area in which the "Machine Operator" has shown itself to be still wet behind the ears and rather unimaginative in terms of its very limited offering.
Come on Shadsy, perhaps it's time dust down that old CV, after all there's no better time for such a move with the huge General Election markets now less than six months away!
General question: Con 41/LD 19
Constituency Q: Con 37/LD 28
Lorely Burt is a popular MP, no denying it. But even if the LD's revive I don't see how she can hold a majority of practically nothing if the party loses 50%, or even 33% of their votes.
Quite ironic considering Labour were so against ensuring only millionaires paid IHT.
'"Have you see how fast property prices are going up in your area, what do you think your house will be worth by the time Labour get this through parliament, do you really believe them when they say its will only be houses over £2m."
-A three bedroom terraced house in central London is not a mansion,but will be subject to this tax.
-The threshold for the tax will not rise in line with inflation,despite what Balls says.
-When they discover it doesn't raise what they expected it will be moved lower to houses over £1.5m.
It must also be remembered that many of these assets are jointly owned by the married or co-habiting. Many want to pass them down to the next generation too.
So the concept of them being millionaires, whilst true, is often a bit misleading
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIKsHh3BFPI
It would be a massive waste of time and a cowardly mess, but it would avoid the huge creating of ill-feeling that a revaluation of council tax banding would create.
Corrected
Miliband is a millionaire and clearly believes OTHERS should pay more tax.
Thank you for the explanation.
Maybe we could release a charity single.
The same tax planning he screams his head off about when others do it.
Strong Support 20%
Total Support 49%
Even a third of Labour voters didn't express support for the idea.
Start a narrative about Londoners already disproportionate tax bills and how the rest of the country will contribute nothing and it will lose even more support.
Lob in the grenade of the tax being levied at a lower level and there will be a lot of frightened middle class people contemplating being taxed into moving from places they like to places they avoid.
It's a middle-class-core vote loser in London.
Ladbrokes Politics @LadPolitics · 47 secs47 seconds ago
One Ladbrokes customer has just had £15,000 at 1/8 for Ed Miliband to remain as Labour leader until next election.
FIFA appears to be lodging a complaint against the hosting of the next two world cups:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/30103293
Hmm.
What the general public will think - we'll see.
Populus, ICM and Ashcroft have one point Labour leads. ICM Wisdom has a Tory lead.
Only Survation and Comres offer any comfort to Labour.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30103480
Take the 1-5 at Skybet !
What was especially disappointing (especially for the likes of me who had backed Marcus quite heavily) was the fact that he seemed totally convinced that victory would be his, yet in all honesty he failed by a very wide margin.
Thing is...
...Lab have gone off full steam on conflating tax avoidance and evasion and have talked about "aggressive" tax avoidance (what that? @RodCrosby?) and so the General Public can hardly be blamed if they fail to distinguish between, say, multi-nationals tax resident in Luxembourg and Ed's DOV.
Are you on ?
She should find herself a nice local lad.
IIRC Myleene lives in Potters Bar
"To a crowd of about 1,000 people, Mr Livingstone said the commissioners should be "ashamed of themselves" if they take the job.
He added: "When these commissioners turn up, find out where they live and then have a peaceful demonstration outside their homes so their neighbours know that these are the type of people that turn out and overturn a democratically elected mayor.
"Make their lives intolerable. Fight them, expose them, make sure everybody knows what they're doing."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30042624
Ed might have had to sign a receipt for the executor, presumably, but I'm not even sure that was necessary if the house was put partly in his name.
"The 36-year-old star sold her luxury home last year for £1.8 million – after the breakdown of her marriage - and is now living in a rented property in Highgate, north London with her children, according to the MailOnline."
Nick @Nick_d_Williams 53m53 minutes ago
Of the four pictured here I'd rather have Putin and Klass running things than either Call me Dave or Beaker! @Conservatives
That kind of intimidation ought to be illegal (if it isn't already).
I would.
Even though I am more of a Kipper these days than a PB Tory