In all of these increasing demands for more and more money and no job loses to be considered, I have a quiet admiration for Rishi as he stands firm with the public purse, even against public opinion
It increasingly obvious that nearly half the population are either in the public sector or are retired and see little or no financial penalties in lockdown and of course many are saving money by WFH avoiding the daily commute
However, the money to pay for the public sector mainly comes from a thriving private sector and the more it is crushed everyone will be facing big tax rises and I expect severe wage restraint. Of course the wealthy will have to pay more and I support that but they can usually be more agile and minimise tax
A full lockdown may come about but right now local lockdowns need to be implemented and policed before the nuclear option of the lockdown of the whole country as seen in Ireland tonight
He’s standing for for increased unemployment, particularly of the young, and destruction of businesses.
And you support that.
Well those in work and with wealth will have to pay more in welfare for the unemployed. What a sensible use of their money .... not.
There comes a time in this crisis when it has to be accepted every job cannot be saved
I don’t wish to be rude but easy for you to say when you have a comfortable pension which has allowed you to go on lovely cruises around the world. Try saying it to those in their early / mid-20’s with no jobs, little hope of finding one, few savings and not much hope of any sort of normal life: independence, a home of their own, a family - let alone luxuries like foreign travel.
Some of the money could be given in grants to those wishing to close existing businesses and set up new ones. Those people are the entrepreneurs of today and the future. Give them the opportunity to use those skills. Give them some hope. Not cliches from Central Office.
When my wife and I started we were penny pinching for some years but through hard work in founding a business and working nearly every hour 24/7 to moving on into a completely different business creating well paid employment for 20, who are still friends today though I have retired for 11 years, we innovated and adopted, adapted and improved
It is clear that covid will have a fundamental change in society even possibly like the miners but new jobs will be created and the old ones disappear. Rishi has the job of protecting as many as possible and to be fair he has, and is but at a cost of circa 2 billion a week by Xmas we will have spent virtually half the annual NHS budget
The help needs to be targeted to those on minimum wage and I understand with universal credit Rishi scheme for those on minimum wages will see approx 90% of their income
I do not want to seem unsympathetic especially in regard to the real issues your family face but we will get beyond this and the economy and jobs will arise and hopefully very quickly, though how the debt is paid I have no idea
Indeed and in most of the country we are still not in a full lockdown as we were in March, in Tier 1 which covers half of England you can still eat in pubs and restaurants inside and outside, in Tier 2 you can still eat outside or inside with your own household, only in Liverpool , Wales and likely Greater Manchester are the pubs and restaurants shut
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
So what is Sikora suggesting? No social distancing in hospitals,? No PPE or deep cleaning? Ceasing to admit covid patients to ICU so the space can be used for elective surgery?
He doesn't seem to understand that hospitals can not function normally in a pandemic, nor can they effectively treat patients by ignoring the virus.
The problem is that if you ignore the patients then soon you start clocking up dead bodies from non-Covid issues, and it looks like that is happening.
Yes, that is why we are attempting to treat as many as possible, without exposing them to additional risk from the virus.
Around here, that "treatment" seems to consist of locking the gates of the GP Practice to keep the patients out whilst the staff are inside. When the patients get past the gate and knock on door or windows they are told to go away or the police will be called.
If you ring the permanently engaged appointment line for about two days on the trot and somebody actually answers, you can get one of the rare appointment slots for about 2 weeks ahead....
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
Inflation.
That's not really a downside at the moment, given it's quite low at the moment. Some would argue it should be higher than it is.
That is something that has been said in many economies - just before they achieved... interesting levels of inflation.
The risks of that are really quite low right now. Consumer demand is in the toilet, unemployment is going up. The main pro-inflationary risk is increased costs of imports, which is why the government shouldn't be messing about with Brexit right now. Just sign up to something to keep trade stable, and if you really need to, revisit it in a couple of years when the coronavirus situation has settled into something more stable. But for now, yeah, borrow.
Sorry, I meant print.
You know there's a post edit facility right?
Click on the little 'settings' icon in the top right of your own posts within 6 minutes of posting to edit your posts.
Thanks for the pointer, Mr Pointer!
You're welcome. If you make as many typos as me it's a useful feature!
So what is Sikora suggesting? No social distancing in hospitals,? No PPE or deep cleaning? Ceasing to admit covid patients to ICU so the space can be used for elective surgery?
He doesn't seem to understand that hospitals can not function normally in a pandemic, nor can they effectively treat patients by ignoring the virus.
The problem is that if you ignore the patients then soon you start clocking up dead bodies from non-Covid issues, and it looks like that is happening.
Yes, that is why we are attempting to treat as many as possible, without exposing them to additional risk from the virus.
Around here, that "treatment" seems to consist of locking the gates of the GP Practice to keep the patients out whilst the staff are inside. When the patients get past the gate and knock on door or windows they are told to go away or the police will be called.
If you ring the permanently engaged appointment line for about two days on the trot and somebody actually answers, you can get one of the rare appointment slots for about 2 weeks ahead....
It certainly keeps us away from Covid...
You should get a new GP. They're not all like that. Assuming you are actually giving an accurate portrayal.
Corbyn has moved onto Bolivia now which elected a socialist president today, along with a quick picture of him with re elected New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern
There is something very charming and .... constant about both Jeremy & Piers.
I think I may even like Piers a little more than Jeremy.
Piers' explanation of the Hubble sequence of galaxies is wonderful.
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
I don't know the answer to this, but I'd be very interested in knowing how long the list is of countries that have never defaulted on, or renogitated, national debt and which ones are on it. I imagine it is not that long.
So what is Sikora suggesting? No social distancing in hospitals,? No PPE or deep cleaning? Ceasing to admit covid patients to ICU so the space can be used for elective surgery?
He doesn't seem to understand that hospitals can not function normally in a pandemic, nor can they effectively treat patients by ignoring the virus.
The problem is that if you ignore the patients then soon you start clocking up dead bodies from non-Covid issues, and it looks like that is happening.
Yes, that is why we are attempting to treat as many as possible, without exposing them to additional risk from the virus.
Around here, that "treatment" seems to consist of locking the gates of the GP Practice to keep the patients out whilst the staff are inside. When the patients get past the gate and knock on door or windows they are told to go away or the police will be called.
If you ring the permanently engaged appointment line for about two days on the trot and somebody actually answers, you can get one of the rare appointment slots for about 2 weeks ahead....
It certainly keeps us away from Covid...
Well, thats not what I am doing, nor my other hospital colleagues.
I am not a lockdown enthusiast, and wouldn't go beyond Tier 2 (though a fortnight half term seems reasonable). I will continue to see my patients and have taken appropriate measures to do so without putting them at unnecessary risk.
It is simply impossible for an NHS working at half capacity because of covid control measures to treat patients at the same rate, during a pandemic. Its going to be bloody awful.
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
I don't know the answer to this, but I'd be very interested in knowing how long the list is of countries that have never defaulted on, or renogitated, national debt and which ones are on it. I imagine it is not that long.
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
I don't know the answer to this, but I'd be very interested in knowing how long the list is of countries that have never defaulted on, or renogitated, national debt and which ones are on it. I imagine it is not that long.
We are the only major economy I can think of.
Quick google check, so unsure of accuracy: Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, Malaysia, Mauritius, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, and England.
This one is pretty simple isn't it? Wear a sodding mask. Yes its bad when TV stars and Twitter mega people like Lineker. Really bad - don't encourage morons to not wear masks.
So if its really bad for TV tots not bollocks it up, how bad is it when the PM slaps an MP on the back on the way out of the Commons or ManCock not wearing a mask in his car?
Not at all bad. It doesn't matter as the government is above the law and can do what it wants.
It's probably also an idea for people not to take too seriously what celebrities do. I've never understood the hatred Gary Lineker inspires in the far right. He's some TV guy with some opinions, some of which you might agree with, some of which you might not. I'm not sure anyone who gets worked up over him is making their own lives, or the world, better.
I have that view for all celebs. I am interested in what they do that makes them famous. I am not interested in their views on the stuff that didn't make them famous. JK Rowling seems to be on a lot of people's shit list because she's transphobic.
OK, its not good that she's transphobic. But her views on trans people aren't relevant to anyone other than her. So she should shut up about it - and the people flapping about her views should also shut up.
I don't see why she should shut up about it if she feels strongly on it. Any more than any non-"celebrity" should have to refrain from posting their opinions on twitter or anywhere. People shouldn't hang on a celebrity's every word just because they are a celebrity. But being famous shouldn't disqualify their right to express their views.
Being paid millions by the BBC should though.
JK Rowling gets her money from her own private efforts, from people who choose to get her products or read her books or watch her films, not from licence fee payers who don't have a choice by law to pay even if they want other live TV channels or programs not his.
Isn't the problem there the funding structure of the BBC? I mean, it's not Gary Linker's fault that you can't watch ITV without paying the BBC. He could shut up, wear a mask, repudiate all his beliefs, and/or resign and that still won't change a thing about the license fee. FWIW I stopped paying my licence fee years and years ago, because I don't agree with the way it's funded. But even if I did pay, I don't feel like I would have a claim on what Lineker is allowed to say and do.
Yes of course the BBC funding model is the problem, this is a side effect of that.
People who dislike Rowling can boycott her and not pay for her products. People who dislike Lineker can't, they're obliged by law to pay him via the licence fee.
