Talk of parliament stopping no deal still seems predicated on a menu of constitutionally questionable options, none of which seem to carry any real degree of confidence even among their advocates.
How does parliament ACTUALLY stop no deal? I read about amendments 'requiring' or 'forcing' but with little in the way of background information on whether there is genuinely the element of compulsion on the executive.
My sense is there is an awful lot of frustration and bluster masquerading as action.
Of course but through it all there might be a constitutionally sound, legal way of doing it.
But likewise proroguing parliament might be constitutional and legal.
The Speaker.
He will stop the second of those and support the first. Were it not the case, then we'd be in a different ball game. But he is committed to the sovereignty of Parliament.
So if Parliament wishes to stop a No Deal Brexit, it will find a way to do so. Cummings isn't a lawyer. Nor is Johnson. There are some smart lawyers on the Remainer side of the divide.
How would the Speaker stop prorogation in reality?
And what actual way is there to force the executive to agree to an extension if there isn't a desire for it?
I agree with you. I never really get the whole story though, because the rules seemed quite clear re loans to Directors. Unfortunately the news never goes into details as to what was happening. On the face of it, it appears an obvious tax dodge, but I don't understand how it comes about anyway because it is never explained fully. I never took a loan from my company because the tax implications were clear.
Perhaps the BBC article is badly written, but it seems to be saying the payments have been ruled by the courts to be non-taxable, but that if people didn't offer to pay tax on them, they would be taxed retrospectively.
"This is where the agency employing them diverts most of their pay to an offshore trust, then the trust gives them a loan which they typically don't have to pay back - and on which tax is only payable at around 1-2%." Boils my piss as a PAYEr.
A lot of things annoy me. But retrospective taxation is very dangerous, isn't it?
Here's a thought. I wonder if businesses could sue the government if they go bust, lose vast amounts of revenue etc. because of Boris's No Deal. This is surely a possibility if Boris uses all sorts of constitutional trickery to armlock parliament into allowing No Deal against its explicit wishes.
If you'd asked me a while back, I'd have said out of the question. If you'd asked me more recently, I'd have said yes. However in reality my seat is safe Con and the Greens have as much chance as Labour. I think I'll be in a Green - Unite to Remain seat and will then vote Green.
If I were in a true Con/Lab marginal and the Lab manifesto was PV and the Lab candidate was someone with clear and strong remain opinions, then this time I'd be willing to vote Labour. I'd probably try to do a TSE and "swap" my vote with someone online, to feel a bit better about it.
Further, on current polling, or anything like it, Labour will be almost entirely on the defensive.
Therefore tactical voting for Labour only really comes into play in Labour held seats (potentially including some with reasonable majorities, given that we wont be looking at a UNS election) - for which there is a sitting MP with a track record of voting and speaking on Brexit, so voters can judge whether they think that is someone who would vote to block Brexit regardless of the leadership view.
There's no point in voting 'tactically' for Labour in seats where they are off in second place; Labour looks likely to lose a lot of second places next time.
Perhaps the BBC article is badly written, but it seems to be saying the payments have been ruled by the courts to be non-taxable, but that if people didn't offer to pay tax on them, they would be taxed retrospectively.
The Scheme had two elements: - The payment by the agency to the offshore trust; and - A "loan" by the Trust to the individual
HMRC largely contended (IIRC) that the loan was income in the hands of the individual and taxable on that basis. The Court reached the same overall conclusion, but instead held that the payment by the agency to the Trust was taxable.
There are slightly different consequences to each finding.
But this is being done under legislation enabling retrospective taxation over a period of 20 years?
We have put rules in place to stop the "whack a mole" tax planning which dominated the tax landscape 2008 to 2015.
The use of an offshore fund and a loan which was never to be repaid is a pretty good example of such a scheme. Participants were fully aware that this was aggressive tax avoidance, they were re-assured that no Court had yet ruled it illegal.
There was element of mis-selling but when your weekly earnings get paid from the BVI, I think you must appreciate the risk here.
Talk of parliament stopping no deal still seems predicated on a menu of constitutionally questionable options, none of which seem to carry any real degree of confidence even among their advocates.
How does parliament ACTUALLY stop no deal? I read about amendments 'requiring' or 'forcing' but with little in the way of background information on whether there is genuinely the element of compulsion on the executive.
My sense is there is an awful lot of frustration and bluster masquerading as action.
Of course but through it all there might be a constitutionally sound, legal way of doing it.
But likewise proroguing parliament might be constitutional and legal.
The Speaker.
He will stop the second of those and support the first. Were it not the case, then we'd be in a different ball game. But he is committed to the sovereignty of Parliament.
So if Parliament wishes to stop a No Deal Brexit, it will find a way to do so. Cummings isn't a lawyer. Nor is Johnson. There are some smart lawyers on the Remainer side of the divide.
"If Parliament wishes..." takes rather a lot for granted.
I don't think Corbyn, for example, has any great desire to make some heroic stand on the issue. He's far more interested in becoming Prime Minister.
Bercow will no doubt provide the opportunity for votes, but I think it quite likely that there won't be a parliamentary majority for any particular action other than a VONC. Which in itself solves nothing.
Parliament has already voted to extend Article 50 with enacted legislation (the Cooper-Letwin Act) and this was under much more benign circumstances. There's no question in my mind that Parliament is very strongly opposed to a No Deal Brexit. As that's the car crash Johnson seems intent on pursuing, Parliament will enact the prevention.
It'll be interesting to see what would happen if we have a new Act, the Queen, EU and legislature are mindful to see it through but the Prime Minister isn't. That, I think, would indeed bring a VONC or Revocation as last resort.
The bottom line is this. Parliament is very strongly opposed to a No Deal Brexit. If we take our eyes off that one fundamental I think we will enter the realms of fantasy. How it will play out, though, is not yet entirely clear.
Will be interesting to see. Generally the Libs always underperform expectations at general elections.
1983 and 1987 - Return To Your Constituencies And Prepare For... Irrelevance
1992 - Paddy thought he'd end up calling the shots in a hung parliament - Con won a majority.
1997 and 2001 - Blair landslides left the Lib-Dems on the fringes.
2005 - High watermark in terms of seats but as the only major party to oppose Iraq probably underperformed expectations. Disappointment.
2010 - Despite the Cleggasm Lib-Dems actually lost seats!!!
2015 - Meltdown!!!
2017 - Barely improved on 2015 disaster.
I suppose the Autumn 2019 general election might prove to be a real break through because of Brexit but we've been here so many times with the Lib's that its hard to have confidence that they won't screw it up again...
So parties aren't allowed to have expectations and to offer their supporters (both real and potential) some degree of hope and optimism !!
Okay, what would the Conservatives have said in 1997: - "don't bind my hands but we're going to get massacred". Even Major was saying publicly they could still win even when Labour were miles ahead in the polls.
Final thought - what were YOUR expectations for the LDs? Was it 200 seats in 2005? It wasn't mine.
As a Lib-Dem voter in 2005 because of their stance over Iraq I always felt they should have got 100 seats.
Well of course the honest answer is I don't have a clue. But Brexit is so polarising it could impact LD voters normally willing to switch being very angry and not doing so. That of course is not good news for the LDs either as it will mean any poll figure is more evenly spread rather than focused where it is needed.
Please bear in mind I have just made all this up and it is not based upon facts or logic, just gut.
No facts or logic? Disgraceful!
I have a conflict between my brain and my gut regarding the outcome of a pre-Brexit GE. My analytical micro side says a Labour minority govt is almost nailed on. But going all macro and instinctive, I see Johnson winning a majority.
It looks like the responses from the LDs here since that post (not scientific), that my gut is not doing a bad job.
Here's a thought. I wonder if businesses could sue the government if they go bust, lose vast amounts of revenue etc. because of Boris's No Deal. This is surely a possibility if Boris uses all sorts of constitutional trickery to armlock parliament into allowing No Deal against its explicit wishes.
There is no financial remedy against a government, even in breach of legitimate expectation or such. I don't see how you could overturn that rule.
You might just make Johnson liable for misfeaseance in public office, but I doubt even his nice flat might not be worth billions of pounds.
SLab councillor defects to SLD. This would have been unthinkable a few years ago
This defection does not affect council control as South Lanarkshire is an SNP minority administration. But cheering for Swinson and Rennie as Lanarkshire is traditionally an SLD desert.
In the last couple of months or so, councillor defections to the LibDems have included:
Fenland - Tory to LibDem Harborough - Tory to LibDem Poole - Ind (former Tory) to LibDem Portsmouth - Tory to Ind to LibDem Essex CC - Tory to LibDem Winchester - Ind to LibDem North Dorset - Tory to LibDem W Somerset - Tory to LibDem Woking - Tory to LibDem Chichester - Tory to LibDem Bolton - Ind (former Lab) to LibDem S Lanarkshire - Con to LibDem
Thanks Ian. Notable that the only other Scottish one was also to SLD in S Lanarkshire.
