@Casino_Royale Pay off the mortgage or add it to your pension pot.
You see, I don’t want to do that.
First, I’m paying only 2% interest on my mortgage and think I can do better. Also, I lose almost all liquidity when I do that until i remortgage.
Second, if I add it to my pension pot I can’t touch it (I don’t think) until I’m 55 and I will probably want it before then to fund my kids education.
I think stocks and shares ISAs are probably the answer.
So this is a bit off the wall but something I have been doing for years successfully and more relevant when interest rates are higher and only if you are responsible with credit cards and can tabs on what you are doing (which I suspect you can):
a) Pay off your mortgage
OK you are now short of funds that you want in a few years
b) Take out 0% credit card, when full take out another and so on. Get you wife to do the same. A good time before the free interest rate period expires look out for 0% balance transfer credit cards and transfer if you can get one with a zero transfer fee. If you have to pay one off (ie you couldn't get a free transfer in time) always do so on time. Always keep to the rules. Once full or a balance transfer card file away and never use.
It takes some managing but I found I could get up to £100K in free credit on a rolling basis and what is more, the more I did the better my credit rating and the higher the credit limit I got each time.
Always, always ensure you can pay off in time.
Interesting idea. Thanks!
My pleasure. Your available cash balance increases very quickly as you will only be paying each month the minimum on your Credit Card but putting most of your spend on it.
See Moneysavingexpert for the offers.
It was very profitable in the days you got 6% on savings. Now it is hardly worth it unless you have a mortgage to pay off.
Because we can spot a winner. It's why we were on Boris.
Don't blame us when Keith Stormer gets the majorities up in Islington but doesn't shift Stoke one percent. You'll be doing it all again before Boris goes to the polls....
I reckon he would probably shift them about 10% in the likes of Wansbeck, Stoke, etc.
10% the other way, that is.
But equally, I can see him mounting an effective challenge in many of the semi-rural/suburban commuter seats Blair was so good at sweeping up. Places like Worcester, Northampton, Norwich, Thanet, Dover, Hastings etc.
YouGov have a good track record of polling party members. The only real caveat about their earlier poll was that it came so early in the contest. This one comes after the candidates are known and have had a fair bit of exposure.
The Survation poll, by contrast, is far more suspect. It is a poll of Labour Party members who happen to have registered as such on the Labour List website (I think to get regular e-mail updates etc.). So it was quite self-selecting and probably skewed towards an activist base. By far the strongest correlation was with which candidate was supported in 2016 e.g. of RLB 1st preferences, 66% supported Corbyn in 2016, 2% Smith. Yet of those in the sample who voted in 2016, 66% favoured Corbyn compared to an actual result of 61.8%.
Odds of 4/6 on Starmer no longer available with Ladbrokes.
YouGov have a good track record of polling party members. The only real caveat about their earlier poll was that it came so early in the contest. This one comes after the candidates are known and have had a fair bit of exposure.
The Survation poll, by contrast, is far more suspect. It is a poll of Labour Party members who happen to have registered as such on the Labour List website (I think to get regular e-mail updates etc.). So it was quite self-selecting and probably skewed towards an activist base. By far the strongest correlation was with which candidate was supported in 2016 e.g. of RLB 1st preferences, 66% supported Corbyn in 2016, 2% Smith. Yet of those in the sample who voted in 2016, 66% favoured Corbyn compared to an actual result of 61.8%.
Odds of 4/6 on Starmer no longer available with Ladbrokes.
Bookies seem to be converging around 2/5, but I honestly think that's long. I know this is a second poll by the same pollster, but it's a great poll for Starmer and YouGove have a great track record on this. If nothing else it's great for Starmer because it shows not too much movement. A big frontrunner welcomes a stable race, especially when their lead is slowly growing.
Because we can spot a winner. It's why we were on Boris.
Don't blame us when Keith Stormer gets the majorities up in Islington but doesn't shift Stoke one percent. You'll be doing it all again before Boris goes to the polls....
I reckon he would probably shift them about 10% in the likes of Wansbeck, Stoke, etc.
10% the other way, that is.
This is not my experience in Northern seats like Blyth and North West Durham.
Interesting point. I think it probably would come in scope for GDPR. The aim of the adequacy assessment is to remove the need to put controls on EU data going to the UK because all data in the UK is handled to EU standards. It may come down to a distinction between the capture of the data (you can have cameras in the UK but not in the EU) and the processing of that captured data (you can have cameras in both places but you can't parse that data for facial recognition). If it's the second, and I think it probably is, I would expect it to be disallowed for UK captured data as well as EU captured data.