We shouldn't have a state broadcaster people have to pay towards by law but if there is one impartiality in politics should rule and that should extend to everyone. If a state broadcaster sports presenter paid millions by a licence fee poll tax wants to take up political causes good luck to him, he should quit the state broadcaster and do so as a private citizen not as someone paid by the licence fee.
If his show was subscription or paid by commercials this objection wouldn't apply.
I'm not aware of anybody watching Match of the Day because they want to know what Lineker thinks about anything (except football).
So what is Sikora suggesting? No social distancing in hospitals,? No PPE or deep cleaning? Ceasing to admit covid patients to ICU so the space can be used for elective surgery?
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
I don't know the answer to this, but I'd be very interested in knowing how long the list is of countries that have never defaulted on, or renogitated, national debt and which ones are on it. I imagine it is not that long.
We are the only major economy I can think of.
Quick google check, so unsure of accuracy: Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, Malaysia, Mauritius, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, and England.
So what is Sikora suggesting? No social distancing in hospitals,? No PPE or deep cleaning? Ceasing to admit covid patients to ICU so the space can be used for elective surgery?
He doesn't seem to understand that hospitals can not function normally in a pandemic, nor can they effectively treat patients by ignoring the virus.
The problem is that if you ignore the patients then soon you start clocking up dead bodies from non-Covid issues, and it looks like that is happening.
Yes, that is why we are attempting to treat as many as possible, without exposing them to additional risk from the virus.
Around here, that "treatment" seems to consist of locking the gates of the GP Practice to keep the patients out whilst the staff are inside. When the patients get past the gate and knock on door or windows they are told to go away or the police will be called.
If you ring the permanently engaged appointment line for about two days on the trot and somebody actually answers, you can get one of the rare appointment slots for about 2 weeks ahead....
It certainly keeps us away from Covid...
You should get a new GP. They're not all like that. Assuming you are actually giving an accurate portrayal.
Yes, it is accurate. You should have seen the flu jab my mother was invited to. They "invited" the whole d*mn area at the same time. The tailback went for a mile in each direction ...
BTW - A new GP? None of the practices are taking on new patients at present. Guess why...
In all of these increasing demands for more and more money and no job loses to be considered, I have a quiet admiration for Rishi as he stands firm with the public purse, even against public opinion
It increasingly obvious that nearly half the population are either in the public sector or are retired and see little or no financial penalties in lockdown and of course many are saving money by WFH avoiding the daily commute
However, the money to pay for the public sector mainly comes from a thriving private sector and the more it is crushed everyone will be facing big tax rises and I expect severe wage restraint. Of course the wealthy will have to pay more and I support that but they can usually be more agile and minimise tax
A full lockdown may come about but right now local lockdowns need to be implemented and policed before the nuclear option of the lockdown of the whole country as seen in Ireland tonight
He’s standing for for increased unemployment, particularly of the young, and destruction of businesses.
And you support that.
Well those in work and with wealth will have to pay more in welfare for the unemployed. What a sensible use of their money .... not.
There comes a time in this crisis when it has to be accepted every job cannot be saved
I don’t wish to be rude but easy for you to say when you have a comfortable pension which has allowed you to go on lovely cruises around the world. Try saying it to those in their early / mid-20’s with no jobs, little hope of finding one, few savings and not much hope of any sort of normal life: independence, a home of their own, a family - let alone luxuries like foreign travel.
Some of the money could be given in grants to those wishing to close existing businesses and set up new ones. Those people are the entrepreneurs of today and the future. Give them the opportunity to use those skills. Give them some hope. Not cliches from Central Office.
When my wife and I started we were penny pinching for some years but through hard work in founding a business and working nearly every hour 24/7 to moving on into a completely different business creating well paid employment for 20, who are still friends today though I have retired for 11 years, we innovated and adopted, adapted and improved
It is clear that covid will have a fundamental change in society even possibly like the miners but new jobs will be created and the old ones disappear. Rishi has the job of protecting as many as possible and to be fair he has, and is but at a cost of circa 2 billion a week by Xmas we will have spent virtually half the annual NHS budget
The help needs to be targeted to those on minimum wage and I understand with universal credit Rishi scheme for those on minimum wages will see approx 90% of their income
I do not want to seem unsympathetic especially in regard to the real issues your family face but we will get beyond this and the economy and jobs will arise and hopefully very quickly, though how the debt is paid I have no idea
The 90% of income is simply not true. For the majority on low incomes already they will get ca. 2/3rds of that income.
Daughter has been doing exactly what you did. But she faces the very real prospect of closure because of a lack of government support even though she has customers who want the services she provides but cannot because of government diktat.
That diktat is to save the lives and health of the old - like you and me. In return, we should pay to help her and many others like her. That seems fair to me.
This one is pretty simple isn't it? Wear a sodding mask. Yes its bad when TV stars and Twitter mega people like Lineker. Really bad - don't encourage morons to not wear masks.
So if its really bad for TV tots not bollocks it up, how bad is it when the PM slaps an MP on the back on the way out of the Commons or ManCock not wearing a mask in his car?
Not at all bad. It doesn't matter as the government is above the law and can do what it wants.
It's probably also an idea for people not to take too seriously what celebrities do. I've never understood the hatred Gary Lineker inspires in the far right. He's some TV guy with some opinions, some of which you might agree with, some of which you might not. I'm not sure anyone who gets worked up over him is making their own lives, or the world, better.
I have that view for all celebs. I am interested in what they do that makes them famous. I am not interested in their views on the stuff that didn't make them famous. JK Rowling seems to be on a lot of people's shit list because she's transphobic.
OK, its not good that she's transphobic. But her views on trans people aren't relevant to anyone other than her. So she should shut up about it - and the people flapping about her views should also shut up.
I don't see why she should shut up about it if she feels strongly on it. Any more than any non-"celebrity" should have to refrain from posting their opinions on twitter or anywhere. People shouldn't hang on a celebrity's every word just because they are a celebrity. But being famous shouldn't disqualify their right to express their views.
Being paid millions by the BBC should though.
JK Rowling gets her money from her own private efforts, from people who choose to get her products or read her books or watch her films, not from licence fee payers who don't have a choice by law to pay even if they want other live TV channels or programs not his.
Isn't the problem there the funding structure of the BBC? I mean, it's not Gary Linker's fault that you can't watch ITV without paying the BBC. He could shut up, wear a mask, repudiate all his beliefs, and/or resign and that still won't change a thing about the license fee. FWIW I stopped paying my licence fee years and years ago, because I don't agree with the way it's funded. But even if I did pay, I don't feel like I would have a claim on what Lineker is allowed to say and do.
Yes of course the BBC funding model is the problem, this is a side effect of that.
People who dislike Rowling can boycott her and not pay for her products. People who dislike Lineker can't, they're obliged by law to pay him via the licence fee.
We shouldn't have a state broadcaster people have to pay towards by law but if there is one impartiality in politics should rule and that should extend to everyone. If a state broadcaster sports presenter paid millions by a licence fee poll tax wants to take up political causes good luck to him, he should quit the state broadcaster and do so as a private citizen not as someone paid by the licence fee.
If his show was subscription or paid by commercials this objection wouldn't apply.
I'm not aware of anybody watching Match of the Day because they want to know what Lineker thinks about anything (except football).
I'm not aware of anybody watching Harry Potter because they want to know what JK Rowling thinks about anything (except witchcraft and wizardry).
People who want to boycott Rowling and not pay her can by boycotting Harry Potter. People who want to boycott Lineker and not pay him can't because not paying the licence fee (if you want ANY live TV at all) is a criminal offence that you can go to prison for. That's the difference.
So what is Sikora suggesting? No social distancing in hospitals,? No PPE or deep cleaning? Ceasing to admit covid patients to ICU so the space can be used for elective surgery?
He doesn't seem to understand that hospitals can not function normally in a pandemic, nor can they effectively treat patients by ignoring the virus.
The problem is that if you ignore the patients then soon you start clocking up dead bodies from non-Covid issues, and it looks like that is happening.
Yes, that is why we are attempting to treat as many as possible, without exposing them to additional risk from the virus.
Around here, that "treatment" seems to consist of locking the gates of the GP Practice to keep the patients out whilst the staff are inside. When the patients get past the gate and knock on door or windows they are told to go away or the police will be called.
If you ring the permanently engaged appointment line for about two days on the trot and somebody actually answers, you can get one of the rare appointment slots for about 2 weeks ahead....
It certainly keeps us away from Covid...
You should get a new GP. They're not all like that. Assuming you are actually giving an accurate portrayal.
Yes, it is accurate. You should have seen the flu jab my mother was invited to. They "invited" the whole d*mn area at the same time. The tailback went for a mile in each direction ...
BTW - A new GP? None of the practices are taking on new patients at present. Guess why...
So what is Sikora suggesting? No social distancing in hospitals,? No PPE or deep cleaning? Ceasing to admit covid patients to ICU so the space can be used for elective surgery?
He doesn't seem to understand that hospitals can not function normally in a pandemic, nor can they effectively treat patients by ignoring the virus.
The problem is that if you ignore the patients then soon you start clocking up dead bodies from non-Covid issues, and it looks like that is happening.
Yes, that is why we are attempting to treat as many as possible, without exposing them to additional risk from the virus.
Around here, that "treatment" seems to consist of locking the gates of the GP Practice to keep the patients out whilst the staff are inside. When the patients get past the gate and knock on door or windows they are told to go away or the police will be called.
If you ring the permanently engaged appointment line for about two days on the trot and somebody actually answers, you can get one of the rare appointment slots for about 2 weeks ahead....
