politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The biggest cheer shadow chancellor McDonnell got was when he declared “…in conclusion”
Something's got to give here. It's getting silly. Democracy needs an Opposition. pic.twitter.com/R5VAJ8tF8m
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If it employs similar calibre staff to council tax, that costs ~£25/house to collect but processing the exceptions and rebates to people not liable to pay appears to cost another ~£70/house in England/Wales
http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2006/11/06105402/13
Pricing of health procedures is more complex than sticking a property into A-?G council tax bands.
Suing non-payers would incur more costs; some debts would be written off. So the admin. might well be comparable in cost to the amount due on simpler procedures. I don't know how many treatments are simple and how many are very complex. Some costs will also be incurred to deal with UK-resident patients registering with a new practice, who needn't prove much.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/kambiz-boomla/nhs-and-dog-whistle-politics
Harsh, but fair. – 7% trust in the economy must represent the lunatic fringe…!
Subs without nukes. An aim to disband MI6. The desire to abolish the armed forces. Friends of Hamas.
[All parties have been poor on Defence for as long as I can remember].
"The other big figure is £220bn - the amount by which total government debt is forecast to increase before the end of this Parliament in 2019/20. The total goes up from £1.73 trillion to £1.95 trillion.
The difference between the figures is due to the amount of money the Bank of England is borrowing to support the economy via its asset purchase facility (APF)."
The table is then headed "Net Debt"
I can see that the above affects Debt, but surely not Net Debt?
Does this mean that the QE up to now - ie £425bn - is in the £1.95 trillion figure? If so, £425bn of that is offset by assets.
This all means that if the Bank of England ever starts selling any of these assets then Debt is going to start falling rapidly.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/business-38028907
To all US posters, Happy Thanksgiving, and if you're traveling, be safe.
If the borrowing forecast has increased by £122 bn, how come the forecast for total debt has increased by £210 bn?
Edit: Mr L got there first!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDY1z6ezqO4
The difference is changes to the Asset Purchase Facility (ie QE).
Probably a fantasy, yeah or no.
I know it's all a bit bizarre but my understanding is that the Government sells them again before maturity so they then get redeemed again as normal on maturity.
But of course the Government then has to buy more stocks with later redemption dates to offset such sales.
But the big picture is that the Government is holding a total of £425bn of such stocks as of today (or as of a few months ago before the latest QE started).
Why?.Because there are three rounds of local elections before the GE Contests will take place in 2017& 2018 will be against high points for Labour in 2013 and 2014 where Labour opinion poll ratings were in the high thirties.We will therefore see a massive loss of council seats and councils.This will be sufficient to produce leadership contests with stronger candidates(who knows Mr Blair ) with the ammunition of dire local election results.
That will also reduce the debt (whilst leaving the government's net position unchanged).
https://twitter.com/DailyMirror/status/801497887100338177
The issue with the carriers and the type of deck/catapult was that we would have to use an electromagnetic catapult (which the US Navy is working on) to go with the F-35C (which is the variant with the most problems). So even if we had changed plans it would have been very expensive, very risky, and no earlier into service.
Basically the last government was completely screwed by BAE, and left a hell of a mess behind. The carrier procurement is the best example of how bad MOD procurement was in the past.
SD 25.0%
S 20.8%
M 20.5%
V 9.1%
C 8.1%
L 4.8%
KD 3.4%
Fi 3.4%
MP 3.0%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Swedish_general_election,_2018
I remember Labour hammering the Tories for the Nimrod AEW cancellation, but the carriers project is Nimrod times ten or more.
Labour are great at spending money, but they haven't a bloody clue about planning, reducing risk, or getting value for money.
"David Dimbleby presents topical debate from London.
On the panel are Conservative chief secretary to the Treasury David Gauke MP, Labour's shadow home secretary Diane Abbott MP, leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron MP, businessman and chief executive of the Timpson chain of shoe repair shops John Timpson, and professor of economics at the University of Sussex Mariana Mazzucato."
http://press.labour.org.uk/post/129975218774/labour-announces-new-economic-advisory-committee
Who to believe?
Maybe a loyal Corbynite with a better public image may appear pre GE.
This Tory Government will never have the skill or desire to make Brexit work. Their heart is not in it; T. May is getting squashed by her own inactivity and inability to show national leadership. I believe that she will voluntarily resign, pleading exhaustion, by next summer.
Britain needs a new political party, with doers desperately, if Britain is to survive as a sovereign nation beyond 2030. A great pity that UKIP is not up to the job.
NHS charging for emergencies is problematic, but charging for elective outpatients is not a problem. We have a well worked system where our receptionists confirm personal details on arrival, a d our overseas patient officer assesses eligibility. The problem is actually getting paid as many do not pay. Occasionally I treat such patients probono on my own time, though they still need to pay for investigations. Does the money pay for the admin? probably not in the short term, but this is about altering behaviour.
I suspect that if we toughened up and applied the rules strictly thecworst affected would be British Expats.
I know that a straightforward nationality rule was verboten on social security because of our EU membership, and we ended up with the ludicrous Habitual Residence Test. Does that apply in the health service?
Returning expats were indeed barred from the welfare system in the same way as new arrivals with this test.
Post Brexit, it must be a rule that becomes an obvious candidate for abolition.
However, if they have worked for 45 years and paid in and then become ill a year later should they be barred?
It's something worthy of discussion. Perhaps they should make an annual payment from abroad if they wish to come back and access the system?
Perhaps we should have an NHS 'Licence' fee? Is it more justifiable than a TV one?
A combination of birthright and contribution should underpin our social welfare systems.
Of course if we simply had a contribution based welfare state like so many other countries, thrn this would be much simpler, and quite likely have satisfied a good part of Leavers grievances.
Zac moves from 3/10 to 1/3,Lib Dems from 5/2 to 9/4
I think Lewis will have the support of the membership too.
As for Labour, in view of their problems up front could they put in a big money bid for Caroline Lucas?
"Alleged irregularities in key states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin prompt demands for audit amid concerns over ‘foreign hackers’"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/23/hillary-clinton-election-vote-recount-michigan-pennsylvania-wisconsin
Downtown Milwaukee uses paper ballots, the rest uses electronic voting, so Trump doing better in rural non-Milwaukee areas is a foregone conclusion regardless of the voting method.
And there are no irregularities in Pennsylvania or Michigan.
File it under Fake News.
https://twitter.com/_jeffguo/status/801494891306090497
https://twitter.com/_jeffguo/status/801496729430458374
Basically DeVos wants to make America into Detroit, not a good idea.
https://twitter.com/dmartosko/status/801532341718044674
https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/801523084008325120
The working class really don't give a toss about climate change, carbon footprints, transgender issues, fox hunting and the troubles in Palestine.
That's the same moronic thinking that creationists come up with to deny gravity by saying flowers grow upwards.
It is best seen as the prototype conspiracy theory, about which any facts can be twisted or ignored. It is why it is so common amongst alt.right types. Believe that bunkum and you are a sucker for the remainder of their post truth politics.