Tory/LD same thing. Pro Austerity pro bedroom tax pro tax cuts for the rich.
Pro continuation of Liberal elite domination.
Only one way to change society.
Any ideas on their plans for Brexit? Are they up to the stage of getting a working party to look at it yet?
On the tactical voting, as my MP is sitting on a wafer-thin 40,000 majority, I'll have to give it some serious thought.
If it's a Labour seat, the issue doesn't arise. If it's a Tory seat, then the only other party that could ever conceivably win such a seat is the LibDems, irrespective of the vote shares or who is second. The chances of this ever happening might be 1% but that's better than Labour's chances which will be 0%. So best vote LibDem to build their vote up and hope that one day some sort of Christchurch/Romsey opportunity comes along to nab the seat off the Tories.
Assuming an Oct GE and that Labour DO have Ref2 as a manifesto commitment.
And that you live in a Lab/Con marginal, LDs not a chance.
Do you vote Labour?
I'm not an actual member but I probably would be if I lived in Britain and had the vote, and my answer is definitely Yes, provided Lab is unfaffingly clear on offering a Brexitexit referendum. (I don't care what position they have if any on how they think people should vote in it.)
The only exception would be if Lab was running an exceptionally terrible candidate.
Another angle to this is that most of what we need Lab to do is defence, and that means they have incumbents, and Lab incumbents are generally not Corbynite. The political scene right now is kind of
Perhaps the BBC article is badly written, but it seems to be saying the payments have been ruled by the courts to be non-taxable, but that if people didn't offer to pay tax on them, they would be taxed retrospectively.
The Scheme had two elements: - The payment by the agency to the offshore trust; and - A "loan" by the Trust to the individual
HMRC largely contended (IIRC) that the loan was income in the hands of the individual and taxable on that basis. The Court reached the same overall conclusion, but instead held that the payment by the agency to the Trust was taxable.
There are slightly different consequences to each finding.
But this is being done under legislation enabling retrospective taxation over a period of 20 years?
We have put rules in place to stop the "whack a mole" tax planning which dominated the tax landscape 2008 to 2015.
The use of an offshore fund and a loan which was never to be repaid is a pretty good example of such a scheme. Participants were fully aware that this was aggressive tax avoidance, they were re-assured that no Court had yet ruled it illegal.
There was element of mis-selling but when your weekly earnings get paid from the BVI, I think you must appreciate the risk here.
I'm just trying to understand what's happened. HMRC couldn't insist on these payments if it hadn't been for legislation with a retrospective effect?
Regardless of what one may think of tax avoidance, that seems wrong. If people were aware of the problem, they should have legislated against these schemes.
I'll take your word for it on that one. But Johnson is typical of the kind of manager that has been the bane of my life. Men, they are always men, who have got where they are by bluff and bluster rather than any kind of application to the job in hand. They invariably mess things up and usually have to move on after having run out of other people to blame for their own shortcomings. If you want something actually done get a Hammond or a Corbyn.
Talk of parliament stopping no deal still seems predicated on a menu of constitutionally questionable options, none of which seem to carry any real degree of confidence even among their advocates.
How does parliament ACTUALLY stop no deal? I read about amendments 'requiring' or 'forcing' but with little in the way of background information on whether there is genuinely the element of compulsion on the executive.
My sense is there is an awful lot of frustration and bluster masquerading as action.
There's going to be litte reward from 17.4m Leave voters* for attempts at smart-arsed Establishment Brexit-killing. And huge blow-back.
* There's also a sizeable number of Remain voters for whom it would leave a very nasty taste in the mouth that the outcome wasn't being honoured.
Well of course the honest answer is I don't have a clue. But Brexit is so polarising it could impact LD voters normally willing to switch being very angry and not doing so. That of course is not good news for the LDs either as it will mean any poll figure is more evenly spread rather than focused where it is needed.
Please bear in mind I have just made all this up and it is not based upon facts or logic, just gut.
No facts or logic? Disgraceful!
I have a conflict between my brain and my gut regarding the outcome of a pre-Brexit GE. My analytical micro side says a Labour minority govt is almost nailed on. But going all macro and instinctive, I see Johnson winning a majority.
I think there is good logical reason to think the Tories will win. The techniques they are using work well in the short run. They got the referendum result just over the line. They got the Brexit from nowhere to 30% in the Euros. With a new leader on top of the established Tory brand they've got to be in with a chance to shift opinion quickly in their direction. If they move quickly. The effect probably wears off over time.
SLab councillor defects to SLD. This would have been unthinkable a few years ago
This defection does not affect council control as South Lanarkshire is an SNP minority administration. But cheering for Swinson and Rennie as Lanarkshire is traditionally an SLD desert.
In the last couple of months or so, councillor defections to the LibDems have included:
Fenland - Tory to LibDem Harborough - Tory to LibDem Poole - Ind (former Tory) to LibDem Portsmouth - Tory to Ind to LibDem Essex CC - Tory to LibDem Winchester - Ind to LibDem North Dorset - Tory to LibDem W Somerset - Tory to LibDem Woking - Tory to LibDem Chichester - Tory to LibDem Bolton - Ind (former Lab) to LibDem S Lanarkshire - Con to LibDem
Thanks Ian. Notable that the only other Scottish one was also to SLD in S Lanarkshire.
Tory/LD same thing. Pro Austerity pro bedroom tax pro tax cuts for the rich.
Pro continuation of Liberal elite domination.
Only one way to change society.
Lol. In some parallel universe Ed Balls is into his tenth year of austerity.
Alex Salmond's £500k legal bill to be paid by taxpayer after botched probe
Court rules the ex-First Minister's expenses from a successful judicial review into how complaints from civl servants were handled should be paid. The former First Minister has been paid £512,250 to cover his expenses from a successful judicial review into how complaints from civil servants were handled.
The Record told last year how two women had made complaints of sexual misconduct against Salmond dating back to his time as First Minister.
But the findings of the Scottish Government investigation into the allegations were struck down in court after they admitted their own guidelines had been breached by the appointment of an investigating officer with “prior involvement” in the case. At a hearing in Edinburgh, Lord Pentland said the Scottish Government’s actions were “unlawful in the respect that they were procedurally unfair and that they were tainted with apparent bias”.
Also reported as: "Linlithgow’s Alex Salmond is victorious in legal battle" (Linlithgow Gazette)
Further, on current polling, or anything like it, Labour will be almost entirely on the defensive.
Therefore tactical voting for Labour only really comes into play in Labour held seats (potentially including some with reasonable majorities, given that we wont be looking at a UNS election) - for which there is a sitting MP with a track record of voting and speaking on Brexit, so voters can judge whether they think that is someone who would vote to block Brexit regardless of the leadership view.
There's no point in voting 'tactically' for Labour in seats where they are off in second place; Labour looks likely to lose a lot of second places next time.
Talk of parliament stopping no deal still seems predicated on a menu of constitutionally questionable options, none of which seem to carry any real degree of confidence even among their advocates.
How does parliament ACTUALLY stop no deal? I read about amendments 'requiring' or 'forcing' but with little in the way of background information on whether there is genuinely the element of compulsion on the executive.
My sense is there is an awful lot of frustration and bluster masquerading as action.
There's going to be litte reward from 17.4m Leave voters* for attempts at smart-arsed Establishment Brexit-killing. And huge blow-back.
* There's also a sizeable number of Remain voters for whom it would leave a very nasty taste in the mouth that the outcome wasn't being honoured.
There's going to be little reward from 16.1m Remain voters* for attempts to subvert the will of Parliament and force us into leaving without a deal. And huge blow-back.
*There's also a sizeable number of Leave voters who were assured it would be very easy to negotiate a deal, and it would leave a very nasty taste in the mouth that this promise wasn't being honoured.
Though the answer is fairly obvious, a year off post A levels for applications and work experience. It gets the kids to grow up a bit and decide if they really want to go. This may well reduce interest in more marginal courses of little added value.
My Medical School has this policy, and Angela Rayner is correct, it does help the disadvantaged groups to get access.
What is the work experience that all these A Level students will do ? I can certainly see your idea being advantageous to Deliveroo and Just Eat.
I think a year off can be advantageous for some students, but it is probably the wealthier ones (whose parents can afford to subsidise them in some travel) that benefit the most. But, for some students, it is just a wasted year doing little or nothing.
I don't think a plan to make a year off compulsory would be popular.
On the contrary it is the state school pupils from modest backgrounds that benefit particularly. This is because private schools often over egg predictions and state schools often underestimate their brightest students.
The gap year is mostly spent doing something useful for the majority of the time, particularly working as an assistant in health and social care. This is valuable experience for budding doctors to see the coalface at the delivery end. We find they adapt better to the ward environment with a few preconceptions knocked off.
For other courses different work experience might be helpful. Being at the sharp end of retail, hospitality or logistics for example. It opens youngsters eyes.