There's terrible sound on all the interviews in the current report on Newsnight about Kier Starmer. Maybe they're using cheaper equipment to record them.
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
What happens to the national debt if there is a deep recession and mass unemployment or a depression?
Last time we tried that we had North Sea Oil to pay the bills. Now?
In all of these increasing demands for more and more money and no job loses to be considered, I have a quiet admiration for Rishi as he stands firm with the public purse, even against public opinion
It increasingly obvious that nearly half the population are either in the public sector or are retired and see little or no financial penalties in lockdown and of course many are saving money by WFH avoiding the daily commute
However, the money to pay for the public sector mainly comes from a thriving private sector and the more it is crushed everyone will be facing big tax rises and I expect severe wage restraint. Of course the wealthy will have to pay more and I support that but they can usually be more agile and minimise tax
A full lockdown may come about but right now local lockdowns need to be implemented and policed before the nuclear option of the lockdown of the whole country as seen in Ireland tonight
He’s standing for for increased unemployment, particularly of the young, and destruction of businesses.
And you support that.
Well those in work and with wealth will have to pay more in welfare for the unemployed. What a sensible use of their money .... not.
There comes a time in this crisis when it has to be accepted every job cannot be saved
I don’t wish to be rude but easy for you to say when you have a comfortable pension which has allowed you to go on lovely cruises around the world. Try saying it to those in their early / mid-20’s with no jobs, little hope of finding one, few savings and not much hope of any sort of normal life: independence, a home of their own, a family - let alone luxuries like foreign travel.
Some of the money could be given in grants to those wishing to close existing businesses and set up new ones. Those people are the entrepreneurs of today and the future. Give them the opportunity to use those skills. Give them some hope. Not cliches from Central Office.
When my wife and I started we were penny pinching for some years but through hard work in founding a business and working nearly every hour 24/7 to moving on into a completely different business creating well paid employment for 20, who are still friends today though I have retired for 11 years, we innovated and adopted, adapted and improved
It is clear that covid will have a fundamental change in society even possibly like the miners but new jobs will be created and the old ones disappear. Rishi has the job of protecting as many as possible and to be fair he has, and is but at a cost of circa 2 billion a week by Xmas we will have spent virtually half the annual NHS budget
The help needs to be targeted to those on minimum wage and I understand with universal credit Rishi scheme for those on minimum wages will see approx 90% of their income
I do not want to seem unsympathetic especially in regard to the real issues your family face but we will get beyond this and the economy and jobs will arise and hopefully very quickly, though how the debt is paid I have no idea
The 90% of income is simply not true. For the majority on low incomes already they will get ca. 2/3rds of that income.
Daughter has been doing exactly what you did. But she faces the very real prospect of closure because of a lack of government support even though she has customers who want the services she provides but cannot because of government diktat.
That diktat is to save the lives and health of the old - like you and me. In return, we should pay to help her and many others like her. That seems fair to me.
You?
The 90% of income is true once you consider Universal Credit, which goes to show why Universal Credit is messed up but that's a whole different story.
Though the fact that the 90% of income issue is true and that a very high proportion of hospitality workers are on Universal Credit is another reason why the government should pay the 80% rather than the 67%. They're not saving that much on the 67% since they're having to make up much of the lost 13% via UC anyway - but with a ton of bad press to go with it.
Considering the overwhelming sums of money spent on the pandemic, penny pinching on the 67% is not seeing the wood for the trees.
In all of these increasing demands for more and more money and no job loses to be considered, I have a quiet admiration for Rishi as he stands firm with the public purse, even against public opinion
It increasingly obvious that nearly half the population are either in the public sector or are retired and see little or no financial penalties in lockdown and of course many are saving money by WFH avoiding the daily commute
However, the money to pay for the public sector mainly comes from a thriving private sector and the more it is crushed everyone will be facing big tax rises and I expect severe wage restraint. Of course the wealthy will have to pay more and I support that but they can usually be more agile and minimise tax
A full lockdown may come about but right now local lockdowns need to be implemented and policed before the nuclear option of the lockdown of the whole country as seen in Ireland tonight
He’s standing for for increased unemployment, particularly of the young, and destruction of businesses.
And you support that.
Well those in work and with wealth will have to pay more in welfare for the unemployed. What a sensible use of their money .... not.
There comes a time in this crisis when it has to be accepted every job cannot be saved
I don’t wish to be rude but easy for you to say when you have a comfortable pension which has allowed you to go on lovely cruises around the world. Try saying it to those in their early / mid-20’s with no jobs, little hope of finding one, few savings and not much hope of any sort of normal life: independence, a home of their own, a family - let alone luxuries like foreign travel.
Some of the money could be given in grants to those wishing to close existing businesses and set up new ones. Those people are the entrepreneurs of today and the future. Give them the opportunity to use those skills. Give them some hope. Not cliches from Central Office.
When my wife and I started we were penny pinching for some years but through hard work in founding a business and working nearly every hour 24/7 to moving on into a completely different business creating well paid employment for 20, who are still friends today though I have retired for 11 years, we innovated and adopted, adapted and improved
It is clear that covid will have a fundamental change in society even possibly like the miners but new jobs will be created and the old ones disappear. Rishi has the job of protecting as many as possible and to be fair he has, and is but at a cost of circa 2 billion a week by Xmas we will have spent virtually half the annual NHS budget
The help needs to be targeted to those on minimum wage and I understand with universal credit Rishi scheme for those on minimum wages will see approx 90% of their income
I do not want to seem unsympathetic especially in regard to the real issues your family face but we will get beyond this and the economy and jobs will arise and hopefully very quickly, though how the debt is paid I have no idea
The 90% of income is simply not true. For the majority on low incomes already they will get ca. 2/3rds of that income.
Daughter has been doing exactly what you did. But she faces the very real prospect of closure because of a lack of government support even though she has customers who want the services she provides but cannot because of government diktat.
That diktat is to save the lives and health of the old - like you and me. In return, we should pay to help her and many others like her. That seems fair to me.
You?
Whilst it is obviously important to support workers, the constant focus on this by some is extremely short sighted. There's no point in paying workers in the short term, if the businesses don't survive for them to go back to. Some of the stats on workers are also likely to be misleading. It is true that there is a massive unemployment hike coming, especially amongst the young. But many of these jobs will be essentially temporary or short term (bar/restaurant work etc). For the duration of the furlough scheme there will have been lots of people supported on near full pay for months for jobs they may have actually only otherwise been in for weeks. They are not in many cases that will blight their lives in the long term.
Unless there are no businesses to employ them in future.
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
What happens to the national debt if there is a deep recession and mass unemployment or a depression?
Last time we tried that we had North Sea Oil to pay the bills. Now?
Once we get through covid and Brexit we will have another couple of decades of austerity. Whether we subsidise businesses or pay out dole or a bit of both, we are going to have massive debts as a country. I think pretty much everywhere else will be in the same boat, so not easy to be dragged back to prosperity on other countries coat tails.
I expect to be hammered for tax for the remaining years of my life.
This one is pretty simple isn't it? Wear a sodding mask. Yes its bad when TV stars and Twitter mega people like Lineker. Really bad - don't encourage morons to not wear masks.
So if its really bad for TV tots not bollocks it up, how bad is it when the PM slaps an MP on the back on the way out of the Commons or ManCock not wearing a mask in his car?
Not at all bad. It doesn't matter as the government is above the law and can do what it wants.
It's probably also an idea for people not to take too seriously what celebrities do. I've never understood the hatred Gary Lineker inspires in the far right. He's some TV guy with some opinions, some of which you might agree with, some of which you might not. I'm not sure anyone who gets worked up over him is making their own lives, or the world, better.
Agreed. I don't know or care what he thinks, but whatever it is he's entitled to think it. I agree it's a pity he didn't set a good example on masks.
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
What happens to the national debt if there is a deep recession and mass unemployment or a depression?
Last time we tried that we had North Sea Oil to pay the bills. Now?
Once we get through covid and Brexit we will have another couple of decades of austerity. Whether we subsidise businesses or pay out dole or a bit of both, we are going to have massive debts as a country. I think pretty much everywhere else will be in the same boat, so not easy to be dragged back to prosperity on other countries coat tails.
I expect to be hammered for tax for the remaining years of my life.
There is a possibility that once we get through Covid and Brexit we can have a decade of "roaring twenties". It is what followed the Spanish Flu.
This year has seen many year's worth of innovation that could boost productivity for years to come. And if most of the bills were paid via QE there shouldn't be too much need for increased taxes either.
This one is pretty simple isn't it? Wear a sodding mask. Yes its bad when TV stars and Twitter mega people like Lineker. Really bad - don't encourage morons to not wear masks.
So if its really bad for TV tots not bollocks it up, how bad is it when the PM slaps an MP on the back on the way out of the Commons or ManCock not wearing a mask in his car?
Not at all bad. It doesn't matter as the government is above the law and can do what it wants.
It's probably also an idea for people not to take too seriously what celebrities do. I've never understood the hatred Gary Lineker inspires in the far right. He's some TV guy with some opinions, some of which you might agree with, some of which you might not. I'm not sure anyone who gets worked up over him is making their own lives, or the world, better.
I have that view for all celebs. I am interested in what they do that makes them famous. I am not interested in their views on the stuff that didn't make them famous. JK Rowling seems to be on a lot of people's shit list because she's transphobic.
