"Vince Cable is apparently the darling of his party. But not according to this highly scientific poll being conducted by the Campaign for Real Ale at the Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow, where the Business Secretary is currently the least popular pick from the top dogs in the party for the best person to have a pint with. What a bitter sensation that must be."
Highly scientific indeed. LOL
Kennedy would have swept the board with that one. Not that the lib dem conference was packed to the rafters anyway. Quite the reverse.
For that matter wee Willie "fourteen pints" Hague would likely sweep the board in a tory conference and he was made utterly irrelevant by Tiny Blair Cameron's incompetent Syria vote.
I thought it was interesting about Cable though - he seems to have a high opinion of his own popularity.
Speaking of which:
“I'll resign from Cabinet if my private red lines are crossed', says Cable as he makes bid to become Chancellor in Labour government”
I bet that article had Balls and Yvette, guffawing over their muesli.
Plato Posts: "OT Ages ago a fellow PBer posted a compilation of terrible CSI Miami cliches - it may have been @Pulpstar..." Sadly not I. For fun items we can look forward to Mcslimes book during the Labour conference. Just imagine that he was paid as an impartial civil servant and only worked on helping Labour. Irony?
I'd forgotten about that - I find the fascination of hacks with him really weird. It's like Stockholm Syndrome.
"Vince Cable is apparently the darling of his party. But not according to this highly scientific poll being conducted by the Campaign for Real Ale at the Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow, where the Business Secretary is currently the least popular pick from the top dogs in the party for the best person to have a pint with. What a bitter sensation that must be."
Highly scientific indeed. LOL
Kennedy would have swept the board with that one. Not that the lib dem conference was packed to the rafters anyway. Quite the reverse.
For that matter wee Willie "fourteen pints" Hague would likely sweep the board in a tory conference and he was made utterly irrelevant by Tiny Blair Cameron's incompetent Syria vote.
I thought it was interesting about Cable though - he seems to have a high opinion of his own popularity.
Speaking of which:
“I'll resign from Cabinet if my private red lines are crossed', says Cable as he makes bid to become Chancellor in Labour government”
I bet that article had Balls and Yvette, guffawing over their muesli.
"Vince Cable is apparently the darling of his party. But not according to this highly scientific poll being conducted by the Campaign for Real Ale at the Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow, where the Business Secretary is currently the least popular pick from the top dogs in the party for the best person to have a pint with. What a bitter sensation that must be."
Highly scientific indeed. LOL
Kennedy would have swept the board with that one. Not that the lib dem conference was packed to the rafters anyway. Quite the reverse.
For that matter wee Willie "fourteen pints" Hague would likely sweep the board in a tory conference and he was made utterly irrelevant by Tiny Blair Cameron's incompetent Syria vote.
I thought it was interesting about Cable though - he seems to have a high opinion of his own popularity.
Speaking of which:
“I'll resign from Cabinet if my private red lines are crossed', says Cable as he makes bid to become Chancellor in Labour government”
I bet that article had Balls and Yvette, guffawing over their muesli.
Are the PB Hodges predicting that Cable will resign again? They've only claimed he resigned twice already after all. ;^ ) Bit unfortunate that lib dem members just voted Cable lib dem minister of the year, isn't it? Clegg can no more be rid of him that Cammie can get rid of the toxic Osbrowne. LOL
Mick, Being popular now just festers away with Cable. He is an old man in a hurry. Time is running out for him so he will become increasingly tempted to , bringing down the coalition, or resigning or forcing a Leadership contest this side of 2015. Farron and Davey know that they have time on their side and they can wait until after the GE.
"Vince Cable is apparently the darling of his party. But not according to this highly scientific poll being conducted by the Campaign for Real Ale at the Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow, where the Business Secretary is currently the least popular pick from the top dogs in the party for the best person to have a pint with. What a bitter sensation that must be."
Highly scientific indeed. LOL
Kennedy would have swept the board with that one. Not that the lib dem conference was packed to the rafters anyway. Quite the reverse.
For that matter wee Willie "fourteen pints" Hague would likely sweep the board in a tory conference and he was made utterly irrelevant by Tiny Blair Cameron's incompetent Syria vote.
I thought it was interesting about Cable though - he seems to have a high opinion of his own popularity.
He does but it's backed up by the lib dem members themselves and the bookies. To be fair though the one with the highest opinion of himself was Huhne and he's not in the best position to agitate much against Clegg should he wish to. He could still make a great deal of trouble for Clegg behind the scenes since he knows quite a bit about the formation of the coalition and it's inner workings, but he'd be more likely to leak it it to a friendly source rather than do it officially himself.
"So who is talking about race all the time? Who is dangerously fixated and morbidly confused on this issue? Lefties.
For the Left, everything is viewed through the prism of race, and everything is weighed against the horrific, titillating possibility of racism. Furthermore, this Left-wing obsession with race trumps all other issues – such as human rights, free speech, and feminism (as we see from the veil debate)
Need proof? Imagine if there was mass immigration by a new sect of white protestant Americans into Britain. Imagine if there was evidence that a tiny but perturbing proportion of these incoming American Christians were linked to honour killings, forced marriages, sexual grooming, child rape, even terrorism. Imagine if all these problems apparently stemmed from medieval beliefs maintained by that immigrant white culture and religion.
"Vince Cable is apparently the darling of his party. But not according to this highly scientific poll being conducted by the Campaign for Real Ale at the Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow, where the Business Secretary is currently the least popular pick from the top dogs in the party for the best person to have a pint with. What a bitter sensation that must be."
Highly scientific indeed. LOL
Kennedy would have swept the board with that one. Not that the lib dem conference was packed to the rafters anyway. Quite the reverse.
For that matter wee Willie "fourteen pints" Hague would likely sweep the board in a tory conference and he was made utterly irrelevant by Tiny Blair Cameron's incompetent Syria vote.
I thought it was interesting about Cable though - he seems to have a high opinion of his own popularity.
Speaking of which:
“I'll resign from Cabinet if my private red lines are crossed', says Cable as he makes bid to become Chancellor in Labour government”
I bet that article had Balls and Yvette, guffawing over their muesli.
Off topic, I'm very sorry to have learned of the death of URW. He was one of pb's finest ever posters. It's a great shame that we've lost the historical archive. Many of his posts would be worth rereading now.
The archive is not completely lost, you can still access it via the WayBack machine. I posted instructions a couple of days ago, here:
Patrick O'Flynn @oflynnexpress So, so far nothing from Lib Dems to disprove my contention that their membership is now in the 30Ks, not the 40Ks as claimed by Clegg...
Eamonn Holmes was trying to point out the fact that people can live in big houses and not be wealthy.
That's not true though. In most cases those people will own the big house, so they are wealthy, even if they currently have a relatively low income.
What the LDs forget is that the big house had to be bought at some point - using after tax income. What next - taxes on big bank accounts ? Taxes on jewels ? Taxes on huge cars ? Taxes on tracts of land ? Taxes on fat wallets ?
There are already taxes on huge cars, at least if you put petrol in them drive them around. There's no specific tax on fat wallets, but there's inflation, which is the same thing by a sneakier route. A lot of countries tax land, and the UK definitely should.
Tax mansions and land and rich people will buy property and land abroad - and spend the money doing them up - abroad. Not sure thats good for our British builder and DIY stores.
Or they could just buy gold and jewels.
Lefties and the consequences of envy just don't mix.
You have similar problems with pretty much all taxes. Right now the UK has a lot of taxes on working, which is something it should generally be encouraging and is increasingly getting easier to move jurisdiction to avoid, so it makes sense to take some of the load off that and put it on things like land and property, which are harder to move. In the UK this also has the helpful side-effect of encouraging people to use those assets efficiently to generate a better return on them.
I agree there are problems with all taxes which is why it's so much better to spend less and leave people with their own money to do what they want with.