I thought the proposal is to bring the A level exams forward to april or may, and get to the results out quicker. The students then apply for uni once they know what the actual results are at, say, the start of July. So there is no compulsory gap year. This is the time frame that many European countries work on.
It won't be easy to do implement, but it is certainly possible if the will is there. The current timetable was designed long before I was doing A levels, at a time when everything was done by post. There must be scope to cut the application time down massively. Just one example is the interview process. Many of my colleages in British unis considered interviews as a very poor admission criterion and the main advantage was the marketing of the Uni and the degree programme. If the Alevel results are already known then the admission is based on the 2 years studying A levels rather than an offer made based on a 15 minute interview.
Talk of parliament stopping no deal still seems predicated on a menu of constitutionally questionable options, none of which seem to carry any real degree of confidence even among their advocates.
How does parliament ACTUALLY stop no deal? I read about amendments 'requiring' or 'forcing' but with little in the way of background information on whether there is genuinely the element of compulsion on the executive.
My sense is there is an awful lot of frustration and bluster masquerading as action.
There's going to be litte reward from 17.4m Leave voters* for attempts at smart-arsed Establishment Brexit-killing. And huge blow-back.
* There's also a sizeable number of Remain voters for whom it would leave a very nasty taste in the mouth that the outcome wasn't being honoured.
Parliament should just nod No Deal through. Watching Boris squirm and the Leavers squeal when their bluff is called would be the one pinprick of joy in the whole Brexit malarkey.
The government is clearly intent on actively inflicting harm on EU citizens come November. Of course, UK citizens in the EU will find that the situation is reciprocated - so a lot of elderly people on extended winter stays in the Med will be coming home for Christmas, so putting additional strain on the NHS.
I thought the proposal is to bring the A level exams forward to april or may, and get to the results out quicker. The students then apply for uni once they know what the actual results are at, say, the start of July. So there is no compulsory gap year. This is the time frame that many European countries work on.
It won't be easy to do implement, but it is certainly possible if the will is there. The current timetable was designed long before I was doing A levels, at a time when everything was done by post. There must be scope to cut the application time down massively. Just one example is the interview process. Many of my colleages in British unis considered interviews as a very poor admission criterion and the main advantage was the marketing of the Uni and the degree programme. If the Alevel results are already known then the admission is based on the 2 years studying A levels rather than an offer made based on a 15 minute interview.
It would royally bugger up school timetables and assessment patterns. Indeed, I think you would need to bring the start of the school year into August or even the end of July and have an extended break in May and June to make it work. Otherwise you have schools sitting idle for 40% of the year.
The government is clearly intent on actively inflicting harm on EU citizens come November. Of course, UK citizens in the EU will find that the situation is reciprocated - so a lot of elderly people on extended winter stays in the Med will be coming home for Christmas, so putting additional strain on the NHS.
"I warn you not to fall ill. And I warn you not to grow old."
On the tactical voting, as my MP is sitting on a wafer-thin 40,000 majority, I'll have to give it some serious thought.
If it's a Labour seat, the issue doesn't arise. If it's a Tory seat, then the only other party that could ever conceivably win such a seat is the LibDems, irrespective of the vote shares or who is second. The chances of this ever happening might be 1% but that's better than Labour's chances which will be 0%. So best vote LibDem to build their vote up and hope that one day some sort of Christchurch/Romsey opportunity comes along to nab the seat off the Tories.
Well they better get the resettlement camps up and running for the tens of thousands of returning British citizens who would lose their health care if the UK government did this to EU citizens in the UK. Just as well I haven’t cancelled our health insurance for exactly this possibility but paying it with the reduced income will be more of a stretch.
Say the LDs take 20 Remainian seats off Con and various parties get 10 off them in Scotland. That lowers the bar to something like 285. Lab need to hold what they've got, then gain another 10 or so. That's a very modest goal.
Can they hit it? Well, Corbyn is still shit and Boris is probably better at campaigning than TMay but the BXP situation is very unclear, and LDs and ex-Cons could well get behind Corbyn in Lab-Con marginals. I think the number should be bigger than 22%.
That looks very optimistic.
No Labour policy seems to be thought through. For example, Angela Rayner says on radio "Labour wants universities to offer places after exam results" She was then asked how is that to be implemented.
She said "Errr.. we'll have to think"
Actually, it can only be implemented in two ways.
1. A level exams are earlier, say in April. This means that stuff has to be taken out of A Level syllabus, so students are under-prepared when they start University in October.
2. A levels stay the same. But University term starts later, say in January. This leaves students with June-January with nothing much to do. And will be hugely unpopular with Universities.
1 is the worst option, so Labour will probably go with that.
On grounds of remedying "unfairness" (which actually remains to be shown), a dumb policy is advocated without any thought as to how it is to be implemented.
And Labour propose this while holding most of the University seats ....
Not so. The whole business of making and accepting offers need not take more than a month. Foxy knows he will be getting 200 new medical students in October; he will just have to wait a bit longer to find out their names.
OK - so somebody knows nothing about university application procedures...
Looks like the Irish manage to make the main body of offers after exam results are known, and yet have exam results and university term dates similar to ours. My Irish wife has always thought it was strange that the UK system has offers made before exam results. I don't see why we couldn't change to the Irish system if we wanted to.
It does seem really incompetent that Angela Rayner didn't know about this and wasn't able to refer to it on the radio, though.
On the contrary, in this morning''s radio interview Rayner did make a general point that many other countries experience was evidence that the similar policy she was advocating here was practicable.
Thanks - I didn't actually hear that bit, I was extrapolating too far from ydoethur's report.
There's going to be little reward from 16.1m Remain voters* for attempts to subvert the will of Parliament and force us into leaving without a deal. And huge blow-back.
*There's also a sizeable number of Leave voters who were assured it would be very easy to negotiate a deal, and it would leave a very nasty taste in the mouth that this promise wasn't being honoured.
Parliament voted to invoke Article 50 knowing that the default outcome at the end of the process was leaving the EU without a deal.
The fact is remainers voted down every deal offered to them in the hope of killing off Brexit and consequently here we are.
The ERG are stupid and pig-headed but their aim was clear.
The huge remainer majority in parliament have avoided being honest in communicating their true intentions even though it has been patently obvious their aim from day 1 has been to overturn the result.
Oddly I don't include Grieve in the above as when he was directly asked what deal he would vote for to honour the referendum result he came out with a list pretty much identical to the current arrangements and then said such a deal was so close to remaining he wouldn't vote for it anyway as there was no point.
I do wonder if we went back in time to MV3 would remainers vote it through knowing what they know now.
Assuming an Oct GE and that Labour DO have Ref2 as a manifesto commitment.
And that you live in a Lab/Con marginal, LDs not a chance.
Do you vote Labour?
I commented forth down the threat that you could put me down as a possible and I do live in a Con/Lab marginal. Made easier because the current MP is pro-EU
@CarlottaVance you said in a previous thread that in a poll that showed the LDs ahead of Con by 1% was statistically the same. That isn't correct (Happy to be corrected as although my background is mathematics, it definitely isn't statistics)
At a confidence level of 95% there is a margin of error of 3%. If you reduce the confidence level you will reduce the margin of error. Regardless it is always better to be ahead, you are just not so confident.
If you're getting into the technical details then it is important to specify the "margin of error" of what. The usual MoE lets say 3% is for one of the point estimates, eg. the percentage for "will vote Conservative". When considering the difference between two point estimates the MoE will be larger because there is variance in both point estimates. You need the actual data to work out how much larger it is, as the two point estimates are also correlated.
Perhaps the BBC article is badly written, but it seems to be saying the payments have been ruled by the courts to be non-taxable, but that if people didn't offer to pay tax on them, they would be taxed retrospectively.
The Scheme had two elements: - The payment by the agency to the offshore trust; and - A "loan" by the Trust to the individual
HMRC largely contended (IIRC) that the loan was income in the hands of the individual and taxable on that basis. The Court reached the same overall conclusion, but instead held that the payment by the agency to the Trust was taxable.
There are slightly different consequences to each finding.
But this is being done under legislation enabling retrospective taxation over a period of 20 years?
We have put rules in place to stop the "whack a mole" tax planning which dominated the tax landscape 2008 to 2015.
The use of an offshore fund and a loan which was never to be repaid is a pretty good example of such a scheme. Participants were fully aware that this was aggressive tax avoidance, they were re-assured that no Court had yet ruled it illegal.
There was element of mis-selling but when your weekly earnings get paid from the BVI, I think you must appreciate the risk here.
I'm just trying to understand what's happened. HMRC couldn't insist on these payments if it hadn't been for legislation with a retrospective effect?
Regardless of what one may think of tax avoidance, that seems wrong. If people were aware of the problem, they should have legislated against these schemes.
I can give you the technical argument this evening if you would like, but I am not sure it really addresses your question.
Morally, the taxpayers engaged in aggressive tax avoidance, designed to exploit the drafting of the relevant legislation, plus the rules of other low tax jurisdictions, for personal gain. They were facilitated by the scheme providers, who er, took the cash and ran.