OK, its not good that she's transphobic. But her views on trans people aren't relevant to anyone other than her. So she should shut up about it - and the people flapping about her views should also shut up.
I don't see why she should shut up about it if she feels strongly on it. Any more than any non-"celebrity" should have to refrain from posting their opinions on twitter or anywhere. People shouldn't hang on a celebrity's every word just because they are a celebrity. But being famous shouldn't disqualify their right to express their views.
Being paid millions by the BBC should though.
JK Rowling gets her money from her own private efforts, from people who choose to get her products or read her books or watch her films, not from licence fee payers who don't have a choice by law to pay even if they want other live TV channels or programs not his.
Isn't the problem there the funding structure of the BBC? I mean, it's not Gary Linker's fault that you can't watch ITV without paying the BBC. He could shut up, wear a mask, repudiate all his beliefs, and/or resign and that still won't change a thing about the license fee. FWIW I stopped paying my licence fee years and years ago, because I don't agree with the way it's funded. But even if I did pay, I don't feel like I would have a claim on what Lineker is allowed to say and do.
Yes of course the BBC funding model is the problem, this is a side effect of that.
People who dislike Rowling can boycott her and not pay for her products. People who dislike Lineker can't, they're obliged by law to pay him via the licence fee.
We shouldn't have a state broadcaster people have to pay towards by law but if there is one impartiality in politics should rule and that should extend to everyone. If a state broadcaster sports presenter paid millions by a licence fee poll tax wants to take up political causes good luck to him, he should quit the state broadcaster and do so as a private citizen not as someone paid by the licence fee.
If his show was subscription or paid by commercials this objection wouldn't apply.
I'm not aware of anybody watching Match of the Day because they want to know what Lineker thinks about anything (except football).
I'm not aware of anybody watching Harry Potter because they want to know what JK Rowling thinks about anything (except witchcraft and wizardry).
People who want to boycott Rowling and not pay her can by boycotting Harry Potter. People who want to boycott Lineker and not pay him can't because not paying the licence fee (if you want ANY live TV at all) is a criminal offence that you can go to prison for. That's the difference.
Why should anyone "boycott" Lineker for his views on non sporting/footballing issues? And are you suggesting that they should have the right to boycott him for having views at all, or because he has the temerity to publicly broadcast them (in a personal capacity). It would obviously be different if he was doing it on his BBC platforms. But he's not. I am employed in the public sector. Paid for by the taxpayer. Should that deny me the right to express views in public? Because i can't be "boycotted".
This one is pretty simple isn't it? Wear a sodding mask. Yes its bad when TV stars and Twitter mega people like Lineker. Really bad - don't encourage morons to not wear masks.
So if its really bad for TV tots not bollocks it up, how bad is it when the PM slaps an MP on the back on the way out of the Commons or ManCock not wearing a mask in his car?
Not at all bad. It doesn't matter as the government is above the law and can do what it wants.
It's probably also an idea for people not to take too seriously what celebrities do. I've never understood the hatred Gary Lineker inspires in the far right. He's some TV guy with some opinions, some of which you might agree with, some of which you might not. I'm not sure anyone who gets worked up over him is making their own lives, or the world, better.
Agreed. I don't know or care what he thinks, but whatever it is he's entitled to think it. I agree it's a pity he didn't set a good example on masks.
I agree he is entitled to think it.
I do not think he is entitled to take millions of taxpayers pounds while working for a state broadcaster while broadcasting his opinions. If he wants to do that, he should be a private citizen and not part of the state broadcaster that people go to prison if they don't pay the fees for.
This one is pretty simple isn't it? Wear a sodding mask. Yes its bad when TV stars and Twitter mega people like Lineker. Really bad - don't encourage morons to not wear masks.
So if its really bad for TV tots not bollocks it up, how bad is it when the PM slaps an MP on the back on the way out of the Commons or ManCock not wearing a mask in his car?
Not at all bad. It doesn't matter as the government is above the law and can do what it wants.
It's probably also an idea for people not to take too seriously what celebrities do. I've never understood the hatred Gary Lineker inspires in the far right. He's some TV guy with some opinions, some of which you might agree with, some of which you might not. I'm not sure anyone who gets worked up over him is making their own lives, or the world, better.
I have that view for all celebs. I am interested in what they do that makes them famous. I am not interested in their views on the stuff that didn't make them famous. JK Rowling seems to be on a lot of people's shit list because she's transphobic.
OK, its not good that she's transphobic. But her views on trans people aren't relevant to anyone other than her. So she should shut up about it - and the people flapping about her views should also shut up.
I don't see why she should shut up about it if she feels strongly on it. Any more than any non-"celebrity" should have to refrain from posting their opinions on twitter or anywhere. People shouldn't hang on a celebrity's every word just because they are a celebrity. But being famous shouldn't disqualify their right to express their views.
Being paid millions by the BBC should though.
JK Rowling gets her money from her own private efforts, from people who choose to get her products or read her books or watch her films, not from licence fee payers who don't have a choice by law to pay even if they want other live TV channels or programs not his.
Isn't the problem there the funding structure of the BBC? I mean, it's not Gary Linker's fault that you can't watch ITV without paying the BBC. He could shut up, wear a mask, repudiate all his beliefs, and/or resign and that still won't change a thing about the license fee. FWIW I stopped paying my licence fee years and years ago, because I don't agree with the way it's funded. But even if I did pay, I don't feel like I would have a claim on what Lineker is allowed to say and do.
Yes of course the BBC funding model is the problem, this is a side effect of that.
People who dislike Rowling can boycott her and not pay for her products. People who dislike Lineker can't, they're obliged by law to pay him via the licence fee.
We shouldn't have a state broadcaster people have to pay towards by law but if there is one impartiality in politics should rule and that should extend to everyone. If a state broadcaster sports presenter paid millions by a licence fee poll tax wants to take up political causes good luck to him, he should quit the state broadcaster and do so as a private citizen not as someone paid by the licence fee.
If his show was subscription or paid by commercials this objection wouldn't apply.
I'm not aware of anybody watching Match of the Day because they want to know what Lineker thinks about anything (except football).
I'm not aware of anybody watching Harry Potter because they want to know what JK Rowling thinks about anything (except witchcraft and wizardry).
People who want to boycott Rowling and not pay her can by boycotting Harry Potter. People who want to boycott Lineker and not pay him can't because not paying the licence fee (if you want ANY live TV at all) is a criminal offence that you can go to prison for. That's the difference.
Why should anyone "boycott" Lineker for his views on non sporting/footballing issues? And are you suggesting that they should have the right to boycott him for having views at all, or because he has the temerity to publicly broadcast them (in a personal capacity). It would obviously be different if he was doing it on his BBC platforms. But he's not. I am employed in the public sector. Paid for by the taxpayer. Should that deny me the right to express views in public? Because i can't be "boycotted".
Yes. Just as people can boycott Rowling people should be able to boycott Lineker, but they can't as they go to prison if they don't pay the licence fee.
If he wants to get involved with political debate he shouldn't be on the BBC. As for you if you're paid millions to broadcast as part of the public sector then yes you should be impartial too, everyone in the public sector paid millions of pounds in taxes should be unless they can divorce themselves privately from their multimillion pound public sector work.
This one is pretty simple isn't it? Wear a sodding mask. Yes its bad when TV stars and Twitter mega people like Lineker. Really bad - don't encourage morons to not wear masks.
So if its really bad for TV tots not bollocks it up, how bad is it when the PM slaps an MP on the back on the way out of the Commons or ManCock not wearing a mask in his car?
Not at all bad. It doesn't matter as the government is above the law and can do what it wants.
It's probably also an idea for people not to take too seriously what celebrities do. I've never understood the hatred Gary Lineker inspires in the far right. He's some TV guy with some opinions, some of which you might agree with, some of which you might not. I'm not sure anyone who gets worked up over him is making their own lives, or the world, better.
Agreed. I don't know or care what he thinks, but whatever it is he's entitled to think it. I agree it's a pity he didn't set a good example on masks.
Maybe the media could show more responsibility than to play gotcha and seek to capture any isolated example of non mask compliance. It's hardly like (as far as we know) he's been constantly flaunting the rules whilst publicly promoting their use.
What undermines the "wear a mask" message more? Lineker popping into a shop once without a mask on, or somebody photographing it and spreading it all over the media as an example of "hypocrisy". It would be interesting if the photographer/media outlet involved has any views on masks. Or just published it for the purpose of creating some controversy, without a thought about whether doing so was responsible.
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
What happens to the national debt if there is a deep recession and mass unemployment or a depression?
Last time we tried that we had North Sea Oil to pay the bills. Now?
Increasingly the national debt is to the Bank of England that prints the money it lends. That is how we pay the bills.
There is a concern about possible inflation eventually if too much money creates demand in excess of supply. That is why inflation should be a key measure rather than debt. The debt is a consequence of printing money which is necessary for a growing economy. It really isn't that important.
It's not like household debt at all. That's a misunderstanding.
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
I don't know the answer to this, but I'd be very interested in knowing how long the list is of countries that have never defaulted on, or renogitated, national debt and which ones are on it. I imagine it is not that long.
Not a direct answer to your excellent question, but still a fascinating AND lengthy list:
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
What happens to the national debt if there is a deep recession and mass unemployment or a depression?
Last time we tried that we had North Sea Oil to pay the bills. Now?
Once we get through covid and Brexit we will have another couple of decades of austerity. Whether we subsidise businesses or pay out dole or a bit of both, we are going to have massive debts as a country. I think pretty much everywhere else will be in the same boat, so not easy to be dragged back to prosperity on other countries coat tails.