Patrick O'Flynn @oflynnexpress So, so far nothing from Lib Dems to disprove my contention that their membership is now in the 30Ks, not the 40Ks as claimed by Clegg...
Kippers will surely overtake them at this rate?
That surely can't be Kipper Candidate O'Flynn, can it?
Eamonn Holmes was trying to point out the fact that people can live in big houses and not be wealthy.
That's not true though. In most cases those people will own the big house, so they are wealthy, even if they currently have a relatively low income.
What the LDs forget is that the big house had to be bought at some point - using after tax income. What next - taxes on big bank accounts ? Taxes on jewels ? Taxes on huge cars ? Taxes on tracts of land ? Taxes on fat wallets ?
There are already taxes on huge cars, at least if you put petrol in them drive them around. There's no specific tax on fat wallets, but there's inflation, which is the same thing by a sneakier route. A lot of countries tax land, and the UK definitely should.
Tax mansions and land and rich people will buy property and land abroad - and spend the money doing them up - abroad. Not sure thats good for our British builder and DIY stores.
Or they could just buy gold and jewels.
Lefties and the consequences of envy just don't mix.
You have similar problems with pretty much all taxes. Right now the UK has a lot of taxes on working, which is something it should generally be encouraging and is increasingly getting easier to move jurisdiction to avoid, so it makes sense to take some of the load off that and put it on things like land and property, which are harder to move. In the UK this also has the helpful side-effect of encouraging people to use those assets efficiently to generate a better return on them.
I agree there are problems with all taxes which is why it's so much better to spend less and leave people with their own money to do what they want with.
Well, there's a trade-off with the level of government services you want, but no matter what level you pick, in a globalized economy it's going to make sense to increase the weight you put on property and land and other immovable assets relative to the various different ways the government directly taxes working.
Tax mansions and land and rich people will buy property and land abroad - and spend the money doing them up - abroad. Not sure thats good for our British builder and DIY stores.
Or they could just buy gold and jewels.
Lefties and the consequences of envy just don't mix.
If large numbers of rich people decide to sell land and property in the UK it will reduce prices - all the better for people who have an attachment to the country that is strong enough to withstand a few tweaks to the tax code and would like to buy that property at a lower price.
Ian Dunt @IanDunt Lynne Featherstone on female circumcision:"If it was boys' willies being cut off, this is a practice that wouldn't have lasted four minutes"
Tax mansions and land and rich people will buy property and land abroad - and spend the money doing them up - abroad. Not sure thats good for our British builder and DIY stores.
Or they could just buy gold and jewels.
Lefties and the consequences of envy just don't mix.
If large numbers of rich people decide to sell land and property in the UK it will reduce prices - all the better for people who have an attachment to the country that is strong enough to withstand a few tweaks to the tax code and would like to buy that property at a lower price.
*If* the funds raised are used to reduce more damaging taxes then I don't see a problem with the concept of residential taxation. Of course you would need transitional arrangements (maybe over 10 years) to address the pensioner issue, plus I am not a fan of slab systems so would rather have a low tax on all residential property, but overall it does have a of of attractions.
Eamonn Holmes was trying to point out the fact that people can live in big houses and not be wealthy.
That's not true though. In most cases those people will own the big house, so they are wealthy, even if they currently have a relatively low income.
What the LDs forget is that the big house had to be bought at some point - using after tax income. What next - taxes on big bank accounts ? Taxes on jewels ? Taxes on huge cars ? Taxes on tracts of land ? Taxes on fat wallets ?
There are already taxes on definitely should.
Tax mansions and land and rich people will buy property and land abroad - and spend the money doing them up - abroad. Not sure thats good for our British builder and DIY stores.
Or they could just buy gold and jewels.
Lefties and the consequences of envy just don't mix.
You have similar problems with pretty much all taxes. Right now the UK has a lot of taxes on working, which is something it shtly to generate a better return on them.
I agree there are problems with all taxes which is why it's so much better to spend less and leave people with their own money to do what they want with.
Well, there's a trade-off with the level of government services you want, but no matter what level you pick, in a globalized economy it's going to make sense to increase the weight you put on property and land and other immovable assets relative to the various different ways the government directly taxes working.
While I agree with the sentiment, I'd prefer to tax spending first since sales taxes are also harder to avoid and hit everyone; asset taxes as we have seen are good at keeping the uber rich's tax planners busy and so it's more those in the middle who pick up the tax bill.
The second issue I have is that new taxes tend to be additional rather than a tax shift, politicians particularly on the left just don't like giving us our own money back.
'I've been absolutely determined to get that money back for taxpayers and pay down debt, that is what we've started to do today'
The government has started to get that back for taxpayers and use it to pay down debt. Nothing incorrect about that.
Loss 1: taxpayer buying worthless shares for far more than they were worth Loss 2: taxpayer paying to make those worthless shares worth something again through ZIRP, QE and all the other economic policies designed to pay off the banksta's gambling debts Loss 3: taxpayer will eventually pay for a sweetener to ensure success of a future flotation
The taxpayer will only ever get back part of loss 2.
You forgot:Loss 4: funding a annual supply of tin foil hats for MrJones
Are the PB Hodges predicting that Cable will resign again? They've only claimed he resigned twice already after all. ;^ ) Bit unfortunate that lib dem members just voted Cable lib dem minister of the year, isn't it? Clegg can no more be rid of him that Cammie can get rid of the toxic Osbrowne. LOL
Mick, Being popular now just festers away with Cable. He is an old man in a hurry. Time is running out for him so he will become increasingly tempted to , bringing down the coalition, or resigning or forcing a Leadership contest this side of 2015. Farron and Davey know that they have time on their side and they can wait until after the GE.
It hasn't stopped Farron putting markers down if he really is that patient. Farron will also be well aware that the trouble with waiting till after the election is that there's going to be a cull of lib dem MPs, so where somebody stands right now amongst lib dem MPs won't matter that much after 2015. Not that the MPs are the last word on the leadership but they can certainly make a difference to who stands and how the vote gets split.
AndrewSparrow @AndrewSparrow How Lib Dem "tax rise for £50,000+ earners" note got sent out - a triple-decker cock-up, say Lib Dems - bit.ly/16aZU8n - #ldconf
Their conference is going so well....
"The Lib Dems have finally worked out the origins of the internal briefing document that was sent out yesterday saying the party was looking at plans to raise taxes for people earning more than £50,000. An aide has just been in the press room telling us the story. He says it's a triple-decker cock-up.
The original source was an interview that Nick Clegg gave at the party conference last year. Clegg said that the richest 10% were already paying more proportionally than the rest of the population and that the Lib Dems were looking at ways to get them to pay more. On the basis that people earning more than around £50,000 are in the top 10% of earners, the Telegraph wrote this up as a proposal to raise taxes on those earning more than £50,000. This got written up in an internal note briefing for Lib Dem senior figures on what Clegg had said in his interview. According to the aide, this was an error because it was written up as a proposed tax on income instead of a proposed tax on wealth. (Of course, people who have a lot of wealth also tend to be people earning more than £50,000, but the two concepts are different, and the Lib Dems are touchy about this because if you frame the argument in terms of people earning more than £50,000, people will assume you are planning to raise income tax.)
This note was filed away last year. Then someone preparing a briefing for this year's party conference just cut and pasted the "earning more than £50,000" passage from the 2012 note. That was the second blunder.
And then someone accidentally emailed it to journalists, the third cock-up. Ironically, this seems to have been one of the few emails from the Lib Dem press office that has actually got through to the hacks. For some reason many of the press releases they have been sending out this week have not been arriving.