Save for the ill-gotten gains of the scheme provider, the taxpayer is only being asked to account for the tax they would have paid if they had not used the scheme. Of course they long ago spent that extra cash, so finding a settlement sum will be difficult. HMRC are offering those on less than £50k time to pay.
Since 2013, this moral dilemma has ceased, as all new schemes are automatically put on notice that HMRC will pursue taxpayers for these sums and therefore anyone using a scheme should put the money aside or be prepared to do so in the future. Or not use one, of course.
Well they better get the resettlement camps up and running for the tens of thousands of returning British citizens who would lose their health care if the UK government did this to EU citizens in the UK. Just as well I haven’t cancelled our health insurance for exactly this possibility but paying it with the reduced income will be more of a stretch.
In Spain UK citizens have always had to prove their right to access the Spanish NHS. It is the norm.
Well they better get the resettlement camps up and running for the tens of thousands of returning British citizens who would lose their health care if the UK government did this to EU citizens in the UK. Just as well I haven’t cancelled our health insurance for exactly this possibility but paying it with the reduced income will be more of a stretch.
The british government does not pay for my obligatory health insurance in Germany. It would cover me if I could get to the UK and present to the NHS.
Talk of parliament stopping no deal still seems predicated on a menu of constitutionally questionable options, none of which seem to carry any real degree of confidence even among their advocates.
How does parliament ACTUALLY stop no deal? I read about amendments 'requiring' or 'forcing' but with little in the way of background information on whether there is genuinely the element of compulsion on the executive.
My sense is there is an awful lot of frustration and bluster masquerading as action.
There's going to be litte reward from 17.4m Leave voters* for attempts at smart-arsed Establishment Brexit-killing. And huge blow-back.
* There's also a sizeable number of Remain voters for whom it would leave a very nasty taste in the mouth that the outcome wasn't being honoured.
Parliament should just nod No Deal through. Watching Boris squirm and the Leavers squeal when their bluff is called would be the one pinprick of joy in the whole Brexit malarkey.
I'm with you. Parliament stopping No Deal will play right into Johnson's hands. Even if they do block it Johnson will win a GE and then have a free hand. Call his bluff. It is the best chance of settling the issue. If it proves to be the disaster many expect he will booted out and a new government will then negotiate a deal with the EU or rejoin.
Well they better get the resettlement camps up and running for the tens of thousands of returning British citizens who would lose their health care if the UK government did this to EU citizens in the UK. Just as well I haven’t cancelled our health insurance for exactly this possibility but paying it with the reduced income will be more of a stretch.
In Spain UK citizens have always had to prove their right to access the Spanish NHS. It is the norm.
The Spanish government said they would wait to end of 2020 to see how the UK treated Spanish citizens in the UK. Yes you either have to be working and paying the equivalent of NI or a UK citizen in receipt of a state pension but is based on a reciprocal agreement.
Perhaps the BBC article is badly written, but it seems to be saying the payments have been ruled by the courts to be non-taxable, but that if people didn't offer to pay tax on them, they would be taxed retrospectively.
The Scheme had two elements: - The payment by the agency to the offshore trust; and - A "loan" by the Trust to the individual
HMRC largely contended (IIRC) that the loan was income in the hands of the individual and taxable on that basis. The Court reached the same overall conclusion, but instead held that the payment by the agency to the Trust was taxable.
There are slightly different consequences to each finding.
But this is being done under legislation enabling retrospective taxation over a period of 20 years?
We have put rules in place to stop the "whack a mole" tax planning which dominated the tax landscape 2008 to 2015.
The use of an offshore fund and a loan which was never to be repaid is a pretty good example of such a scheme. Participants were fully aware that this was aggressive tax avoidance, they were re-assured that no Court had yet ruled it illegal.
There was element of mis-selling but when your weekly earnings get paid from the BVI, I think you must appreciate the risk here.
I'm just trying to understand what's happened. HMRC couldn't insist on these payments if it hadn't been for legislation with a retrospective effect?
Regardless of what one may think of tax avoidance, that seems wrong. If people were aware of the problem, they should have legislated against these schemes.
Save for the ill-gotten gains of the scheme provider, the taxpayer is only being asked to account for the tax they would have paid if they had not used the scheme. Of course they long ago spent that extra cash, so finding a settlement sum will be difficult. HMRC are offering those on less than £50k time to pay.
Since 2013, this moral dilemma has ceased, as all new schemes are automatically put on notice that HMRC will pursue taxpayers for these sums and therefore anyone using a scheme should put the money aside or be prepared to do so in the future. Or not use one, of course.
They should stuff them for every penny and if they cannot pay throw them in jail, nasty cheating criminal rats, they knew they were fleecing the system.
There's going to be little reward from 16.1m Remain voters* for attempts to subvert the will of Parliament and force us into leaving without a deal. And huge blow-back.
*There's also a sizeable number of Leave voters who were assured it would be very easy to negotiate a deal, and it would leave a very nasty taste in the mouth that this promise wasn't being honoured.
Parliament voted to invoke Article 50 knowing that the default outcome at the end of the process was leaving the EU without a deal.
The fact is remainers voted down every deal offered to them in the hope of killing off Brexit and consequently here we are.
The ERG are stupid and pig-headed but their aim was clear.
The huge remainer majority in parliament have avoided being honest in communicating their true intentions even though it has been patently obvious their aim from day 1 has been to overturn the result.
Oddly I don't include Grieve in the above as when he was directly asked what deal he would vote for to honour the referendum result he came out with a list pretty much identical to the current arrangements and then said such a deal was so close to remaining he wouldn't vote for it anyway as there was no point.
I do wonder if we went back in time to MV3 would remainers vote it through knowing what they know now.
"The fact is remainers voted down every deal offered to them" ... and many leavers (including ERG)
Thanks - I didn't actually hear that bit, I was extrapolating too far from ydoethur's report.
Everyone agrees it is possible if the examination date is changed or the start date of the university term is changed or students are forced to take a year off.
However, those changes are not trivial.
E,g., if you start the university term in January, then you have 500,000 adults not in education, employment or training for 5 months with no income.
I thought the proposal is to bring the A level exams forward to april or may, and get to the results out quicker. The students then apply for uni once they know what the actual results are at, say, the start of July. So there is no compulsory gap year. This is the time frame that many European countries work on.
It won't be easy to do implement, but it is certainly possible if the will is there. The current timetable was designed long before I was doing A levels, at a time when everything was done by post. There must be scope to cut the application time down massively. Just one example is the interview process. Many of my colleages in British unis considered interviews as a very poor admission criterion and the main advantage was the marketing of the Uni and the degree programme. If the Alevel results are already known then the admission is based on the 2 years studying A levels rather than an offer made based on a 15 minute interview.
It would royally bugger up school timetables and assessment patterns. Indeed, I think you would need to bring the start of the school year into August or even the end of July and have an extended break in May and June to make it work. Otherwise you have schools sitting idle for 40% of the year.
What you call "royally bugger up" can be phrased as "part of the reorganisation". The school year starting in August is not the only option if you want exams in late April. If implemented, this would have to be a major resutructure to A-Levels and Unis, and could not be brought in quickly.
It looks like the responses from the LDs here since that post (not scientific), that my gut is not doing a bad job.
True.
As a different way of approaching the question, to take individual voting intentions out of it -
The morning after this Oct 'Brexit' election, which of the 2 realistic PM outcomes would PB LDs most like (or least hate) to see - PM Johnson or PM Corbyn?
Well they better get the resettlement camps up and running for the tens of thousands of returning British citizens who would lose their health care if the UK government did this to EU citizens in the UK. Just as well I haven’t cancelled our health insurance for exactly this possibility but paying it with the reduced income will be more of a stretch.
In Spain UK citizens have always had to prove their right to access the Spanish NHS. It is the norm.
Proving you have a right to use the service seems like a reasonable requirement, after all it is the National Health Service, not the Global Health Service.
Isn't it already a requirement to prove you are entitled, that is what E101 (is that the right number) card was all about?
However the requirement does add a problem. Having to prove something when you are ill and need urgent treatment is burden that could be difficult and consume time and energy that is better spent on treatment and recovery.
A classic issue where preparation, good systems and a bit of common sense should alleviate the potential problems before they arise.
I think there is good logical reason to think the Tories will win. The techniques they are using work well in the short run. They got the referendum result just over the line. They got the Brexit from nowhere to 30% in the Euros. With a new leader on top of the established Tory brand they've got to be in with a chance to shift opinion quickly in their direction. If they move quickly. The effect probably wears off over time.
I agree, and this is exactly what I fear. Populism is called that for a reason. And when amplified via a ruthless and disciplined campaign, with a front man who, whatever one's view of him, is a grade A celebrity, this package will not be easily beaten.