I expect to be hammered for tax for the remaining years of my life.
There is a possibility that once we get through Covid and Brexit we can have a decade of "roaring twenties". It is what followed the Spanish Flu.
This year has seen many year's worth of innovation that could boost productivity for years to come. And if most of the bills were paid via QE there shouldn't be too much need for increased taxes either.
You may be confusing us with another country. The Twenties didn't roar in the UK. It was a time of recession, mass unemployment, wage cuts, General Strike, war in Ireland, business failures in the North, Navy cuts etc etc. It was a time of harsh austerity. Strong economic growth only returned in the Thirties under CoE Chamberlain. Terrible PM but great Chancellor.
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
What happens to the national debt if there is a deep recession and mass unemployment or a depression?
Last time we tried that we had North Sea Oil to pay the bills. Now?
Increasingly the national debt is to the Bank of England that prints the money it lends. That is how we pay the bills.
There is a concern about possible inflation eventually if too much money creates demand in excess of supply. That is why inflation should be a key measure rather than debt. The debt is a consequence of printing money which is necessary for a growing economy. It really isn't that important.
The debt is important.
If we hadn't spent the past decade getting the deficit under control and keeping rates low, if we'd been insane enough to blow our capacity for QE over the past decade, then when the crash hit there would have been no scope left for doing more.
People who think that the debt don't matter, or QE doesn't matter, is the same sort of madness that led people to think a pre-recession deficit by Brown didn't matter. QE just like deficits should be something you only expand if you absolutely have to, not because you want to. An "in case of emergencies" option.
This one is pretty simple isn't it? Wear a sodding mask. Yes its bad when TV stars and Twitter mega people like Lineker. Really bad - don't encourage morons to not wear masks.
So if its really bad for TV tots not bollocks it up, how bad is it when the PM slaps an MP on the back on the way out of the Commons or ManCock not wearing a mask in his car?
Not at all bad. It doesn't matter as the government is above the law and can do what it wants.
It's probably also an idea for people not to take too seriously what celebrities do. I've never understood the hatred Gary Lineker inspires in the far right. He's some TV guy with some opinions, some of which you might agree with, some of which you might not. I'm not sure anyone who gets worked up over him is making their own lives, or the world, better.
I have that view for all celebs. I am interested in what they do that makes them famous. I am not interested in their views on the stuff that didn't make them famous. JK Rowling seems to be on a lot of people's shit list because she's transphobic.
OK, its not good that she's transphobic. But her views on trans people aren't relevant to anyone other than her. So she should shut up about it - and the people flapping about her views should also shut up.
I don't see why she should shut up about it if she feels strongly on it. Any more than any non-"celebrity" should have to refrain from posting their opinions on twitter or anywhere. People shouldn't hang on a celebrity's every word just because they are a celebrity. But being famous shouldn't disqualify their right to express their views.
Being paid millions by the BBC should though.
JK Rowling gets her money from her own private efforts, from people who choose to get her products or read her books or watch her films, not from licence fee payers who don't have a choice by law to pay even if they want other live TV channels or programs not his.
Isn't the problem there the funding structure of the BBC? I mean, it's not Gary Linker's fault that you can't watch ITV without paying the BBC. He could shut up, wear a mask, repudiate all his beliefs, and/or resign and that still won't change a thing about the license fee. FWIW I stopped paying my licence fee years and years ago, because I don't agree with the way it's funded. But even if I did pay, I don't feel like I would have a claim on what Lineker is allowed to say and do.
Yes of course the BBC funding model is the problem, this is a side effect of that.
People who dislike Rowling can boycott her and not pay for her products. People who dislike Lineker can't, they're obliged by law to pay him via the licence fee.
We shouldn't have a state broadcaster people have to pay towards by law but if there is one impartiality in politics should rule and that should extend to everyone. If a state broadcaster sports presenter paid millions by a licence fee poll tax wants to take up political causes good luck to him, he should quit the state broadcaster and do so as a private citizen not as someone paid by the licence fee.
If his show was subscription or paid by commercials this objection wouldn't apply.
I'm not aware of anybody watching Match of the Day because they want to know what Lineker thinks about anything (except football).
I'm not aware of anybody watching Harry Potter because they want to know what JK Rowling thinks about anything (except witchcraft and wizardry).
People who want to boycott Rowling and not pay her can by boycotting Harry Potter. People who want to boycott Lineker and not pay him can't because not paying the licence fee (if you want ANY live TV at all) is a criminal offence that you can go to prison for. That's the difference.
Why should anyone "boycott" Lineker for his views on non sporting/footballing issues? And are you suggesting that they should have the right to boycott him for having views at all, or because he has the temerity to publicly broadcast them (in a personal capacity). It would obviously be different if he was doing it on his BBC platforms. But he's not. I am employed in the public sector. Paid for by the taxpayer. Should that deny me the right to express views in public? Because i can't be "boycotted".
Yes. Just as people can boycott Rowling people should be able to boycott Lineker, but they can't as they go to prison if they don't pay the licence fee.
If he wants to get involved with political debate he shouldn't be on the BBC. As for you if you're paid millions to broadcast as part of the public sector then yes you should be impartial too, everyone in the public sector paid millions of pounds in taxes should be unless they can divorce themselves privately from their multimillion pound public sector work.
He is not employed by the BBC as a political presenter/commentator, so i see no reason why he should need to demonstrate political impartiality. In my view political impartiality is necessary for the news and political programmes, but i don't see the relevance elsewhere. If people want to 'boycott' him they can stop watching his programmes. If enough people do that and ratings drop then he would be replaced.
Were you in favour of Charles' Moore's suggested candidacy for Chairman of the BBC? I wonder how he would have convinced as politically impartial.
Anyway we're not going to agree, so i'll leave it there.
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
What happens to the national debt if there is a deep recession and mass unemployment or a depression?
Last time we tried that we had North Sea Oil to pay the bills. Now?
Once we get through covid and Brexit we will have another couple of decades of austerity. Whether we subsidise businesses or pay out dole or a bit of both, we are going to have massive debts as a country. I think pretty much everywhere else will be in the same boat, so not easy to be dragged back to prosperity on other countries coat tails.
I expect to be hammered for tax for the remaining years of my life.
There is a possibility that once we get through Covid and Brexit we can have a decade of "roaring twenties". It is what followed the Spanish Flu.
This year has seen many year's worth of innovation that could boost productivity for years to come. And if most of the bills were paid via QE there shouldn't be too much need for increased taxes either.
You may be confusing us with another country. The Twenties didn't roar in the UK. It was a time of recession, mass unemployment, wage cuts, General Strike, war in Ireland, business failures in the North, Navy cuts etc etc. It was a time of harsh austerity. Strong economic growth only returned in the Thirties under CoE Chamberlain. Terrible PM but great Chancellor.
I said it is what followed the Flu, not necessarily in the UK.
The UK missed out on much of the roaring 20s primarily because of the UK running deflationary policies and high interest rates due to the Gold Standard. The Thirties growth followed the pound being able to float freely after we left the Gold Standard.
Thankfully today the pound is freely floating and not trapped in the Gold Standard or Single Currency or other such madness.
Nicola Sturgeon's two week 'circuit breaker' gets LONGER: Scotland's nationwide ban on mixing households will stay indefinitely and Holyrood could attempt to ban travelling to England
In all of these increasing demands for more and more money and no job loses to be considered, I have a quiet admiration for Rishi as he stands firm with the public purse, even against public opinion
It increasingly obvious that nearly half the population are either in the public sector or are retired and see little or no financial penalties in lockdown and of course many are saving money by WFH avoiding the daily commute
However, the money to pay for the public sector mainly comes from a thriving private sector and the more it is crushed everyone will be facing big tax rises and I expect severe wage restraint. Of course the wealthy will have to pay more and I support that but they can usually be more agile and minimise tax
A full lockdown may come about but right now local lockdowns need to be implemented and policed before the nuclear option of the lockdown of the whole country as seen in Ireland tonight
He’s standing for for increased unemployment, particularly of the young, and destruction of businesses.
And you support that.
Well those in work and with wealth will have to pay more in welfare for the unemployed. What a sensible use of their money .... not.
There comes a time in this crisis when it has to be accepted every job cannot be saved
I don’t wish to be rude but easy for you to say when you have a comfortable pension which has allowed you to go on lovely cruises around the world. Try saying it to those in their early / mid-20’s with no jobs, little hope of finding one, few savings and not much hope of any sort of normal life: independence, a home of their own, a family - let alone luxuries like foreign travel.
Some of the money could be given in grants to those wishing to close existing businesses and set up new ones. Those people are the entrepreneurs of today and the future. Give them the opportunity to use those skills. Give them some hope. Not cliches from Central Office.
When my wife and I started we were penny pinching for some years but through hard work in founding a business and working nearly every hour 24/7 to moving on into a completely different business creating well paid employment for 20, who are still friends today though I have retired for 11 years, we innovated and adopted, adapted and improved
It is clear that covid will have a fundamental change in society even possibly like the miners but new jobs will be created and the old ones disappear. Rishi has the job of protecting as many as possible and to be fair he has, and is but at a cost of circa 2 billion a week by Xmas we will have spent virtually half the annual NHS budget
The help needs to be targeted to those on minimum wage and I understand with universal credit Rishi scheme for those on minimum wages will see approx 90% of their income
I do not want to seem unsympathetic especially in regard to the real issues your family face but we will get beyond this and the economy and jobs will arise and hopefully very quickly, though how the debt is paid I have no idea
The 90% of income is simply not true. For the majority on low incomes already they will get ca. 2/3rds of that income.