Are the PB Hodges predicting that Cable will resign again? They've only claimed he resigned twice already after all. ;^ ) Bit unfortunate that lib dem members just voted Cable lib dem minister of the year, isn't it? Clegg can no more be rid of him that Cammie can get rid of the toxic Osbrowne. LOL
Mick, Being popular now just festers away with Cable. He is an old man in a hurry. Time is running out for him so he will become increasingly tempted to , bringing down the coalition, or resigning or forcing a Leadership contest this side of 2015. Farron and Davey know that they have time on their side and they can wait until after the GE.
It hasn't stopped Farron putting markers down if he really is that patient. Farron will also be well aware that the trouble with waiting till after the election is that there's going to be a cull of lib dem MPs, so where somebody stands right now amongst lib dem MPs won't matter that much after 2015. Not that the MPs are the last word on the leadership but they can certainly make a difference to who stands and how the vote gets split.
Farron has put down a few markers, but moved to back Clegg publicly at the Coneference to ensure Clegg remained in place. By doing that Farron will have actually lost a little support in the far left part of the membership. However that may be forgotten when the choice in the summer of 2015 is Farron, Davey or Alexander/Laws. Farron needs Clegg to hang on to GE 2015. But Clegg still has to survive the outcome to the EC 2014 elections.
I'd like it noted that I might be the first person to get the word "hexadecaroon" into a national newspaper.
I think its just a ruse to get millions of the swivel eyed to post on all the other telegraph comment threads complaining about the comments being closed.
have you got a special word for being 1/16 welsh for me?
While I agree with the sentiment, I'd prefer to tax spending first since sales taxes are also harder to avoid and hit everyone; asset taxes as we have seen are good at keeping the uber rich's tax planners busy and so it's more those in the middle who pick up the tax bill.
VAT's a great tax, but it's already 20%, which is quite a chunk. Beyond getting rid of all the silly little exemptions you probably wouldn't want to go much higher.
The point about land and property taxes is that they're very hard to plan around if you want to use the land and property. Although I suppose it's still possible that in practice politicians would manage to screw it up by making enough little exceptions and loop-holes to keep the tax avoidance experts busy.
The second issue I have is that new taxes tend to be additional rather than a tax shift, politicians particularly on the left just don't like giving us our own money back.
I see where you're coming from (given what I'm guessing you think about the ideal total spending level) . But although it's true that new taxes tend to be additional rather than tax shifts, that may be because coming up with a new tax tends to be unpopular so the government only does it when it really needs the money. If they couldn't make the new tax, a lot of the time the government would increase a different one more instead.
Tax mansions and land and rich people will buy property and land abroad - and spend the money doing them up - abroad. Not sure thats good for our British builder and DIY stores.
Or they could just buy gold and jewels.
Lefties and the consequences of envy just don't mix.
If large numbers of rich people decide to sell land and property in the UK it will reduce prices - all the better for people who have an attachment to the country that is strong enough to withstand a few tweaks to the tax code and would like to buy that property at a lower price.
*If* the funds raised are used to reduce more damaging taxes then I don't see a problem with the concept of residential taxation. Of course you would need transitional arrangements (maybe over 10 years) to address the pensioner issue, plus I am not a fan of slab systems so would rather have a low tax on all residential property, but overall it does have a of of attractions.
Ideally a discussion on how much tax the government should levy would be separate from a discussion on how that tax should be levied - as Alanbrooke points out, politicians benefit by conflating the two subjects.
Incidentally, if you are worried that lefties would use a new tax like a land value tax to increase the overall level of taxation, the clever thing to do would be to introduce it yourself first, so you could ensure that the proceeds were used to reduce your least favoured tax.
seanT should sack the T'Graph editing-team. Point being:
This seems paradoxical. After all, it was the Right which produced Hitler, apartheid, and the Ku Klux Klan, it is generally the Right which worries more about immigration
It is bad: Bad English; awful diction; meaningless grammar! Summinck is "paradoxical" but outwith context. Where is the following comma...?
Then to the "meat" of the 'proposition': "After all". After all it was...?
And now, breathing, the crux of this rant: Semi-colons! If expressed as "...which produced Hitler; Aparthied; and the Klu-Klux-Klan it is generally...". Surely it should be good-manners to proof-read your work...?
Sad but unexpected. The best way to defeat the truth is through ridicule (as is the claim of "Islam")....
P.S.: Editing is gawd-darn-awful once sentences become long for the visual-editor. Vanilla-failure....
Are the PB Hodges predicting that Cable will resign again? They've only claimed he resigned twice already after all. ;^ ) Bit unfortunate that lib dem members just voted Cable lib dem minister of the year, isn't it? Clegg can no more be rid of him that Cammie can get rid of the toxic Osbrowne. LOL
Mick, Being popular now just festers away with Cable. He is an old man in a hurry. Time is running out for him so he will become increasingly tempted to , bringing down the coalition, or resigning or forcing a Leadership contest this side of 2015. Farron and Davey know that they have time on their side and they can wait until after the GE.
It hasn't stopped Farron putting markers down if he really is that patient. Farron will also be well aware that the trouble with waiting till after the election is that there's going to be a cull of lib dem MPs, so where somebody stands right now amongst lib dem MPs won't matter that much after 2015. Not that the MPs are the last word on the leadership but they can certainly make a difference to who stands and how the vote gets split.
Farron has put down a few markers, but moved to back Clegg publicly at the Coneference to ensure Clegg remained in place.
Come now. All the prospective challengers did that. Even Cable. They certainly don't want to be lumbered with taking all the flak for the coalition this far out but the closer we get to 2015 the more tempting it's going to be. Even more crucial is that all those lib dem MPs who are in precarious looking seats (of which there are more than enough) will get more and more agitated and desperate the longer the lib dem polling is in the toilet along with Clegg's own personal ratings. The prospect of saving their own skin with a polling boost from a new leader is likely to force matters one way or another.
I'd like it noted that I might be the first person to get the word "hexadecaroon" into a national newspaper.
I think its just a ruse to get millions of the swivel eyed to post on all the other telegraph comment threads complaining about the comments being closed.
there are still lots of areas where VAT doesn't apply, the biggest one being food. So there's still some mileage in spending taxes. As a nation which doesn't really save enough we should be leaving savings etc. tax free. I don't really have a beef with a land\property tax except that the very rich will avoid it as ever through a combination of having it owned overseas or it being permanently on a mortgage so they don't own it. It makes more sense to add additional council tax bands as its an existing system and harder to escape.
Since you're coming from the opposite side of the fence from me on spending levels, I guess we'll just have to agree to differ. Personally I have no confidence that the people who got us into a financial crisis know how to manage my money better than I do. The less money they have to piss around the better for the financial health of the nation imo.
I don't really have a beef with a land\property tax except that the very rich will avoid it as ever through a combination of having it owned overseas or it being permanently on a mortgage so they don't own it.
Those things shouldn't get you off. The tax is payable on land or the house, it doesn't matter who owns it. If you put it in the name of an overseas company, the overseas company still has to pay the tax. If nobody pays the tax, they lose the house or land. Taxes like this are very hard to avoid, as long as politicians can control the urge to put in lots of loopholes.
Off topic, I'm very sorry to have learned of the death of URW. He was one of pb's finest ever posters. It's a great shame that we've lost the historical archive. Many of his posts would be worth rereading now.
The archive is not completely lost, you can still access it via the WayBack machine. I posted instructions a couple of days ago, here:
Well done to the salvage team, an impressive feat by any standards – For those that have not already seen it, Aunty has an excellent article of how it was achieved.
PoliticsHome @politicshome .@FionaHallMEP on Nigel Farage: "He's so rarely seen in the European Parliament that people now call him 'Nigel Mirage'." #ldconf
Is there really a market for third party political campaigning software?
Suppose you are an IT company that are contracted by the People's Party in Ruritania to develop political campaigning software. In the contract you retain the intellectual rights to the software, but agree not to sell it to the Ruritanian Democratic Alliance.