No, it really wouldn’t. The UK is going for a Canada type deal with the EU. Or even lighter than that,
Will the EU be able to force Canada to turn off face recog tech used in Canada by Canadians on Canadians? No, of course not.
The EU is a “regulatory superpower” but it isn’t an omnipotent global hegemon
To explain a bit more. (This is related to my day job). The key thing for the EU is that individuals can sue organisations that break the rules. So the Berlin Council operates CCTV cameras and gets a German company to do some (we suppose) illegal facial recognition on people passing by. Someone affected by this can then sue both Berlin Council and the processor company. Suppose Berlin Council ships the data to a company in fully Brexited Britain. That individual can't sue the British company because it didn't do anything illegal under UK law. The EU therefore requires a "Standard Contractual Clause" (SCC) to be in place before that data gets shipped to Britain in any form at all. The SCC sets out precisely what the UK company will do and makes the company liable to the individual for any breach.
Problems with SCCs are that they are expensive (I have seen £10000 per SCC suggested) and inflexible: you need new ones for any change of purpose, the UK company can't pass the data onto a subcontractor, Stuttgart, Paris need their own SCCs etc. Much better if your country can get a data adequacy assessment then data can flow freely to it. But you are obliged to fully meet EU DP standards. Canada, which has strict DP regs does have an EU data adequacy agreement, which in theory would mean Toronto Council couldn't send data any more freely to the UK than Berlin can.
Data flows betwixt and between the UK and the EU will dwindle
That is a great header, I have to say. A problem so deep-rooted must be about people, not systems and procedures, so perhaps the silver bullet lies in recruitment. Hire young people whose driving force is to make the world a better place rather than to wear uniforms and hold power over others. "Do-gooders" in other words is what we need. Really major on this quality during the recruitment process. Other things too of course - toughness, stability, physical fitness - but be clear that a palpable integrity and a genuine desire to make a difference are the sine qua non. Do not hire anybody into the police force who fails on that score, regardless of their other merits. If necessary, take recruitment to the police out of the hands of the police. Have it done by an independent 3rd party. And no, I don't mean Dominic Cummings. Were such a culture change to happen, and caught hold, we would surely see a big improvement in Police performance over time. Easier said than done - but then every benign reform of any substance to any large and complex institution is easier said than done. If such were not the case it would have already been done.
Good post.
The police operate a bit like a closed shop (scabs etc) in my view and pursue the path of least resistance to the easiest convictions, and not the right convictions.
So many people have told me to be careful what I say to a police office as they love to use the honesty and integrity of middle-class minor offenders against them to up their detection/clear-up rates, and they know we’ll pay and turn up to court too.
Yes, good post in response to an outstanding article.
Much I could add but for the moment I'll just mention an aside from Tony Blair's autobiography to the effect that the strongest and most effective Trade Union in the country is the Police Federation.
It doesn't explain everything but it does explain a lot.
Comments
See Moneysavingexpert for the offers.
It was very profitable in the days you got 6% on savings. Now it is hardly worth it unless you have a mortgage to pay off.
10% the other way, that is.
But equally, I can see him mounting an effective challenge in many of the semi-rural/suburban commuter seats Blair was so good at sweeping up. Places like Worcester, Northampton, Norwich, Thanet, Dover, Hastings etc.
YouGov have a good track record of polling party members. The only real caveat about their earlier poll was that it came so early in the contest. This one comes after the candidates are known and have had a fair bit of exposure.
The Survation poll, by contrast, is far more suspect. It is a poll of Labour Party members who happen to have registered as such on the Labour List website (I think to get regular e-mail updates etc.). So it was quite self-selecting and probably skewed towards an activist base. By far the strongest correlation was with which candidate was supported in 2016 e.g. of RLB 1st preferences, 66% supported Corbyn in 2016, 2% Smith. Yet of those in the sample who voted in 2016, 66% favoured Corbyn compared to an actual result of 61.8%.
Odds of 4/6 on Starmer no longer available with Ladbrokes.
NEW THREAD
Who gets the former will be interesting. And where does he put RLB?
Much I could add but for the moment I'll just mention an aside from Tony Blair's autobiography to the effect that the strongest and most effective Trade Union in the country is the Police Federation.
It doesn't explain everything but it does explain a lot.