Daughter has been doing exactly what you did. But she faces the very real prospect of closure because of a lack of government support even though she has customers who want the services she provides but cannot because of government diktat.
That diktat is to save the lives and health of the old - like you and me. In return, we should pay to help her and many others like her. That seems fair to me.
You?
The 90% of income is true once you consider Universal Credit, which goes to show why Universal Credit is messed up but that's a whole different story.
How do you work that out?
The UC standard allowance is £94.59 pw.
If you are on the minimum wage of £8.72 per hour and working 40 hours per week you have been earning (to nearest £) £307 after tax & NI. If you're furloughed on 2/3rd of that you'd get £233 pw (£227 after NI).
You're allowed to ignore for UC assessment purposes £118 pw of your earnings assuming you get no help with housing costs (you can only ignore £67pw if you get housing allowance). The rest of your earnings (£114pw or £165pw) reduces your UC by 63p in the £.
So if you get no help with housing costs your total UC support would be £23 pw (£0 if you get housing cost support) Thus your income has gone from £307pw after tax & NI to £250 pw= 81%.
If you get housing support the figures are £307 to £233 pw (75%)
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
What happens to the national debt if there is a deep recession and mass unemployment or a depression?
Last time we tried that we had North Sea Oil to pay the bills. Now?
Increasingly the national debt is to the Bank of England that prints the money it lends. That is how we pay the bills.
There is a concern about possible inflation eventually if too much money creates demand in excess of supply. That is why inflation should be a key measure rather than debt. The debt is a consequence of printing money which is necessary for a growing economy. It really isn't that important.
The debt is important.
If we hadn't spent the past decade getting the deficit under control and keeping rates low, if we'd been insane enough to blow our capacity for QE over the past decade, then when the crash hit there would have been no scope left for doing more.
People who think that the debt don't matter, or QE doesn't matter, is the same sort of madness that led people to think a pre-recession deficit by Brown didn't matter. QE just like deficits should be something you only expand if you absolutely have to, not because you want to. An "in case of emergencies" option.
Now is an emergency of course.
Sorry Philip but you're just plain wrong. You are stuck with a faulty model of money.
If you were to say that the balance of payments is important because it can create a debt to other countries and eventually we have to pay our way in the world, then I would agree with you.
The balance of payments used to be the key measure. It was central to political debate. This "national debt" meme seems to have taken over. It is rubbish.
This one is pretty simple isn't it? Wear a sodding mask. Yes its bad when TV stars and Twitter mega people like Lineker. Really bad - don't encourage morons to not wear masks.
So if its really bad for TV tots not bollocks it up, how bad is it when the PM slaps an MP on the back on the way out of the Commons or ManCock not wearing a mask in his car?
Not at all bad. It doesn't matter as the government is above the law and can do what it wants.
It's probably also an idea for people not to take too seriously what celebrities do. I've never understood the hatred Gary Lineker inspires in the far right. He's some TV guy with some opinions, some of which you might agree with, some of which you might not. I'm not sure anyone who gets worked up over him is making their own lives, or the world, better.
I have that view for all celebs. I am interested in what they do that makes them famous. I am not interested in their views on the stuff that didn't make them famous. JK Rowling seems to be on a lot of people's shit list because she's transphobic.
OK, its not good that she's transphobic. But her views on trans people aren't relevant to anyone other than her. So she should shut up about it - and the people flapping about her views should also shut up.
I don't see why she should shut up about it if she feels strongly on it. Any more than any non-"celebrity" should have to refrain from posting their opinions on twitter or anywhere. People shouldn't hang on a celebrity's every word just because they are a celebrity. But being famous shouldn't disqualify their right to express their views.
Being paid millions by the BBC should though.
JK Rowling gets her money from her own private efforts, from people who choose to get her products or read her books or watch her films, not from licence fee payers who don't have a choice by law to pay even if they want other live TV channels or programs not his.
Isn't the problem there the funding structure of the BBC? I mean, it's not Gary Linker's fault that you can't watch ITV without paying the BBC. He could shut up, wear a mask, repudiate all his beliefs, and/or resign and that still won't change a thing about the license fee. FWIW I stopped paying my licence fee years and years ago, because I don't agree with the way it's funded. But even if I did pay, I don't feel like I would have a claim on what Lineker is allowed to say and do.
Yes of course the BBC funding model is the problem, this is a side effect of that.
People who dislike Rowling can boycott her and not pay for her products. People who dislike Lineker can't, they're obliged by law to pay him via the licence fee.
We shouldn't have a state broadcaster people have to pay towards by law but if there is one impartiality in politics should rule and that should extend to everyone. If a state broadcaster sports presenter paid millions by a licence fee poll tax wants to take up political causes good luck to him, he should quit the state broadcaster and do so as a private citizen not as someone paid by the licence fee.
If his show was subscription or paid by commercials this objection wouldn't apply.
I'm not aware of anybody watching Match of the Day because they want to know what Lineker thinks about anything (except football).
I'm not aware of anybody watching Harry Potter because they want to know what JK Rowling thinks about anything (except witchcraft and wizardry).
People who want to boycott Rowling and not pay her can by boycotting Harry Potter. People who want to boycott Lineker and not pay him can't because not paying the licence fee (if you want ANY live TV at all) is a criminal offence that you can go to prison for. That's the difference.
Why should anyone "boycott" Lineker for his views on non sporting/footballing issues? And are you suggesting that they should have the right to boycott him for having views at all, or because he has the temerity to publicly broadcast them (in a personal capacity). It would obviously be different if he was doing it on his BBC platforms. But he's not. I am employed in the public sector. Paid for by the taxpayer. Should that deny me the right to express views in public? Because i can't be "boycotted".
Yes. Just as people can boycott Rowling people should be able to boycott Lineker, but they can't as they go to prison if they don't pay the licence fee.
If he wants to get involved with political debate he shouldn't be on the BBC. As for you if you're paid millions to broadcast as part of the public sector then yes you should be impartial too, everyone in the public sector paid millions of pounds in taxes should be unless they can divorce themselves privately from their multimillion pound public sector work.
He is not employed by the BBC as a political presenter/commentator, so i see no reason why he should need to demonstrate political impartiality. In my view political impartiality is necessary for the news and political programmes, but i don't see the relevance elsewhere. If people want to 'boycott' him they can stop watching his programmes. If enough people do that and ratings drop then he would be replaced.
Were you in favour of Charles' Moore's suggested candidacy for Chairman of the BBC? I wonder how he would have convinced as politically impartial.
Anyway we're not going to agree, so i'll leave it there.
For the record I'm not in favour of anyone political in the BBC until the licence fee is abolished, whether my side or another side. Simply being "on my side" doesn't make it right or change facts. Though Charles Moore would have been getting paid a tiny fraction of what Lineker charges the Licence Fee payers.
RE: quantitative easing. There is a common misconception that this is printing money. It is not. The Government still has to raise taxes to pay the debt. It would have to remove the independence of the BoE to avoid this. Osborne pulled a highly dubious trick to reclaim the interest, but he couldn’t destroy the debt.
The distinction between QE and money printing is that it is reversible. The BoE can sell the debt to the private sector and then reduce its balance sheet thereby reducing the money supply.
The problem is the percentage of QE which is now Govt debt. That wasn’t the original plan, which was to buy private sector debt, which could be sold back at the appropriate time with fewer consequences. The BoE could easily agree to refinance Govt debt. If sold to the Private sector this would be problematic.
Politico.com Donald Trump has a problem: White women in Pennsylvania
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Juliann Bortz wants to apologize for something she did a few years ago.
The 71-year-old resident of the battleground state of Pennsylvania, a registered Democrat, voted for Donald Trump.It wasn’t that she was unhappy with former President Barack Obama: She voted for him, too. Bortz, who lives in the Lehigh Valley, a swing area, thought a “new approach, a business approach” couldn’t hurt when she cast a ballot for Trump.
“I was wrong. Boy was I wrong,” said Bortz, who is white. Her change of heart is due to the “lies,” the “division” and Trump’s attacks on veterans. And she said there are friends and neighbors just like her — Democrats who voted Republican in 2016 but are now flipping back.
“We were joking about forming a group, like the, 'We're so sorry, group,’” she said.
In all of these increasing demands for more and more money and no job loses to be considered, I have a quiet admiration for Rishi as he stands firm with the public purse, even against public opinion
It increasingly obvious that nearly half the population are either in the public sector or are retired and see little or no financial penalties in lockdown and of course many are saving money by WFH avoiding the daily commute
However, the money to pay for the public sector mainly comes from a thriving private sector and the more it is crushed everyone will be facing big tax rises and I expect severe wage restraint. Of course the wealthy will have to pay more and I support that but they can usually be more agile and minimise tax
A full lockdown may come about but right now local lockdowns need to be implemented and policed before the nuclear option of the lockdown of the whole country as seen in Ireland tonight
He’s standing for for increased unemployment, particularly of the young, and destruction of businesses.
And you support that.
Well those in work and with wealth will have to pay more in welfare for the unemployed. What a sensible use of their money .... not.