At the end of the process you have now hopefully made a profit, and now possess a piece of software that you can sell to political parties in dozens of other countries, with just a modest amount of adjustment.
there are still lots of areas where VAT doesn't apply, the biggest one being food. So there's still some mileage in spending taxes.
I agree, VAT should be 20% across the board. Politically difficult, obviously...
VAT is levied on some foods, though the distinctions are a bit arbitrary. Why would you like to see VAT levied on all food?
Yes, like you say what does and doesn't get VAT on it is a bit random, and causes weird, economically irrational distortions where people buy X when they should be buying Y because of the tax difference, even though there's no particular public policy reason to make people buy X instead of Y. Just make it 20% on everything. It would be simpler and more sensible.
This would probably be a little bit regressive, so unless you thought the tax system was already too progressive (in which case, job done) you'd make some tweaks elsewhere (allowances, benefits etc) to even the progressiveness back out.
"Opinion polls do have their uses, but you can never actually beat real life votes. Those where, no matter what the weather or inclination of the person. They take time out from their lives to go and cast their vote. It isn't just simply some anonymous telephone record or computer survey.
Now I will start on a three weekly cycle collating the votes from council by elections and then comparing them with when the same election was last held in that ward.
I think it will give a more honest state of affairs when coming to polling and will see how it compares with the national opinion polls."
Is there really a market for third party political campaigning software?
Suppose you are an IT company that are contracted by the People's Party in Ruritania to develop political campaigning software. In the contract you retain the intellectual rights to the software, but agree not to sell it to the Ruritanian Democratic Alliance.
At the end of the process you have now hopefully made a profit, and now possess a piece of software that you can sell to political parties in dozens of other countries, with just a modest amount of adjustment.
Good point. I limited my thinking to the UK market.
there are still lots of areas where VAT doesn't apply, the biggest one being food. So there's still some mileage in spending taxes.
I agree, VAT should be 20% across the board. Politically difficult, obviously...
VAT is levied on some foods, though the distinctions are a bit arbitrary. Why would you like to see VAT levied on all food?
Yes, like you say what does and doesn't get VAT on it is a bit random, and causes weird, economically irrational distortions where people buy X when they should be buying Y because of the tax difference, even though there's no particular public policy reason to make people buy X instead of Y. Just make it 20% on everything. It would be simpler and more sensible.
This would probably be a little bit regressive, so unless you thought the tax system was already too progressive (in which case, job done) you'd make some tweaks elsewhere (allowances, benefits etc) to even the progressiveness back out.
Surely not taxing is preferable to taxing, and then paying welfare.
Is there really a market for third party political campaigning software?
Suppose you are an IT company that are contracted by the People's Party in Ruritania to develop political campaigning software. In the contract you retain the intellectual rights to the software, but agree not to sell it to the Ruritanian Democratic Alliance.
At the end of the process you have now hopefully made a profit, and now possess a piece of software that you can sell to political parties in dozens of other countries, with just a modest amount of adjustment.
Good point. I limited my thinking to the UK market.
Judging by the fact that these people are using the same free-or-ten-dollars-to-remove-the-attribution site template that I use for a quick free site I knocked up over a weekend, and the padding around the icons is a bit borked to boot, I'd say it's one guy who solved a problem for his local party or a friend, and is hoping to turn it into a consulting business.
But yeah, there are lots of people out there doing politics and they're either using no system at all or some atrocious, bare-functional monstrosity built at great cost by somebody who knew the party chairman's cousin, so there's probably actual money to be made solving their problems.
"Opinion polls do have their uses, but you can never actually beat real life votes. Those where, no matter what the weather or inclination of the person. They take time out from their lives to go and cast their vote. It isn't just simply some anonymous telephone record or computer survey.
Now I will start on a three weekly cycle collating the votes from council by elections and then comparing them with when the same election was last held in that ward.
I think it will give a more honest state of affairs when coming to polling and will see how it compares with the national opinion polls."
However, there are a few problems that spring immediately to mind. One is that these wards will last have had elections at different times to each other - and the last GE - so it's dubious to throw them all in the same pot, and you certainly can't use the changes to predict the next GE, in the way that you can with Parliamentary by-elections.
Is there really a market for third party political campaigning software?
Suppose you are an IT company that are contracted by the People's Party in Ruritania to develop political campaigning software. In the contract you retain the intellectual rights to the software, but agree not to sell it to the Ruritanian Democratic Alliance.
At the end of the process you have now hopefully made a profit, and now possess a piece of software that you can sell to political parties in dozens of other countries, with just a modest amount of adjustment.
Good point. I limited my thinking to the UK market.
Judging by the fact that these people are using the same free-or-ten-dollars-to-remove-the-attribution site template that I use for a quick free site I knocked up over a weekend, and the padding around the icons is a bit borked to boot, I'd say it's one guy who solved a problem for his local party or a friend, and is hoping to turn it into a consulting business.
But yeah, there are lots of people out there doing politics and they're either using no system at all or some atrocious, bare-functional monstrosity built at great cost by somebody who knew the party chairman's cousin, so there's probably actual money to be made solving their problems.
there are still lots of areas where VAT doesn't apply, the biggest one being food. So there's still some mileage in spending taxes.
I agree, VAT should be 20% across the board. Politically difficult, obviously...
VAT is levied on some foods, though the distinctions are a bit arbitrary. Why would you like to see VAT levied on all food?
Yes, like you say what does and doesn't get VAT on it is a bit random, and causes weird, economically irrational distortions where people buy X when they should be buying Y because of the tax difference, even though there's no particular public policy reason to make people buy X instead of Y. Just make it 20% on everything. It would be simpler and more sensible.
This would probably be a little bit regressive, so unless you thought the tax system was already too progressive (in which case, job done) you'd make some tweaks elsewhere (allowances, benefits etc) to even the progressiveness back out.
Such a shame that politics is so rarely about logic and reason.
there are still lots of areas where VAT doesn't apply, the biggest one being food. So there's still some mileage in spending taxes.
I agree, VAT should be 20% across the board. Politically difficult, obviously...
VAT is levied on some foods, though the distinctions are a bit arbitrary. Why would you like to see VAT levied on all food?
Yes, like you say what does and doesn't get VAT on it is a bit random, and causes weird, economically irrational distortions where people buy X when they should be buying Y because of the tax difference, even though there's no particular public policy reason to make people buy X instead of Y. Just make it 20% on everything. It would be simpler and more sensible.
This would probably be a little bit regressive, so unless you thought the tax system was already too progressive (in which case, job done) you'd make some tweaks elsewhere (allowances, benefits etc) to even the progressiveness back out.
Surely not taxing is preferable to taxing, and then paying welfare.
In principle yes, but the vast majority of the untaxed food being sold will be going to taxpayers, and part of the adjustment you need to avoid the change being regressive will involve taking people out of tax by increasing allowances.
"Opinion polls do have their uses, but you can never actually beat real life votes. Those where, no matter what the weather or inclination of the person. They take time out from their lives to go and cast their vote. It isn't just simply some anonymous telephone record or computer survey.
Now I will start on a three weekly cycle collating the votes from council by elections and then comparing them with when the same election was last held in that ward.
I think it will give a more honest state of affairs when coming to polling and will see how it compares with the national opinion polls."
However, there are a few problems that spring immediately to mind. One is that these wards will last have had elections at different times to each other - and the last GE - so it's dubious to throw them all in the same pot, and you certainly can't use the changes to predict the next GE, in the way that you can with Parliamentary by-elections.
Yes there are problems in using this to predict GE's . Take a ward that in a GE votes 1,000 Lab 1,000 Con . In a 2008 local election it may have voted Con 700 Lab 500 and in 2011 Lab 700 Con 500 all without anyone changing their vote , the differing results being simply down to keenness to vote when in opposition and non keenness when in government .
there are still lots of areas where VAT doesn't apply, the biggest one being food. So there's still some mileage in spending taxes.