Well they better get the resettlement camps up and running for the tens of thousands of returning British citizens who would lose their health care if the UK government did this to EU citizens in the UK. Just as well I haven’t cancelled our health insurance for exactly this possibility but paying it with the reduced income will be more of a stretch.
In Spain UK citizens have always had to prove their right to access the Spanish NHS. It is the norm.
Proving you have a right to use the service seems like a reasonable requirement, after all it is the National Health Service, not the Global Health Service.
Isn't it already a requirement to prove you are entitled, that is what E101 (is that the right number) card was all about?
However the requirement does add a problem. Having to prove something when you are ill and need urgent treatment is burden that could be difficult and consume time and energy that is better spent on treatment and recovery.
A classic issue where preparation, good systems and a bit of common sense should alleviate the potential problems before they arise.
Perhaps the BBC article is badly written, but it seems to be saying the payments have been ruled by the courts to be non-taxable, but that if people didn't offer to pay tax on them, they would be taxed retrospectively.
The Scheme had two elements: - The payment by the agency to the offshore trust; and - A "loan" by the Trust to the individual
HMRC largely contended (IIRC) that the loan was income in the hands of the individual and taxable on that basis. The Court reached the same overall conclusion, but instead held that the payment by the agency to the Trust was taxable.
There are slightly different consequences to each finding.
But this is being done under legislation enabling retrospective taxation over a period of 20 years?
We have put rules in place to stop the "whack a mole" tax planning which dominated the tax landscape 2008 to 2015.
The use of an offshore fund and a loan which was never to be repaid is a pretty good example of such a scheme. Participants were fully aware that this was aggressive tax avoidance, they were re-assured that no Court had yet ruled it illegal.
There was element of mis-selling but when your weekly earnings get paid from the BVI, I think you must appreciate the risk here.
I'm just trying to understand what's happened. HMRC couldn't insist on these payments if it hadn't been for legislation with a retrospective effect?
Regardless of what one may think of tax avoidance, that seems wrong. If people were aware of the problem, they should have legislated against these schemes.
Save for the ill-gotten gains of the scheme provider, the taxpayer is only being asked to account for the tax they would have paid if they had not used the scheme. Of course they long ago spent that extra cash, so finding a settlement sum will be difficult. HMRC are offering those on less than £50k time to pay.
Since 2013, this moral dilemma has ceased, as all new schemes are automatically put on notice that HMRC will pursue taxpayers for these sums and therefore anyone using a scheme should put the money aside or be prepared to do so in the future. Or not use one, of course.
They should stuff them for every penny and if they cannot pay throw them in jail, nasty cheating criminal rats, they knew they were fleecing the system.
Having fleeced us you want us to pay their accommodation, security and nutritional costs as well?
What are the odds of their being a formal Green/Lib/Plaid/Change UK coalition for the next election?
Surely this would have some serious clout at uniting the remain vote.
Low. As I understand it Green members have said they don't want this in a recent email request survey for views. May change of course. But seems more likely that something informal happens in some seats.
Talk of parliament stopping no deal still seems predicated on a menu of constitutionally questionable options, none of which seem to carry any real degree of confidence even among their advocates.
How does parliament ACTUALLY stop no deal? I read about amendments 'requiring' or 'forcing' but with little in the way of background information on whether there is genuinely the element of compulsion on the executive.
My sense is there is an awful lot of frustration and bluster masquerading as action.
Of course but through it all there might be a constitutionally sound, legal way of doing it.
But likewise proroguing parliament might be constitutional and legal.
The Speaker.
He will stop the second of those and support the first. Were it not the case, then we'd be in a different ball game. But he is committed to the sovereignty of Parliament.
So if Parliament wishes to stop a No Deal Brexit, it will find a way to do so. Cummings isn't a lawyer. Nor is Johnson. There are some smart lawyers on the Remainer side of the divide.
"If Parliament wishes..." takes rather a lot for granted.
I don't think Corbyn, for example, has any great desire to make some heroic stand on the issue. He's far more interested in becoming Prime Minister.
Bercow will no doubt provide the opportunity for votes, but I think it quite likely that there won't be a parliamentary majority for any particular action other than a VONC. Which in itself solves nothing.
Parliament has already voted to extend Article 50 with enacted legislation (the Cooper-Letwin Act) and this was under much more benign circumstances. There's no question in my mind that Parliament is very strongly opposed to a No Deal Brexit. As that's the car crash Johnson seems intent on pursuing, Parliament will enact the prevention.
It'll be interesting to see what would happen if we have a new Act, the Queen, EU and legislature are mindful to see it through but the Prime Minister isn't. That, I think, would indeed bring a VONC or Revocation as last resort.
The bottom line is this. Parliament is very strongly opposed to a No Deal Brexit. If we take our eyes off that one fundamental I think we will enter the realms of fantasy. How it will play out, though, is not yet entirely clear.
Ddin't Cooper-Letwin get through on a majority of 1? And as you say under much more benign circumstances.
Even though the opposition have gained an MP since, so the baseline should be a majority of 3, it is easy to see a possibility of 2 MPs who backed Cooper-Letwin not backing revoke or Cooper-Letwin II now. Just as easy as seeing 2 MPs switching from Tories to remove their majority.
Well they better get the resettlement camps up and running for the tens of thousands of returning British citizens who would lose their health care if the UK government did this to EU citizens in the UK. Just as well I haven’t cancelled our health insurance for exactly this possibility but paying it with the reduced income will be more of a stretch.
In Spain UK citizens have always had to prove their right to access the Spanish NHS. It is the norm.
Proving you have a right to use the service seems like a reasonable requirement, after all it is the National Health Service, not the Global Health Service.
Isn't it already a requirement to prove you are entitled, that is what E101 (is that the right number) card was all about?
However the requirement does add a problem. Having to prove something when you are ill and need urgent treatment is burden that could be difficult and consume time and energy that is better spent on treatment and recovery.
A classic issue where preparation, good systems and a bit of common sense should alleviate the potential problems before they arise.
Your last paragraph is a for the Ages.
One that is never likely to be achieved, but we can but hope....
Well they better get the resettlement camps up and running for the tens of thousands of returning British citizens who would lose their health care if the UK government did this to EU citizens in the UK. Just as well I haven’t cancelled our health insurance for exactly this possibility but paying it with the reduced income will be more of a stretch.
In Spain UK citizens have always had to prove their right to access the Spanish NHS. It is the norm.
Proving you have a right to use the service seems like a reasonable requirement, after all it is the National Health Service, not the Global Health Service.
Isn't it already a requirement to prove you are entitled, that is what E101 (is that the right number) card was all about?
However the requirement does add a problem. Having to prove something when you are ill and need urgent treatment is burden that could be difficult and consume time and energy that is better spent on treatment and recovery.
A classic issue where preparation, good systems and a bit of common sense should alleviate the potential problems before they arise.
We have SIP cards which we were entitled to when I turned 65 last year I carry them everywhere with me. I also need my passport if going to the hospital for a specialist appointment. The article is behind the paywall so it’s difficult to know who would have to pay and under what circumstances so if anybody has read the entire article could they advise please.
I'm not an actual member but I probably would be if I lived in Britain and had the vote, and my answer is definitely Yes, provided Lab is unfaffingly clear on offering a Brexitexit referendum. (I don't care what position they have if any on how they think people should vote in it.)
The only exception would be if Lab was running an exceptionally terrible candidate.
Another angle to this is that most of what we need Lab to do is defence, and that means they have incumbents, and Lab incumbents are generally not Corbynite. The political scene right now is kind of
Perhaps the BBC article is badly written, but it seems to be saying the payments have been ruled by the courts to be non-taxable, but that if people didn't offer to pay tax on them, they would be taxed retrospectively.
The Scheme had two elements: - The payment by the agency to the offshore trust; and - A "loan" by the Trust to the individual
HMRC largely contended (IIRC) that the loan was income in the hands of the individual and taxable on that basis. The Court reached the same overall conclusion, but instead held that the payment by the agency to the Trust was taxable.
There are slightly different consequences to each finding.
But this is being done under legislation enabling retrospective taxation over a period of 20 years?
We have put rules in place to stop the "whack a mole" tax planning which dominated the tax landscape 2008 to 2015.
The use of an offshore fund and a loan which was never to be repaid is a pretty good example of such a scheme. Participants were fully aware that this was aggressive tax avoidance, they were re-assured that no Court had yet ruled it illegal.
There was element of mis-selling but when your weekly earnings get paid from the BVI, I think you must appreciate the risk here.
I'm just trying to understand what's happened. HMRC couldn't insist on these payments if it hadn't been for legislation with a retrospective effect?
Regardless of what one may think of tax avoidance, that seems wrong. If people were aware of the problem, they should have legislated against these schemes.
Save for the ill-gotten gains of the scheme provider, the taxpayer is only being asked to account for the tax they would have paid if they had not used the scheme. Of course they long ago spent that extra cash, so finding a settlement sum will be difficult. HMRC are offering those on less than £50k time to pay.