There comes a time in this crisis when it has to be accepted every job cannot be saved
I don’t wish to be rude but easy for you to say when you have a comfortable pension which has allowed you to go on lovely cruises around the world. Try saying it to those in their early / mid-20’s with no jobs, little hope of finding one, few savings and not much hope of any sort of normal life: independence, a home of their own, a family - let alone luxuries like foreign travel.
Some of the money could be given in grants to those wishing to close existing businesses and set up new ones. Those people are the entrepreneurs of today and the future. Give them the opportunity to use those skills. Give them some hope. Not cliches from Central Office.
When my wife and I started we were penny pinching for some years but through hard work in founding a business and working nearly every hour 24/7 to moving on into a completely different business creating well paid employment for 20, who are still friends today though I have retired for 11 years, we innovated and adopted, adapted and improved
It is clear that covid will have a fundamental change in society even possibly like the miners but new jobs will be created and the old ones disappear. Rishi has the job of protecting as many as possible and to be fair he has, and is but at a cost of circa 2 billion a week by Xmas we will have spent virtually half the annual NHS budget
The help needs to be targeted to those on minimum wage and I understand with universal credit Rishi scheme for those on minimum wages will see approx 90% of their income
I do not want to seem unsympathetic especially in regard to the real issues your family face but we will get beyond this and the economy and jobs will arise and hopefully very quickly, though how the debt is paid I have no idea
The 90% of income is simply not true. For the majority on low incomes already they will get ca. 2/3rds of that income.
Daughter has been doing exactly what you did. But she faces the very real prospect of closure because of a lack of government support even though she has customers who want the services she provides but cannot because of government diktat.
That diktat is to save the lives and health of the old - like you and me. In return, we should pay to help her and many others like her. That seems fair to me.
You?
The 90% of income is true once you consider Universal Credit, which goes to show why Universal Credit is messed up but that's a whole different story.
How do you work that out?
The UC standard allowance is £94.59 pw.
If you are on the minimum wage of £8.72 per hour and working 40 hours per week you have been earning (to nearest £) £307 after tax & NI. If you're furloughed on 2/3rd of that you'd get £233 pw (£227 after NI).
You're allowed to ignore for UC assessment purposes £118 pw of your earnings assuming you get no help with housing costs (you can only ignore £67pw if you get housing allowance). The rest of your earnings (£114pw or £165pw) reduces your UC by 63p in the £.
So if you get no help with housing costs your total UC support would be £23 pw (£0 if you get housing cost support) Thus your income has gone from £307pw after tax & NI to £250 pw= 81%.
If you get housing support the figures are £307 to £233 pw (75%)
You need to take into account the combined effects of National Insurance, Income Tax and the Universal Credit Taper and people who are on low earnings on Universal Credit are on an insanely high marginal tax rate.
If you are on minimum wage and getting Universal Credit then you still have to pay National Insurance, if you're full time you have to pay Income Tax, plus then as insult to injury you lose 63p in every extra pound you earn in reduced Universal Credit. Conversely then when you lose earnings you aren't bothered by losing the Income Tax or National Insurance elements of your wages but gain 63p in every take home pound less that you earn in extra Universal Credit.
Thus if your earnings go down by 33% then you gain back 63% in what you have lost in extra Universal Credit. Hence 90% take home pay.
Which is why Universal Credit (and its predecessors were just as bad) is a major poverty trap. We effectively tax people on Universal Credit far, far, far more than anyone else.
So how long do we reckon Wales 2 week fire breaker will actually last? Christmas?
I think it will last the stated period, but some restrictions may remain afterwards. However I really don’t understand why they have gone as extreme as they have. Schools, pubs, restaurants, fair enough I suppose. But this “essential shopping” business as well? What’s that all about? Just to ensure people have no reason to go out? Really I can’t see that making any material difference over two weeks.
So how long do we reckon Wales 2 week fire breaker will actually last? Christmas?
Mark Drakeford is by nature a very, very cautious man.
There was an amusing interview on R4 when he was duffed up by Evan Davies the other day. Mark just kept on repeating, "We like to be careful in Wales, you know".
I think Christmas 2021 is possible.
Some areas of West Wales have seen very few fatalities. I think then nearest fatality to my town is 40 miles away. And we now have the toughest restrictions in the UK.
PS Benpointer I see the flaw in your maths. You've got someone on UC claiming Housing Support as getting zero UC, therefore if they're furloughed and lose a third of their income then their UC supposedly doesn't vary, but the Housing element is part of the UC so they're not getting zero UC. So they're losing 63p in the pound less on the 25% of their take home income they've lost.
So in your scenario the takehome pay has gone from 307 to 227 a loss of £80. UC would taper by 63% less than that, so that would increase the UC claim by £50.40 - so the takehome pay would net of UC and NI be reduced from £307 to £277 which is 90%
Regardless of the details a drop in income of 10% or whatever on minimum wage is going to be harsh. People weren't living a life of Riley either on MW or UC. However much those on fixed incomes protest.
So how long do we reckon Wales 2 week fire breaker will actually last? Christmas?
Mark Drakeford is by nature a very, very cautious man.
There was an amusing interview on R4 when he was duffed up by Evan Davies the other day. Mark just kept on repeating, "We like to be careful in Wales, you know".
I think Christmas 2021 is possible.
Some areas of West Wales have seen very few fatalities. I think then nearest fatality to my town is 40 miles away. And we now have the toughest restrictions in the UK.
One thing he can't be criticised for is making a decision. It is a big call, and time will tell.
Supreme Court REJECTS Republican application re Pennsylvania vote count.
4-4: Roberts with the "Liberals".
I wonder if Biden will be tempted to appoint just one more Justice - and make it Merrick Garland even though he's far older than any new Justice would normally be - which would notionally make it 6-4 but with the good chance Roberts makes it 5-5 if anything too outrageous.
Supreme Court REJECTS Republican application re Pennsylvania vote count.
4-4: Roberts with the "Liberals".
I wonder if Biden will be tempted to appoint just one more Justice - and make it Merrick Garland even though he's far older than any new Justice would normally be - which would notionally make it 6-4 but with the good chance Roberts makes it 5-5 if anything too outrageous.
This is quite an important ruling because, unlike Wisconsin and Michigan where the deadlines are now in place hard the ballot delivery in PA has been poor.
I do not think he is entitled to take millions of taxpayers pounds while working for a state broadcaster while broadcasting his opinions. If he wants to do that, he should be a private citizen and not part of the state broadcaster that people go to prison if they don't pay the fees for.
We own the BBC. We don't own the souls of everyone who works for it.
I do not think he is entitled to take millions of taxpayers pounds while working for a state broadcaster while broadcasting his opinions. If he wants to do that, he should be a private citizen and not part of the state broadcaster that people go to prison if they don't pay the fees for.
We own the BBC. We don't own the souls of everyone who works for it.
You're right because anyone who doesn't want to be impartial while taking millions in licence fee pounds can quit. Or we could find an alternative funding model.
The Trump campaign have demanded a change of topics to focus on foreign affairs so you could suggest they are looking to get out of it. There is a possibility that the last debate will not happen but the Trump campaign are looking for a Hail Mary pass, so they need it as much as they fear it.
The Trump campaign have demanded a change of topics to focus on foreign affairs so you could suggest they are looking to get out of it. There is a possibility that the last debate will not happen but the Trump campaign are looking for a Hail Mary pass, so they need it as much as they fear it.
To be fair to the Trump people I think it was originally supposed to be about foreign affairs, so it's not outrageous to complain about the Commission shuffling things around on them. Trump should have thought of that before he ignored the rules in the first debate though.
Muting the microphones will help Trump. The president will still be able to heckle Biden but viewers (voters) will not hear the unpresidential barracking that alienated so many in the first debate.
I do not think he is entitled to take millions of taxpayers pounds while working for a state broadcaster while broadcasting his opinions. If he wants to do that, he should be a private citizen and not part of the state broadcaster that people go to prison if they don't pay the fees for.
We own the BBC. We don't own the souls of everyone who works for it.
You're right because anyone who doesn't want to be impartial while taking millions in licence fee pounds can quit. Or we could find an alternative funding model.
I am not really sure how I'd go about boycotting JK Rowling. Either I bought and watched the Harry Potter series years 20 years ago, in which case she already has my money, or I did not in which case I am unlikely to be interested in them now.
But what I could do is not watch her Strike series on the BBC. Except, hold on, it's the damn BBC again. So does that mean Rowling is now subject to the same rules (real or imagined by right-wing critics) as Lineker, at least while her programmes are on?
There's terrible sound on all the interviews in the current report on Newsnight about Kier Starmer. Maybe they're using cheaper equipment to record them.
Thank God you got the spelling right
Kier Is Exactly Right is a useful mnemonic.
You jest, of course. Kier is exactly 'rong. The name is Keir.
Can’t think many of the victims will be voting Republican. ... That illusion has had real costs. State and local governments spent at least $400 million, largely on land and infrastructure Foxconn will likely never need. Residents were pushed from their homes under threat of eminent domain and dozens of houses bulldozed to clear property Foxconn doesn’t know what to do with. And a recurring cycle of new recruits joined the project, eager to help it succeed, only to become trapped in a mirage...
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
The UK has sort of defaulted twice. Both were in 1932. In one case, it stopped paying inter allied debt - this was debt that Germany paid to the UK, and then the UK paid to the US. When Germany ceased paying, the UK threw their hands up.
In the second case, the UK unilaterally lowered the coupon (i.e. the interest rate) on certain outstanding bonds from 5% to 3.5% because (to put it bluntly) it couldn't afford the full 5%.