I agree, VAT should be 20% across the board. Politically difficult, obviously...
VAT is levied on some foods, though the distinctions are a bit arbitrary. Why would you like to see VAT levied on all food?
Yes, like you say what does and doesn't get VAT on it is a bit random, and causes weird, economically irrational distortions where people buy X when they should be buying Y because of the tax difference, even though there's no particular public policy reason to make people buy X instead of Y. Just make it 20% on everything. It would be simpler and more sensible.
This would probably be a little bit regressive, so unless you thought the tax system was already too progressive (in which case, job done) you'd make some tweaks elsewhere (allowances, benefits etc) to even the progressiveness back out.
Such a shame that politics is so rarely about logic and reason.
Right, one of these days I think the three main parties should get together and create a one-year-long Very Grand Coalition, where they do all the things that everybody knows should be done but nobody dares to do for fear of upsetting the voters.
I see Cable is being ridiculed for his 'vanity' and 'treachery'. I don't know whether that's fair but yet again in British politics we seem to want to focus on the personal rather than ideas. Why is it not obvious to everyone that the reason Cable behaves the way he does is because of what he BELIEVES. That in his heart of hearts he doesn't believe in the government's Plan A and finds it difficult to suggest that George Osborne's economic policies are now securing recovery. Politically there is an argument for the Lib Dems to embrace the improving economic news so they get credit for the recovery. However I suspect Cable finds it intellectually indefensible and can't bring himself to truly express it. Is he prepared to leave the government he has been a part of for 3 years? Perhaps not, either. Beware the Clare Short situation.
As for Clegg he needs to get real. It's perfectly clear he sees the coalition as an excuse to try and destroy the social liberal wing of his party. He doesn't appear to understand that he has no mandate to do that. Attempting this radical transformation whilst hiding behind a coalition is the act of a coward. In brighter news the polls are showing that it will be almost impossible for Clegg to do this in spite of him losing at least a third of his most dissatisfied members. It's time he saw the writing on the wall and gave up. The Party's heart beats vaguely to the left and he isn't going to change that.
Very effective speech about Trident by a Paul Coleshill at the Lib Dem Conf.
He spoke of having inherited an old sports car which was in his garage. It did not have a enough seats for his family and the boot was too small. The manufacturer no longer made spare parts and it was going to fail its next MOT. It was expensive to keep and he had a large overdraft to pay off. What should he do?
Well he was told if he only used the car on a couple of days a week he could cut the unaffordable costs by 10%. "Conference, can youi see where I am goung with this?".
I see Cable is being ridiculed for his 'vanity' and 'treachery'. I don't know whether that's fair but yet again in British politics we seem to want to focus on the personal rather than ideas. Why is it not obvious to everyone that the reason Cable behaves the way he does is because of what he BELIEVES. That in his heart of hearts he doesn't believe in the government's Plan A and finds it difficult to suggest that George Osborne's economic policies are now securing recovery. Politically there is an argument for the Lib Dems to embrace the improving economic news so they get credit for the recovery. However I suspect Cable finds it intellectually indefensible and can't bring himself to truly express it. Is he prepared to leave the government he has been a part of for 3 years? Perhaps not, either. Beware the Clare Short situation.
As for Clegg he needs to get real. It's perfectly clear he sees the coalition as an excuse to try and destroy the social liberal wing of his party. He doesn't appear to understand that he has no mandate to do that. Attempting this radical transformation whilst hiding behind a coalition is the act of a coward. In brighter news the polls are showing that it will be almost impossible for Clegg to do this in spite of him losing at least a third of his most dissatisfied members. It's time he saw the writing on the wall and gave up. The Party's heart beats vaguely to the left and he isn't going to change that.
"yet again in British politics we seem to want to focus on the personal rather than ideas."
you support Labour a party that currently has no ideas, so what's there left to focus on ?
"yet again in British politics we seem to want to focus on the personal rather than ideas."
you support Labour a party that currently has no ideas, so what's there left to focus on ?
Probably this phrase
Politically there is an argument for the Lib Dems to embrace the improving economic news so they get credit for the recovery.
What they have to say is that Plan A didn't work, and the bits of Plan B (borrow and spend) did. Whether they can convince the electorate of that is another matter.
I see Cable is being ridiculed for his 'vanity' and 'treachery'. I don't know whether that's fair but yet again in British politics we seem to want to focus on the personal rather than ideas. Why is it not obvious to everyone that the reason Cable behaves the way he does is because of what he BELIEVES. That in his heart of hearts he doesn't believe in the government's Plan A and finds it difficult to suggest that George Osborne's economic policies are now securing recovery. Politically there is an argument for the Lib Dems to embrace the improving economic news so they get credit for the recovery. However I suspect Cable finds it intellectually indefensible and can't bring himself to truly express it. Is he prepared to leave the government he has been a part of for 3 years? Perhaps not, either. Beware the Clare Short situation.
As for Clegg he needs to get real. It's perfectly clear he sees the coalition as an excuse to try and destroy the social liberal wing of his party. He doesn't appear to understand that he has no mandate to do that. Attempting this radical transformation whilst hiding behind a coalition is the act of a coward. In brighter news the polls are showing that it will be almost impossible for Clegg to do this in spite of him losing at least a third of his most dissatisfied members. It's time he saw the writing on the wall and gave up. The Party's heart beats vaguely to the left and he isn't going to change that.
"yet again in British politics we seem to want to focus on the personal rather than ideas."
you support Labour a party that currently has no ideas, so what's there left to focus on ?
Where do you identify my support for Labour? I voted Lib Dem last time and haven't decided what I'll do next time yet.
By making mischief with his comments at conference, such suggesting the coalition could stop 6 months before the 5 years are up, he is both:
a) setting up a position from which to negotiate with Conservatives, and
b) giving heart to the anti-Conservative partisan Lib Dems who remain in the party
c) demonstrated once again that although there are some decent Lib Dems there are a significant minority that are as attractive to work with as the rabies virus.
I see Cable is being ridiculed for his 'vanity' and 'treachery'. I don't know whether that's fair but yet again in British politics we seem to want to focus on the personal rather than ideas. Why is it not obvious to everyone that the reason Cable behaves the way he does is because of what he BELIEVES. That in his heart of hearts he doesn't believe in the government's Plan A and finds it difficult to suggest that George Osborne's economic policies are now securing recovery. Politically there is an argument for the Lib Dems to embrace the improving economic news so they get credit for the recovery. However I suspect Cable finds it intellectually indefensible and can't bring himself to truly express it. Is he prepared to leave the government he has been a part of for 3 years? Perhaps not, either. Beware the Clare Short situation.
As for Clegg he needs to get real. It's perfectly clear he sees the coalition as an excuse to try and destroy the social liberal wing of his party. He doesn't appear to understand that he has no mandate to do that. Attempting this radical transformation whilst hiding behind a coalition is the act of a coward. In brighter news the polls are showing that it will be almost impossible for Clegg to do this in spite of him losing at least a third of his most dissatisfied members. It's time he saw the writing on the wall and gave up. The Party's heart beats vaguely to the left and he isn't going to change that.
"yet again in British politics we seem to want to focus on the personal rather than ideas."
you support Labour a party that currently has no ideas, so what's there left to focus on ?
Where do you identify my support for Labour? I voted Lib Dem last time and haven't decided what I'll do next time yet.
Apols if I got it wrong, your posts are invariably pro Labour ergo....
NIESR video on Scotland's currency options: YouTube-excluded
No Euro option for "Wee-FrEck"? I am sure that Scotland will soon realise that Oirislundt is the model (and not Norways' highly expensive defence-model that will see Daves' being OCU-ed and maintanined at Marham).