Since 2013, this moral dilemma has ceased, as all new schemes are automatically put on notice that HMRC will pursue taxpayers for these sums and therefore anyone using a scheme should put the money aside or be prepared to do so in the future. Or not use one, of course.
They should stuff them for every penny and if they cannot pay throw them in jail, nasty cheating criminal rats, they knew they were fleecing the system.
Having fleeced us you want us to pay their accommodation, security and nutritional costs as well?
Perhaps the BBC article is badly written, , they would be taxed retrospectively.
The Scheme had two elements: - The payment by the agency to the offshore trust; and - A "loan" by the Trust to the individual
HMRC largely contended (IIRC) that the loan was income in the hands of the individual and taxable on that basis. The Court reached the same overall conclusion, but instead held that the payment by the agency to the Trust was taxable.
There are slightly different consequences to each finding.
But this is being done under legislation enabling retrospective taxation over a period of 20 years?
We have put rules in place to stop the "whack a mole" tax planning which dominated the tax landscape 2008 to 2015.
The use of an offshore fund and a loan which was never to be repaid is a pretty good example of such a scheme. Participants were fully aware that this was aggressive tax avoidance, they were re-assured that no Court had yet ruled it illegal.
There was element of mis-selling but when your weekly earnings get paid from the BVI, I think you must appreciate the risk here.
I'm just trying to understand what's happened. HMRC couldn't insist on these payments if it hadn't been for legislation with a retrospective effect?
Regardless of what one may think of tax avoidance, that seems wrong. If people were aware of the problem, they should have legislated against these schemes.
Save for the ill-gotten gains of the scheme provider, the taxpayer is only being asked to account for the tax they would have paid if they had not used the scheme. Of course they long ago spent that extra cash, so finding a settlement sum will be difficult. HMRC are offering those on less than £50k time to pay.
Since 2013, this moral dilemma has ceased, as all new schemes are automatically put on notice that HMRC will pursue taxpayers for these sums and therefore anyone using a scheme should put the money aside or be prepared to do so in the future. Or not use one, of course.
They should stuff them for every penny and if they cannot pay throw them in jail, nasty cheating criminal rats, they knew they were fleecing the system.
Having fleeced us you want us to pay their accommodation, security and nutritional costs as well?
I want them beggared
Was that auto correct? And I get your point on the moral, social and ethical use of tax avoidance and evasion.
Perhaps the BBC article is badly written, but it seems to be saying the payments have been ruled by the courts to be non-taxable, but that if people didn't offer to pay tax on them, they would be taxed retrospectively.
The Scheme had two elements: - The payment by the agency to the offshore trust; and - A "loan" by the Trust to the individual
HMRC largely contended (IIRC) that the loan was income in the hands of the individual and taxable on that basis. The Court reached the same overall conclusion, but instead held that the payment by the agency to the Trust was taxable.
There are slightly different consequences to each finding.
But this is being done under legislation enabling retrospective taxation over a period of 20 years?
We have put rules in place to stop the "whack a mole" tax planning which dominated the tax landscape 2008 to 2015.
The use of an offshore fund and a loan which was never to be repaid is a pretty good example of such a scheme. Participants were fully aware that this was aggressive tax avoidance, they were re-assured that no Court had yet ruled it illegal.
There was element of mis-selling but when your weekly earnings get paid from the BVI, I think you must appreciate the risk here.
I'm just trying to understand what's happened. HMRC couldn't insist on these payments if it hadn't been for legislation with a retrospective effect?
Regardless of what one may think of tax avoidance, that seems wrong. If people were aware of the problem, they should have legislated against these schemes.
Save for the ill-gotten gains of the scheme provider, the taxpayer is only being asked to account for the tax they would have paid if they had not used the scheme. Of course they long ago spent that extra cash, so finding a settlement sum will be difficult. HMRC are offering those on less than £50k time to pay.
Since 2013, this moral dilemma has ceased, as all new schemes are .
They should stuff them for every penny and if they cannot pay throw them in jail, nasty cheating criminal rats, they knew they were fleecing the system.
Having fleeced us you want us to pay their accommodation, security and nutritional costs as well?
What are the odds of their being a formal Green/Lib/Plaid/Change UK coalition for the next election?
Surely this would have some serious clout at uniting the remain vote.
Low. As I understand it Green members have said they don't want this in a recent email request survey for views. May change of course. But seems more likely that something informal happens in some seats.
Happy to be corrected.
Thanks, seems baffling to me Actually a real chance of Greens expanding in Parliament beyond just Brighton.
Surely with the right wing vote split with Tory/Brexit Party, the most useless opposition in living memory with Corbyn this is the best chance they will ever get to actually have electoral success....ah well.
The Scheme had two elements: - The payment by the agency to the offshore trust; and - A "loan" by the Trust to the individual
HMRC largely contended (IIRC) that the loan was income in the hands of the individual and taxable on that basis. The Court reached the same overall conclusion, but instead held that the payment by the agency to the Trust was taxable.
There are slightly different consequences to each finding.
But this is being done under legislation enabling retrospective taxation over a period of 20 years?
We have put rules in place to stop the "whack a mole" tax planning which dominated the tax landscape 2008 to 2015.
The use of an offshore fund and a loan which was never to be repaid is a pretty good example of such a scheme. Participants were fully aware that this was aggressive tax avoidance, they were re-assured that no Court had yet ruled it illegal.
There was element of mis-selling but when your weekly earnings get paid from the BVI, I think you must appreciate the risk here.
I'm just trying to understand what's happened. HMRC couldn't insist on these payments if it hadn't been for legislation with a retrospective effect?
Regardless of what one may think of tax avoidance, that seems wrong. If people were aware of the problem, they should have legislated against these schemes.
Save for the ill-gotten gains of the scheme provider, the taxpayer is only being asked to account for the tax they would have paid if they had not used the scheme. Of course they long ago spent that extra cash, so finding a settlement sum will be difficult. HMRC are offering those on less than £50k time to pay.
Since 2013, this moral dilemma has ceased, as all new schemes are .
They should stuff them for every penny and if they cannot pay throw them in jail, nasty cheating criminal rats, they knew they were fleecing the system.
Having fleeced us you want us to pay their accommodation, security and nutritional costs as well?
I want them beggared
Was that auto correct?
both would be better
It is almost two sentences running consecutively, first bending over during incarceration and on release a life of misery and poverty in the free world. Justice!
I thought the proposal is to bring the A level exams forward to april or may, and get to the results out quicker. The students then apply for uni once they know what the actual results are at, say, the start of July. So there is no compulsory gap year. This is the time frame that many European countries work on.
It won't be easy to do implement, but it is certainly possible if the will is there. The current timetable was designed long before I was doing A levels, at a time when everything was done by post. There must be scope to cut the application time down massively. Just one example is the interview process. Many of my colleages in British unis considered interviews as a very poor admission criterion and the main advantage was the marketing of the Uni and the degree programme. If the Alevel results are already known then the admission is based on the 2 years studying A levels rather than an offer made based on a 15 minute interview.
It would royally bugger up school timetables and assessment patterns. Indeed, I think you would need to bring the start of the school year into August or even the end of July and have an extended break in May and June to make it work. Otherwise you have schools sitting idle for 40% of the year.
What you call "royally bugger up" can be phrased as "part of the reorganisation". The school year starting in August is not the only option if you want exams in late April. If implemented, this would have to be a major resutructure to A-Levels and Unis, and could not be brought in quickly.
None of this is necessary. Universities already make offers after results are known, in the clearing process. Labour's proposals might be very complicated but their goal might be just running clearing at a larger scale, which could easily be done online in a month. Universities will know how many places they have available, and the results of any applicants. Basically, it's an auction.
On the tactical voting, as my MP is sitting on a wafer-thin 40,000 majority, I'll have to give it some serious thought.
If it's a Labour seat, the issue doesn't arise. If it's a Tory seat, then the only other party that could ever conceivably win such a seat is the LibDems, irrespective of the vote shares or who is second. The chances of this ever happening might be 1% but that's better than Labour's chances which will be 0%. So best vote LibDem to build their vote up and hope that one day some sort of Christchurch/Romsey opportunity comes along to nab the seat off the Tories.
It's a big hope where I live, York Outer. The Lib Dems have been saying they could win it since it's creation in 2010. They were favourites then at the bookies. However the Conservatives have always won it at GE, as they did when it was Ryedale. In 2017 Labour came second which was a shock. My Lib Dem vote , has never been a winner in 30 years. I guess it will be another one wasted at the next election.
@CarlottaVance you said in a previous thread that in a poll that showed the LDs ahead of Con by 1% was statistically the same. That isn't correct (Happy to be corrected as although my background is mathematics, it definitely isn't statistics)
At a confidence level of 95% there is a margin of error of 3%. If you reduce the confidence level you will reduce the margin of error. Regardless it is always better to be ahead, you are just not so confident.