Whilst us Engurlisch may larf' the point is that - should they chose to - Scotland is free to follow their own path. If they believe that they can use English mney as a safe-back then... giraffe....
Right, one of these days I think the three main parties should get together and create a one-year-long Very Grand Coalition, where they do all the things that everybody knows should be done but nobody dares to do for fear of upsetting the voters.
That would be good, though I suspect UKIP might win the General Election afterwards.
Andrea would have found out the range of punishments open to the Portsmouth Council disciplinary committee by now! Those hoping for a (Westminster) by-election are likely to be disappointed I think. There are no criminal proceedings open and Hancock doesnt appear to have any shame. Still, it's another constituency where the Lib Dems wont be selecting an incumbent (surely!) and that should have an impact in 2015.
there are still lots of areas where VAT doesn't apply, the biggest one being food. So there's still some mileage in spending taxes.
I agree, VAT should be 20% across the board. Politically difficult, obviously...
-snip-
As you say VAT on all groceries would be politically 'difficult'. Going back through a few receipts I have lurking in my wallet comparing two shops from the supermarket - one of £93 and one of £50. The £50 one has 46p of VAT which was levied on pet food, the £93 one has £9.50 of VAT levied on booze, pet food and other household items.
The only foods VAT levied are crisps and bottled water - which is fair enough. I think the only food VAT levied is confectionery which is not really needed in a diet (crisps/sweet). People don't NEED pets or booze either so again that is fine. Levying VAT on food people need to eat to live would indeed be politically 'brave'.
All you have to do is try and guess the mortality rate of Bane of Souls (NB read the rules. They're pretty simple but it should help you avoid being miles out).
Kippers for Breakfast is full of quotes, facts, statistics, news and criticisms - a new morning service from UKIP. If you've been emailed in error, please reply with unsubscribe in the subject line. If you enjoy the items below please consider forwarding them to a friend or colleague.
LORD ASHCROFT'S POLL
Polling is more art than science and the Tories' Lord Ashcroft is a Renaissance master of the art. His latest polling showed - and was doubtless designed to show - that a vote for UKIP could put Labour into power.
No one disputes the results from the key marginals he looked at. UKIP support is climbing at a rate that is causing great alarm and some despondency in Downing St.
However, had the good Lord polled more Labour marginals he might have found evidence of something even more interesting.
- The UKIP threat to Labour.
- The things that the party is saying are reaching down into the Labour vote.
That emerging trend will be the next surprise for our distinguished commentariat.
THE QUESTION THE MEDIA IS ASKING
Will a surging UKIP do a deal with the stagnant Tories?
Or even, as Paul Goodman suggests on Conservative Home (prop. Lord Ashcroft), will Nigel Farage do a deal with Ed Miliband?
"The Labour-UKIP relationship is the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of our time."
That is such a clever idea it has come out onto the other side of cleverness.
No, UKIP is known for direct answers, and the direct answer to this is: ask the question after the May elections next year.
FARAGE APPEAL
When the UKIP leader addressed the YouGov conference last week, his speech was monitored by a Dial Test. It was played to 1,100 people split evenly between supporters and detractors.
The supporters supported him 99 per cent. But interestingly, 42 per cent of detractors supported him as well, and 38 per cent of detractors had a more favourable view of the UKIP leader after they had heard him speak.
That sort of result is rare in politics, and suggests the main parties will bite their own tails off rather than let Nigel Farage into any leaders' TV debate.
there are still lots of areas where VAT doesn't apply, the biggest one being food. So there's still some mileage in spending taxes.
I agree, VAT should be 20% across the board. Politically difficult, obviously...
-snip-
As you say VAT on all groceries would be politically 'difficult'. Going back through a few receipts I have lurking in my wallet comparing two shops from the supermarket - one of £93 and one of £50. The £50 one has 46p of VAT which was levied on pet food, the £93 one has £9.50 of VAT levied on booze, pet food and other household items.
The only foods VAT levied are crisps and bottled water - which is fair enough. I think the only food VAT levied is confectionery which is not really needed in a diet (crisps/sweet). People don't NEED pets or booze either so again that is fine. Levying VAT on food people need to eat to live would indeed be politically 'brave'.
brave certainly, but there's nothing to say it has to be 20%. Heating oil carries VAT at 5% for example.
A new EU directive is planning a register of plants with which to regulate garden centres. If a plant isn't on the list, it can't be sold without incurring hefty fines.
Botanical descriptions are detailed, run to two pages, and can cost between £400 and £1,000 to write. There are 52,000 varieties listed in the Royal Horticultural Society's register.
It is a particularly Continental way of thinking: people are only allowed to do the things they have specifically been given permission for. The British tradition is the other way: if it isn't specifically forbidden, people can do what they want.
There used to be a saying you don't hear so often these days: "It's a free country."
This constant dirigisme is the source of a lot of our incompatibility with Europe.
BBC REVIEWS ITS OUTPUT
The national broadcaster is reviewing its news output and will report next year.
The BBC Trustee announcing the review said that BBC journalism is "the most trusted" in Britain. And yet, it is generally accepted that the BBC has a particular position on certain things. The European Union (in favour), climate change (apostles for it), UKIP (hostile).
In the first Euro-election, the BBC gave 624 hours coverage to the elections and four and a half minutes to UKIP. We won three seats.
Normally the technique is to say, "We get criticised by the left and the right for bias - that shows we must be doing okay."
Any honest analysis of the Corporation's news would at least acknowledge a Guardianesque mindset behind its output.
"So much so that Vince Cable and his antics no longer worry the Cleggites. These days, the Business Secretary inspires feelings of derision, not fear."
Exhibit 3 : Doesn't seem to have been a good conference for Vince - he's now the father Jack of the LDs - shouting "TAX TAX".
As you say VAT on all groceries would be politically 'difficult'. Going back through a few receipts I have lurking in my wallet comparing two shops from the supermarket - one of £93 and one of £50. The £50 one has 46p of VAT which was levied on pet food, the £93 one has £9.50 of VAT levied on booze, pet food and other household items.
The only foods VAT levied are crisps and bottled water - which is fair enough. I think the only food VAT levied is confectionery which is not really needed in a diet (crisps/sweet). People don't NEED pets or booze either so again that is fine. Levying VAT on food people need to eat to live would indeed be politically 'brave'.
Everybody's getting the tax break, so it's mostly going to people who aren't particularly needy. Meanwhile there are all kinds of taxes levied on things poor people actually buy. The tax break is a political gimmick, not rational public policy.
Presumably they could throw him off the council but little else?
For what reason ?
For the case they say he has to answer. He is facing a disciplinary committee - I was speculating about the range of punishments available to them.
But until that case has been heard and judged in the High Court he is not guilty of anything . I know you would like to prejudge these things , no doubt you also prejudged the Lee Cummings accusations against Hancock until they were found false .
" I sometimes worry that our policy review resembles a pregnant panda – it's been a very long time in the making and no one's quite sure if there's anything in there anyway. "
But until that case has been heard and judged in the High Court he is not guilty of anything . I know you would like to prejudge these things , no doubt you also prejudged the Lee Cummings accusations against Hancock until they were found false .
Unless he produces a sick cert again (always likely I suppose) surely this particular process will be resolved in 3 weeks? And asking what punishments are available to the committee is not prejudging the process; it is mere curiosity.
" I sometimes worry that our policy review resembles a pregnant panda – it's been a very long time in the making and no one's quite sure if there's anything in there anyway. "
Jacqui's fine, she's got a big comfy job from her mates and can go back to being a useless overpaid kripsy kreme donut. Why anybody listens to her is a mystery.
You don;t really care about these do you Mike K? You can't do, given that you would willingly trade at least 5 more years of them to get rid of Cameron.
But until that case has been heard and judged in the High Court he is not guilty of anything . I know you would like to prejudge these things , no doubt you also prejudged the Lee Cummings accusations against Hancock until they were found false .
Unless he produces a sick cert again (always likely I suppose) surely this particular process will be resolved in 3 weeks? And asking what punishments are available to the committee is not prejudging the process; it is mere curiosity.
I don't think any date has even be set for the High Court civil case .
Comments
“I'll resign from Cabinet if my private red lines are crossed', says Cable as he makes bid to become Chancellor in Labour government”
I bet that article had Balls and Yvette, guffawing over their muesli.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2423054/Ill-resign-Cabinet-private-red-lines-crossed-says-Cable-makes-bid-Chancellor-Labour-government.html#comments
Exhibit 2 !
To be fair though the one with the highest opinion of himself was Huhne and he's not in the best position to agitate much against Clegg should he wish to. He could still make a great deal of trouble for Clegg behind the scenes since he knows quite a bit about the formation of the coalition and it's inner workings, but he'd be more likely to leak it it to a friendly source rather than do it officially himself.
"So who is talking about race all the time? Who is dangerously fixated and morbidly confused on this issue? Lefties.
For the Left, everything is viewed through the prism of race, and everything is weighed against the horrific, titillating possibility of racism. Furthermore, this Left-wing obsession with race trumps all other issues – such as human rights, free speech, and feminism (as we see from the veil debate)
Need proof? Imagine if there was mass immigration by a new sect of white protestant Americans into Britain. Imagine if there was evidence that a tiny but perturbing proportion of these incoming American Christians were linked to honour killings, forced marriages, sexual grooming, child rape, even terrorism. Imagine if all these problems apparently stemmed from medieval beliefs maintained by that immigrant white culture and religion.
Would the Left hold back its justified criticisms of this white migrant community? Of course not – they’d be severe and merciless. Check the way Guardianistas gleefully laugh at Mormons for being merely eccentric..." http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100236221/when-it-comes-to-race-its-the-left-which-is-now-cranky-and-obsessive/
Lib Dems restore the whip to one of their scandal ridden MPs.
http://order-order.com/2013/09/17/another-libdem-broken-promise-clegg-conference-spin-operation-chaos/
Clearly not after one segment of voters. Is Handycock next?
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/dublin-loses-to-stansted-as-ryanair-seals-deal-in-expansion-plan-29584434.html
Let's hope the Coalitition can keep this up.
http://aviewfromhamcommon.blogspot.com/2013/09/exclusive-tim-farrons-speech-to.html
http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/117725/#Comment_117725
So, so far nothing from Lib Dems to disprove my contention that their membership is now in the 30Ks, not the 40Ks as claimed by Clegg...
Kippers will surely overtake them at this rate?
Anushka Asthana @SkyAnushka
Two main policies Lib Dems annce at conference in Glasgow - plastic bags and school uniforms - only apply to ENGLAND.
Lynne Featherstone on female circumcision:"If it was boys' willies being cut off, this is a practice that wouldn't have lasted four minutes"
The second issue I have is that new taxes tend to be additional rather than a tax shift, politicians particularly on the left just don't like giving us our own money back.
How Lib Dem "tax rise for £50,000+ earners" note got sent out - a triple-decker cock-up, say Lib Dems - bit.ly/16aZU8n - #ldconf
Their conference is going so well....
"The Lib Dems have finally worked out the origins of the internal briefing document that was sent out yesterday saying the party was looking at plans to raise taxes for people earning more than £50,000. An aide has just been in the press room telling us the story. He says it's a triple-decker cock-up.
The original source was an interview that Nick Clegg gave at the party conference last year. Clegg said that the richest 10% were already paying more proportionally than the rest of the population and that the Lib Dems were looking at ways to get them to pay more. On the basis that people earning more than around £50,000 are in the top 10% of earners, the Telegraph wrote this up as a proposal to raise taxes on those earning more than £50,000. This got written up in an internal note briefing for Lib Dem senior figures on what Clegg had said in his interview. According to the aide, this was an error because it was written up as a proposed tax on income instead of a proposed tax on wealth. (Of course, people who have a lot of wealth also tend to be people earning more than £50,000, but the two concepts are different, and the Lib Dems are touchy about this because if you frame the argument in terms of people earning more than £50,000, people will assume you are planning to raise income tax.)
This note was filed away last year. Then someone preparing a briefing for this year's party conference just cut and pasted the "earning more than £50,000" passage from the 2012 note. That was the second blunder.
And then someone accidentally emailed it to journalists, the third cock-up. Ironically, this seems to have been one of the few emails from the Lib Dem press office that has actually got through to the hacks. For some reason many of the press releases they have been sending out this week have not been arriving.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/24121653
I guess it is better than spraying a cricket pitch after the game. At least there isn't a charge of lese majeste.
have you got a special word for being 1/16 welsh for me?
The point about land and property taxes is that they're very hard to plan around if you want to use the land and property. Although I suppose it's still possible that in practice politicians would manage to screw it up by making enough little exceptions and loop-holes to keep the tax avoidance experts busy. I see where you're coming from (given what I'm guessing you think about the ideal total spending level) . But although it's true that new taxes tend to be additional rather than tax shifts, that may be because coming up with a new tax tends to be unpopular so the government only does it when it really needs the money. If they couldn't make the new tax, a lot of the time the government would increase a different one more instead.
Gareth Baines @GABaines
BMW: new car sales up 9.9%
Fiat: new car sales from the marque dropped 4.9%
Volkswagen: new car sales down 11%
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/houseprices/10312983/No-house-price-bubble-in-UK-says-top-economist.html
Incidentally, if you are worried that lefties would use a new tax like a land value tax to increase the overall level of taxation, the clever thing to do would be to introduce it yourself first, so you could ensure that the proceeds were used to reduce your least favoured tax.
Then to the "meat" of the 'proposition': "After all". After all it was...?
And now, breathing, the crux of this rant: Semi-colons! If expressed as "...which produced Hitler; Aparthied; and the Klu-Klux-Klan it is generally...". Surely it should be good-manners to proof-read your work...?
Sad but unexpected. The best way to defeat the truth is through ridicule (as is the claim of "Islam")....
P.S.: Editing is gawd-darn-awful once sentences become long for the visual-editor. Vanilla-failure....
there are still lots of areas where VAT doesn't apply, the biggest one being food. So there's still some mileage in spending taxes. As a nation which doesn't really save enough we should be leaving savings etc. tax free. I don't really have a beef with a land\property tax except that the very rich will avoid it as ever through a combination of having it owned overseas or it being permanently on a mortgage so they don't own it. It makes more sense to add additional council tax bands as its an existing system and harder to escape.
Since you're coming from the opposite side of the fence from me on spending levels, I guess we'll just have to agree to differ. Personally I have no confidence that the people who got us into a financial crisis know how to manage my money better than I do. The less money they have to piss around the better for the financial health of the nation imo.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/09/cllr-victoria-borwick.html
http://www.kantoapp.com
Is there really a market for third party political campaigning software?
Well done to the salvage team, an impressive feat by any standards – For those that have not already seen it, Aunty has an excellent article of how it was achieved.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24104741
.@FionaHallMEP on Nigel Farage: "He's so rarely seen in the European Parliament that people now call him 'Nigel Mirage'." #ldconf
That's pretty witty
https://www.youtube.com/embed/mBC0mLFz91o
At the end of the process you have now hopefully made a profit, and now possess a piece of software that you can sell to political parties in dozens of other countries, with just a modest amount of adjustment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24119836
This would probably be a little bit regressive, so unless you thought the tax system was already too progressive (in which case, job done) you'd make some tweaks elsewhere (allowances, benefits etc) to even the progressiveness back out.