If you're getting into the technical details then it is important to specify the "margin of error" of what. The usual MoE lets say 3% is for one of the point estimates, eg. the percentage for "will vote Conservative". When considering the difference between two point estimates the MoE will be larger because there is variance in both point estimates. You need the actual data to work out how much larger it is, as the two point estimates are also correlated.
The point I was making was the general principle really of the incorrect statement of being statistically the same. I'm going to avoid the technical details mainly because I am not competent to do so. I managed to swerve every statistic course in my maths degree, focusing mainly on logic subjects.
I thought the proposal is to bring the A level exams forward to april or may, and get to the results out quicker. The students then apply for uni once they know what the actual results are at, say, the start of July. So there is no compulsory gap year. This is the time frame that many European countries work on.
It won't be easy to do implement, but it is certainly possible if the will is there. The current timetable was designed long before I was doing A levels, at a time when everything was done by post. There must be scope to cut the application time down massively. Just one example is the interview process. Many of my colleages in British unis considered interviews as a very poor admission criterion and the main advantage was the marketing of the Uni and the degree programme. If the Alevel results are already known then the admission is based on the 2 years studying A levels rather than an offer made based on a 15 minute interview.
It would royally bugger up school timetables and assessment patterns. Indeed, I think you would need to bring the start of the school year into August or even the end of July and have an extended break in May and June to make it work. Otherwise you have schools sitting idle for 40% of the year.
What you call "royally bugger up" can be phrased as "part of the reorganisation". The school year starting in August is not the only option if you want exams in late April. If implemented, this would have to be a major resutructure to A-Levels and Unis, and could not be brought in quickly.
So what other options are there?
At the moment, the A-levels start in the last full week of May. They are released mid-way through August. That's a time frame of around 12 weeks. Not too much for sitting, returning, scanning, standardising (although if my experience of incorrectly marked seeds is anything to go by that stage has become a farce) marking, checking, collating, and issuing.
For them to be released in April they would therefore have to be done from around the second week of January. That immediately pulls everything back by four months. Moreover, for a number of practical reasons (basically to do with the availability of invigilators, markers and rooms) GCSEs would have to be moved as well.
Therefore the school year would need to be radically reorganised:
1) Probably start at the start of May, with a five week break from the end of March to the end of April.
2) two week Holidays in June/start of July, end of August. October and December, creating a five term year instead of three/six.
3) probably overall slightly more non-teaching weeks, up from around 12 to maybe 13.
And leaving unanswered one very important question:
Which unfortunate exam year is going to have their teaching time for life-defining exams cut in half?
It looks like the responses from the LDs here since that post (not scientific), that my gut is not doing a bad job.
True.
As a different way of approaching the question, to take individual voting intentions out of it -
The morning after this Oct 'Brexit' election, which of the 2 realistic PM outcomes would PB LDs most like (or least hate) to see - PM Johnson or PM Corbyn?
That is an excellent question. It is also relevant that I do not sit in a LAB/CON marginal so I can't judge what I would do objectively.
And here is the rub answering your question: I really strongly object to both as PM. I'm not sure that has ever happened to me before.
It looks like the responses from the LDs here since that post (not scientific), that my gut is not doing a bad job.
True.
As a different way of approaching the question, to take individual voting intentions out of it -
The morning after this Oct 'Brexit' election, which of the 2 realistic PM outcomes would PB LDs most like (or least hate) to see - PM Johnson or PM Corbyn?
That is an excellent question. It is also relevant that I do not sit in a LAB/CON marginal so I can't judge what I would do objectively.
And here is the rub answering your question: I really strongly object to both as PM. I'm not sure that has ever happened to me before.
Sorry that answer was useless. Hopefully others can do better
I'm not an actual member but I probably would be if I lived in Britain and had the vote, and my answer is definitely Yes, provided Lab is unfaffingly clear on offering a Brexitexit referendum. (I don't care what position they have if any on how they think people should vote in it.)
The only exception would be if Lab was running an exceptionally terrible candidate.
Another angle to this is that most of what we need Lab to do is defence, and that means they have incumbents, and Lab incumbents are generally not Corbynite. The political scene right now is kind of
...so if you like Swinson but your MP is Watson, I think it's an easy call.
That's IMO the logical position, which I hope is widespread.
Even better if it's widespread amongst people who live here rather than in Japan.
Just like ex-pat leavers with no deal, ex-pats have the luxury of seeking to impose Jeremy Corbyn upon us without ever needing to experience it in real life.
I of course respect @edmundintokyo's view but the general point still stands.
"We need someone who could stand up, look the president in the eye and say: “Enough, sir. We’ve had enough of your indecency. We’ve had enough of your lies, your bullying, your cruelty, enough of your insults, your daily drama, your incitement, enough of the danger you place this country in every single day. We don’t want any of this anymore, and the country certainly can’t stand four more years of it.” "
Listening to R4 this morning, apart from anything else, Hammond nailed the preparations issue. ie if we are "now" much better prepared for no deal (eg Wolfson yesterday) how could Hammond, chancellor until three weeks ago, not have made preparations..
I wish Humphries had picked up IDS on this as he (IDS) a few minutes later charged Hammond with making no preparations.
Yes, it was a very good interview indeed and that particular answer of Hammond's was an absolute zinger. He really is very impressive.
It looks like the responses from the LDs here since that post (not scientific), that my gut is not doing a bad job.
True.
As a different way of approaching the question, to take individual voting intentions out of it -
The morning after this Oct 'Brexit' election, which of the 2 realistic PM outcomes would PB LDs most like (or least hate) to see - PM Johnson or PM Corbyn?
That is an excellent question. It is also relevant that I do not sit in a LAB/CON marginal so I can't judge what I would do objectively.
And here is the rub answering your question: I really strongly object to both as PM. I'm not sure that has ever happened to me before.
Sorry that answer was useless. Hopefully others can do better
So I wouldn't call myself a lib dem although I am currently voting for them. Was a life long Tory but currently disappear at this government.
If a gun was to my head then I would still take Johnson over Corbyn.
While Johnson's current Brexit policy will be a disaster, I don't think Corbyns would be too different. He is desperate to leave the EU as well. But ontop of that his policies would be a death blow to the economy from small companies to the banking sector. Worst case scenario is No Deal Brexit followed by Corbyn becoming PM.
Well they better get the resettlement camps up and running for the tens of thousands of returning British citizens who would lose their health care if the UK government did this to EU citizens in the UK. Just as well I haven’t cancelled our health insurance for exactly this possibility but paying it with the reduced income will be more of a stretch.
In Spain UK citizens have always had to prove their right to access the Spanish NHS. It is the norm.
Proving you have a right to use the service seems like a reasonable requirement, after all it is the National Health Service, not the Global Health Service.
Isn't it already a requirement to prove you are entitled, that is what E101 (is that the right number) card was all about?
However the requirement does add a problem. Having to prove something when you are ill and need urgent treatment is burden that could be difficult and consume time and energy that is better spent on treatment and recovery.
A classic issue where preparation, good systems and a bit of common sense should alleviate the potential problems before they arise.
They will have to prove the settled status. This will be a new, higher threshold than is currently required.
Just like ex-pat leavers with no deal, ex-pats have the luxury of seeking to impose Jeremy Corbyn upon us without ever needing to experience it in real life.
I of course respect @edmundintokyo's view but the general point still stands.
Also true, although it's not really clear who comes out as PM from any Lab performance short of Lab maj.
How can the finances of something that the Government isn't paying for be the Government's concern?
Whose money is it ? Is Heathrow 3 definitely, definitely going ahead ? When is the first spade due in the ground on it ? Are there legal challenges against it and whats it cost thus far to the taxpayer ?
I commented forth down the threat that you could put me down as a possible and I do live in a Con/Lab marginal. Made easier because the current MP is pro-EU
I thought the proposal is to bring the A level exams forward to april or may, and get to the results out quicker. The students then apply for uni once they know what the actual results are at, say, the start of July. So there is no compulsory gap year. This is the time frame that many European countries work on.
It won't be easy to do implement, but it is certainly possible if the will is there. The current timetable was designed long before I was doing A levels, at a time when everything was done by post. There must be scope to cut the application time down massively. Just one example is the interview process. Many of my colleages in British unis considered interviews as a very poor admission criterion and the main advantage was the marketing of the Uni and the degree programme. If the Alevel results are already known then the admission is based on the 2 years studying A levels rather than an offer made based on a 15 minute interview.
It would royally bugger up school timetables and assessment patterns. Indeed, I think you would need to bring the start of the school year into August or even the end of July and have an extended break in May and June to make it work. Otherwise you have schools sitting idle for 40% of the year.
What you call "royally bugger up" can be phrased as "part of the reorganisation". The school year starting in August is not the only option if you want exams in late April. If implemented, this would have to be a major resutructure to A-Levels and Unis, and could not be brought in quickly.