"Opinion polls do have their uses, but you can never actually beat real life votes. Those where, no matter what the weather or inclination of the person. They take time out from their lives to go and cast their vote. It isn't just simply some anonymous telephone record or computer survey.
Now I will start on a three weekly cycle collating the votes from council by elections and then comparing them with when the same election was last held in that ward.
I think it will give a more honest state of affairs when coming to polling and will see how it compares with the national opinion polls."
http://ukgeneralelection2015.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/real-votes-not-opinion-polls.html?spref=tw
But yeah, there are lots of people out there doing politics and they're either using no system at all or some atrocious, bare-functional monstrosity built at great cost by somebody who knew the party chairman's cousin, so there's probably actual money to be made solving their problems.
However, there are a few problems that spring immediately to mind. One is that these wards will last have had elections at different times to each other - and the last GE - so it's dubious to throw them all in the same pot, and you certainly can't use the changes to predict the next GE, in the way that you can with Parliamentary by-elections.
http://www.subscriber.co.uk
But that's got a bigger market: any "member based organisation".
In principle yes, but the vast majority of the untaxed food being sold will be going to taxpayers, and part of the adjustment you need to avoid the change being regressive will involve taking people out of tax by increasing allowances.
As for Clegg he needs to get real. It's perfectly clear he sees the coalition as an excuse to try and destroy the social liberal wing of his party. He doesn't appear to understand that he has no mandate to do that. Attempting this radical transformation whilst hiding behind a coalition is the act of a coward. In brighter news the polls are showing that it will be almost impossible for Clegg to do this in spite of him losing at least a third of his most dissatisfied members. It's time he saw the writing on the wall and gave up. The Party's heart beats vaguely to the left and he isn't going to change that.
He spoke of having inherited an old sports car which was in his garage. It did not have a enough seats for his family and the boot was too small. The manufacturer no longer made spare parts and it was going to fail its next MOT. It was expensive to keep and he had a large overdraft to pay off. What should he do?
Well he was told if he only used the car on a couple of days a week he could cut the unaffordable costs by 10%. "Conference, can youi see where I am goung with this?".
you support Labour a party that currently has no ideas, so what's there left to focus on ?
By making mischief with his comments at conference, such suggesting the coalition could stop 6 months before the 5 years are up, he is both:
a) setting up a position from which to negotiate with Conservatives, and
b) giving heart to the anti-Conservative partisan Lib Dems who remain in the party
Politically there is an argument for the Lib Dems to embrace the improving economic news so they get credit for the recovery.
What they have to say is that Plan A didn't work, and the bits of Plan B (borrow and spend) did. Whether they can convince the electorate of that is another matter.
Whilst us Engurlisch may larf' the point is that - should they chose to - Scotland is free to follow their own path. If they believe that they can use English mney as a safe-back then... giraffe....
Mike Hancock MP to face Portsmouth Cl disciplinary hearing in 3 wks time after sub-cttee + report finds "potential abuses" + case to answer
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jameskirkup/100236254/clegg-the-barbarian-has-crushed-his-enemies-seen-them-driven-before-him-heard-the-lamentation-of-vince-cable/
Presumably they could throw him off the council but little else?
Do you know anything besides where to find the most garish shoes in the universe?!
Andrea would have found out the range of punishments open to the Portsmouth Council disciplinary committee by now! Those hoping for a (Westminster) by-election are likely to be disappointed I think. There are no criminal proceedings open and Hancock doesnt appear to have any shame. Still, it's another constituency where the Lib Dems wont be selecting an incumbent (surely!) and that should have an impact in 2015.
The only foods VAT levied are crisps and bottled water - which is fair enough. I think the only food VAT levied is confectionery which is not really needed in a diet (crisps/sweet). People don't NEED pets or booze either so again that is fine. Levying VAT on food people need to eat to live would indeed be politically 'brave'.
He could have told us the punishments available to naughty councillors.
Slightly awkward self-promotion post: my next book, a comedy, will hopefully be out in the next month or two. There's a competition for a free copy at http://thaddeuswhite.weebly.com/1/post/2013/09/competition-to-win-a-free-copy-of-sir-edrics-temple.html
All you have to do is try and guess the mortality rate of Bane of Souls (NB read the rules. They're pretty simple but it should help you avoid being miles out).
Kippers for Breakfast is full of quotes, facts, statistics, news and criticisms - a new morning service from UKIP. If you've been emailed in error, please reply with unsubscribe in the subject line. If you enjoy the items below please consider forwarding them to a friend or colleague.
LORD ASHCROFT'S POLL
Polling is more art than science and the Tories' Lord Ashcroft is a Renaissance master of the art.
His latest polling showed - and was doubtless designed to show - that a vote for UKIP could put Labour into power.
No one disputes the results from the key marginals he looked at. UKIP support is climbing at a rate that is causing great alarm and some despondency in Downing St.
However, had the good Lord polled more Labour marginals he might have found evidence of something even more interesting.
- The UKIP threat to Labour.
- The things that the party is saying are reaching down into the Labour vote.
That emerging trend will be the next surprise for our distinguished commentariat.
THE QUESTION THE MEDIA IS ASKING
Will a surging UKIP do a deal with the stagnant Tories?
Or even, as Paul Goodman suggests on Conservative Home (prop. Lord Ashcroft), will Nigel Farage do a deal with Ed Miliband?
"The Labour-UKIP relationship is the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of our time."
That is such a clever idea it has come out onto the other side of cleverness.
No, UKIP is known for direct answers, and the direct answer to this is: ask the question after the May elections next year.
FARAGE APPEAL
When the UKIP leader addressed the YouGov conference last week, his speech was monitored by a Dial Test. It was played to 1,100 people split evenly between supporters and detractors.
The supporters supported him 99 per cent. But interestingly, 42 per cent of detractors supported him as well, and 38 per cent of detractors had a more favourable view of the UKIP leader after they had heard him speak.
That sort of result is rare in politics, and suggests the main parties will bite their own tails off rather than let Nigel Farage into any leaders' TV debate.
to continue............
ANOTHER STIFLING REGULATORY INITIATIVE
A new EU directive is planning a register of plants with which to regulate garden centres. If a plant isn't on the list, it can't be sold without incurring hefty fines.
Botanical descriptions are detailed, run to two pages, and can cost between £400 and £1,000 to write. There are 52,000 varieties listed in the Royal Horticultural Society's register.
It is a particularly Continental way of thinking: people are only allowed to do the things they have specifically been given permission for. The British tradition is the other way: if it isn't specifically forbidden, people can do what they want.
There used to be a saying you don't hear so often these days: "It's a free country."
This constant dirigisme is the source of a lot of our incompatibility with Europe.
BBC REVIEWS ITS OUTPUT
The national broadcaster is reviewing its news output and will report next year.
The BBC Trustee announcing the review said that BBC journalism is "the most trusted" in Britain.
And yet, it is generally accepted that the BBC has a particular position on certain things. The European Union (in favour), climate change (apostles for it), UKIP (hostile).
In the first Euro-election, the BBC gave 624 hours coverage to the elections and four and a half minutes to UKIP. We won three seats.
Normally the technique is to say, "We get criticised by the left and the right for bias - that shows we must be doing okay."
Any honest analysis of the Corporation's news would at least acknowledge a Guardianesque mindset behind its output.
Exhibit 3 : Doesn't seem to have been a good conference for Vince - he's now the father Jack of the LDs - shouting "TAX TAX".
It's bloody stupid, unnecessary and bureaucratic (or, to put it shorthand, EU policy).
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/17/labour-pregnant-panda-policy-review-deliver
" I sometimes worry that our policy review resembles a pregnant panda – it's been a very long time in the making and no one's quite sure if there's anything in there anyway. "
You don;t really care about these do you Mike K? You can't do, given that you would willingly trade at least 5 more years of them to get rid of Cameron.