None of this is necessary. Universities already make offers after results are known, in the clearing process. Labour's proposals might be very complicated but their goal might be just running clearing at a larger scale, which could easily be done online in a month. Universities will know how many places they have available, and the results of any applicants. Basically, it's an auction.
More evidence there is no need to bugger about with school terms and exam dates.
Irish universities make offers after the results are known in August. Here are the 2016 dates:
Round One – 22 August 2016: the main body of offers are issued in the week following the release of the Irish Leaving Certificate Examination results
Round Two – 1 September 2016: another round of offers issued
Just like ex-pat leavers with no deal, ex-pats have the luxury of seeking to impose Jeremy Corbyn upon us without ever needing to experience it in real life.
I of course respect @edmundintokyo's view but the general point still stands.
Also true, although it's not really clear who comes out as PM from any Lab performance short of Lab maj.
I think Lab rule as a minority and dare the others to bring them down ?
Comments
And what actual way is there to force the executive to agree to an extension if there isn't a desire for it?
Sufficient to merit a smiley face?
Yes, I think so ...
Therefore tactical voting for Labour only really comes into play in Labour held seats (potentially including some with reasonable majorities, given that we wont be looking at a UNS election) - for which there is a sitting MP with a track record of voting and speaking on Brexit, so voters can judge whether they think that is someone who would vote to block Brexit regardless of the leadership view.
There's no point in voting 'tactically' for Labour in seats where they are off in second place; Labour looks likely to lose a lot of second places next time.
The use of an offshore fund and a loan which was never to be repaid is a pretty good example of such a scheme. Participants were fully aware that this was aggressive tax avoidance, they were re-assured that no Court had yet ruled it illegal.
There was element of mis-selling but when your weekly earnings get paid from the BVI, I think you must appreciate the risk here.
It'll be interesting to see what would happen if we have a new Act, the Queen, EU and legislature are mindful to see it through but the Prime Minister isn't. That, I think, would indeed bring a VONC or Revocation as last resort.
The bottom line is this. Parliament is very strongly opposed to a No Deal Brexit. If we take our eyes off that one fundamental I think we will enter the realms of fantasy. How it will play out, though, is not yet entirely clear.
You might just make Johnson liable for misfeaseance in public office, but I doubt even his nice flat might not be worth billions of pounds.
The only exception would be if Lab was running an exceptionally terrible candidate.
Another angle to this is that most of what we need Lab to do is defence, and that means they have incumbents, and Lab incumbents are generally not Corbynite. The political scene right now is kind of
Farage/Boris
...
Hammond/Stewart
Swinson/Watson
...
Corbyn
...so if you like Swinson but your MP is Watson, I think it's an easy call.
Regardless of what one may think of tax avoidance, that seems wrong. If people were aware of the problem, they should have legislated against these schemes.
* There's also a sizeable number of Remain voters for whom it would leave a very nasty taste in the mouth that the outcome wasn't being honoured.
https://www.linlithgowgazette.co.uk/news/crime/linlithgow-s-alex-salmond-is-victorious-in-legal-battle-1-4853252
*There's also a sizeable number of Leave voters who were assured it would be very easy to negotiate a deal, and it would leave a very nasty taste in the mouth that this promise wasn't being honoured.
It won't be easy to do implement, but it is certainly possible if the will is there. The current timetable was designed long before I was doing A levels, at a time when everything was done by post. There must be scope to cut the application time down massively. Just one example is the interview process. Many of my colleages in British unis considered interviews as a very poor admission criterion and the main advantage was the marketing of the Uni and the degree programme. If the Alevel results are already known then the admission is based on the 2 years studying A levels rather than an offer made based on a 15 minute interview.
The fact is remainers voted down every deal offered to them in the hope of killing off Brexit and consequently here we are.
The ERG are stupid and pig-headed but their aim was clear.
The huge remainer majority in parliament have avoided being honest in communicating their true intentions even though it has been patently obvious their aim from day 1 has been to overturn the result.
Oddly I don't include Grieve in the above as when he was directly asked what deal he would vote for to honour the referendum result he came out with a list pretty much identical to the current arrangements and then said such a deal was so close to remaining he wouldn't vote for it anyway as there was no point.
I do wonder if we went back in time to MV3 would remainers vote it through knowing what they know now.
https://twitter.com/Pulpstar/status/1161578729010880512
Morally, the taxpayers engaged in aggressive tax avoidance, designed to exploit the drafting of the relevant legislation, plus the rules of other low tax jurisdictions, for personal gain. They were facilitated by the scheme providers, who er, took the cash and ran.
Save for the ill-gotten gains of the scheme provider, the taxpayer is only being asked to account for the tax they would have paid if they had not used the scheme. Of course they long ago spent that extra cash, so finding a settlement sum will be difficult. HMRC are offering those on less than £50k time to pay.
Since 2013, this moral dilemma has ceased, as all new schemes are automatically put on notice that HMRC will pursue taxpayers for these sums and therefore anyone using a scheme should put the money aside or be prepared to do so in the future. Or not use one, of course.
http://orlando-politics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/New-Hampshire-August-8-2019-v2.pdf
... and many leavers (including ERG)
However, those changes are not trivial.
E,g., if you start the university term in January, then you have 500,000 adults not in education, employment or training for 5 months with no income.
As a different way of approaching the question, to take individual voting intentions out of it -
The morning after this Oct 'Brexit' election, which of the 2 realistic PM outcomes would PB LDs most like (or least hate) to see - PM Johnson or PM Corbyn?
Surely this would have some serious clout at uniting the remain vote.
Isn't it already a requirement to prove you are entitled, that is what E101 (is that the right number) card was all about?
However the requirement does add a problem. Having to prove something when you are ill and need urgent treatment is burden that could be difficult and consume time and energy that is better spent on treatment and recovery.
A classic issue where preparation, good systems and a bit of common sense should alleviate the potential problems before they arise.
Happy to be corrected.
Even though the opposition have gained an MP since, so the baseline should be a majority of 3, it is easy to see a possibility of 2 MPs who backed Cooper-Letwin not backing revoke or Cooper-Letwin II now. Just as easy as seeing 2 MPs switching from Tories to remove their majority.
Even better if it's widespread amongst people who live here rather than in Japan.
Actually a real chance of Greens expanding in Parliament beyond just Brighton.
Surely with the right wing vote split with Tory/Brexit Party, the most useless opposition in living memory with Corbyn this is the best chance they will ever get to actually have electoral success....ah well.
Justice!
The Lib Dems have been saying they could win it since it's creation in 2010.
They were favourites then at the bookies.
However the Conservatives have always won it at GE, as they did when it was Ryedale.
In 2017 Labour came second which was a shock.
My Lib Dem vote , has never been a winner in 30 years.
I guess it will be another one wasted at the next election.
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1161583201963393024
At the moment, the A-levels start in the last full week of May. They are released mid-way through August. That's a time frame of around 12 weeks. Not too much for sitting, returning, scanning, standardising (although if my experience of incorrectly marked seeds is anything to go by that stage has become a farce) marking, checking, collating, and issuing.
For them to be released in April they would therefore have to be done from around the second week of January. That immediately pulls everything back by four months. Moreover, for a number of practical reasons (basically to do with the availability of invigilators, markers and rooms) GCSEs would have to be moved as well.
Therefore the school year would need to be radically reorganised:
1) Probably start at the start of May, with a five week break from the end of March to the end of April.
2) two week Holidays in June/start of July, end of August. October and December, creating a five term year instead of three/six.
3) probably overall slightly more non-teaching weeks, up from around 12 to maybe 13.
And leaving unanswered one very important question:
Which unfortunate exam year is going to have their teaching time for life-defining exams cut in half?
And here is the rub answering your question: I really strongly object to both as PM. I'm not sure that has ever happened to me before.
I of course respect @edmundintokyo's view but the general point still stands.
"We need someone who could stand up, look the president in the eye and say: “Enough, sir. We’ve had enough of your indecency. We’ve had enough of your lies, your bullying, your cruelty, enough of your insults, your daily drama, your incitement, enough of the danger you place this country in every single day. We don’t want any of this anymore, and the country certainly can’t stand four more years of it.” "
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/opinion/joe-walsh-trump-primary.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Whats the running bill on that particular no spades in the ground project thus far ?
If a gun was to my head then I would still take Johnson over Corbyn.
While Johnson's current Brexit policy will be a disaster, I don't think Corbyns would be too different. He is desperate to leave the EU as well. But ontop of that his policies would be a death blow to the economy from small companies to the banking sector. Worst case scenario is No Deal Brexit followed by Corbyn becoming PM.
Wahay! Things are moving in the right direction.
Irish universities make offers after the results are known in August. Here are the 2016 dates:
Round One – 22 August 2016: the main body of offers are issued in the week following the release of the Irish Leaving Certificate Examination results
Round Two – 1 September 2016: another round of offers issued
Offers are issued on a weekly basis until mid-October to fill any remaining vacancies.
https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/international/europe/ireland/applying-to-an-irish-university/