Six countries have never defaulted at all: New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Denmark, Canada and the USA.
I have every possible sympathy with Cyclefree's view here. However when it comes to spending money you haven't got and which you are borrowing for your grandchildren and their descendants to pay back it seems to me never enough to say there are no limits to what should be spent. Cyclefree would be a great deal more convincing if at least some actual figures were used; such as what is the upper limit on how much we should borrow; in what areas should we spend less or not at all. How much debt is too much? 3 trillion? 4 trillion?
3 trillion is £100,000 per income tax payer. We are currently at over 2 trillion and there appears no plan to stop. - nor has there been really since 2008.
No-one seems to be interested in the financial meaning of all this. And, like Marcus Rashford, you can become a decorated saint merely by campaigning to borrow even more off your great grandchildren to further impoverish them to pay for free something else right now.
Can someone explain to me the downside of just printing (creating) the money? I am sure there must be one but I'm struggling to see it.
I'm with you on this. The debt is with the BoE who printed the money. Some say the debt will have to be repaid. Oh no it doesn't. It doesn't require extra taxes, austerity or a debt to our children or grandchildren. It simply will not be repaid. It never has been. It just grows. It's unimportant. We should stop measuring it.
We should manage growth and inflation instead.
Not sure about this. Large amount of Government debt held by the Bank of England, that the Government doesn't even feel compelled to pay interest on, is in extremely recent development. Basically 10 years old. We really don't have any idea what the consequences will be of this in the long term. It is still a great theoretical experiment.
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
The UK has sort of defaulted twice. Both were in 1932. In one case, it stopped paying inter allied debt - this was debt that Germany paid to the UK, and then the UK paid to the US. When Germany ceased paying, the UK threw their hands up.
In the second case, the UK unilaterally lowered the coupon (i.e. the interest rate) on certain outstanding bonds from 5% to 3.5% because (to put it bluntly) it couldn't afford the full 5%.
Six countries have never defaulted at all: New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Denmark, Canada and the USA.
The IMF opined just last week: IMF says austerity is not inevitable to ease pandemic impact on public finances Nations that can borrow freely can stabilise debt without fiscal adjustment, fund suggests https://www.ft.com/content/722ef9c0-36f6-4119-a00b-06d33fced78f
Muting the microphones will help Trump. The president will still be able to heckle Biden but viewers (voters) will not hear the unpresidential barracking that alienated so many in the first debate.
Biden's a professional, he can ignore the heckling if he doesn't need to respond to it. And presumably the voters will be able to see Trump's lips moving...
Muting the microphones will help Trump. The president will still be able to heckle Biden but viewers (voters) will not hear the unpresidential barracking that alienated so many in the first debate.
Biden's a professional, he can ignore the heckling if he doesn't need to respond to it. And presumably the voters will be able to see Trump's lips moving...
Easier said than done. Consider our own House of Commons. Biden can still hear what Trump is saying: it can still put him off; it is human nature to listen and respond; Biden will not (or probably not) know what viewers at home can hear.
There's terrible sound on all the interviews in the current report on Newsnight about Kier Starmer. Maybe they're using cheaper equipment to record them.
Thank God you got the spelling right
Kier Is Exactly Right is a useful mnemonic.
You jest, of course. Kier is exactly 'rong. The name is Keir.
Here's an example of the kind of thread I wish political betting would put up over the next 2 weeks. Iowa Senate race is by no means the most exciting but it IS tight and it's quite possible that it will be one of the flip states:
The European Union aims to spend up to €10 billion over the next seven years to help build up a homegrown cloud computing sector that could rival foreign corporations such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba.
Twenty-five EU countries signed a joint declaration Thursday pledging public money to power up the cloud sector and establishing the "European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud," a partnership geared toward facilitating such projects.
So how long do we reckon Wales 2 week fire breaker will actually last? Christmas?
I think it will last the stated period, but some restrictions may remain afterwards. However I really don’t understand why they have gone as extreme as they have. Schools, pubs, restaurants, fair enough I suppose. But this “essential shopping” business as well? What’s that all about? Just to ensure people have no reason to go out? Really I can’t see that making any material difference over two weeks.
Presumably Wales are not having to pay all these retail business to stay closed from their own revenues, they're expecting others (such as the UK government) to pick up the cost?
The European Union aims to spend up to €10 billion over the next seven years to help build up a homegrown cloud computing sector that could rival foreign corporations such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba.
Twenty-five EU countries signed a joint declaration Thursday pledging public money to power up the cloud sector and establishing the "European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud," a partnership geared toward facilitating such projects.
It has never been clear what the supposed EU limits on state aid are that we object to and we probably cannot be told lest Conservatives rise up in horror at the scale of Boris's and Cummings' plans.
This one is pretty simple isn't it? Wear a sodding mask. Yes its bad when TV stars and Twitter mega people like Lineker. Really bad - don't encourage morons to not wear masks.
So if its really bad for TV tots not bollocks it up, how bad is it when the PM slaps an MP on the back on the way out of the Commons or ManCock not wearing a mask in his car?
Not at all bad. It doesn't matter as the government is above the law and can do what it wants.
It's probably also an idea for people not to take too seriously what celebrities do. I've never understood the hatred Gary Lineker inspires in the far right. He's some TV guy with some opinions, some of which you might agree with, some of which you might not. I'm not sure anyone who gets worked up over him is making their own lives, or the world, better.
I have that view for all celebs. I am interested in what they do that makes them famous. I am not interested in their views on the stuff that didn't make them famous. JK Rowling seems to be on a lot of people's shit list because she's transphobic.
OK, its not good that she's transphobic. But her views on trans people aren't relevant to anyone other than her. So she should shut up about it - and the people flapping about her views should also shut up.
I don't see why she should shut up about it if she feels strongly on it. Any more than any non-"celebrity" should have to refrain from posting their opinions on twitter or anywhere. People shouldn't hang on a celebrity's every word just because they are a celebrity. But being famous shouldn't disqualify their right to express their views.
Being paid millions by the BBC should though.
JK Rowling gets her money from her own private efforts, from people who choose to get her products or read her books or watch her films, not from licence fee payers who don't have a choice by law to pay even if they want other live TV channels or programs not his.
Isn't the problem there the funding structure of the BBC? I mean, it's not Gary Linker's fault that you can't watch ITV without paying the BBC. He could shut up, wear a mask, repudiate all his beliefs, and/or resign and that still won't change a thing about the license fee. FWIW I stopped paying my licence fee years and years ago, because I don't agree with the way it's funded. But even if I did pay, I don't feel like I would have a claim on what Lineker is allowed to say and do.
Yes of course the BBC funding model is the problem, this is a side effect of that.
People who dislike Rowling can boycott her and not pay for her products. People who dislike Lineker can't, they're obliged by law to pay him via the licence fee.
We shouldn't have a state broadcaster people have to pay towards by law but if there is one impartiality in politics should rule and that should extend to everyone. If a state broadcaster sports presenter paid millions by a licence fee poll tax wants to take up political causes good luck to him, he should quit the state broadcaster and do so as a private citizen not as someone paid by the licence fee.
If his show was subscription or paid by commercials this objection wouldn't apply.
I'm not aware of anybody watching Match of the Day because they want to know what Lineker thinks about anything (except football).
I'm not aware of anybody watching Harry Potter because they want to know what JK Rowling thinks about anything (except witchcraft and wizardry).
People who want to boycott Rowling and not pay her can by boycotting Harry Potter. People who want to boycott Lineker and not pay him can't because not paying the licence fee (if you want ANY live TV at all) is a criminal offence that you can go to prison for. That's the difference.
There's a rumour flying around the internet (so it must be true!) that JK Rowling is being lined up to be the first guest on the new Spotify-only Joe Rogan show. That would be rather amusing to see the reaction!
The European Union aims to spend up to €10 billion over the next seven years to help build up a homegrown cloud computing sector that could rival foreign corporations such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba.
Twenty-five EU countries signed a joint declaration Thursday pledging public money to power up the cloud sector and establishing the "European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud," a partnership geared toward facilitating such projects.
It has never been clear what the supposed EU limits on state aid are that we object to and we probably cannot be told lest Conservatives rise up in horror at the scale of Boris's and Cummings' plans.
The issue IMO is that the EU have lots of state aid rules which they simply ignore when it suits them - and they wanted to UK to sign up to similar rules but with a legal enforcement backing.
So the EU investing in new technology companies is fine by their own political court, but if the UK does the same they'd be in breech of the agreement and face punishment.
Here's an example of the kind of thread I wish political betting would put up over the next 2 weeks. Iowa Senate race is by no means the most exciting but it IS tight and it's quite possible that it will be one of the flip states:
Betting opportunities on this election remain huge with 2 weeks to go. Please can we have more of this?
Am I the only one on here still betting single pounds on the US election?
With every day that passes, things get more murky - with clearly biased polling, politicians getting involved in the electoral process and the popular vote becoming increasingly disconnected from the electoral college.
I think Biden's going to win, and I have a fiver on him at slightly more than evens, but I'm not going to put the house on it. I've also got a fiver on Trump at 6/4.
Here's an example of the kind of thread I wish political betting would put up over the next 2 weeks. Iowa Senate race is by no means the most exciting but it IS tight and it's quite possible that it will be one of the flip states:
Betting opportunities on this election remain huge with 2 weeks to go. Please can we have more of this?
I know what you mean, TBH I've been totally skipping over these threads, apart from the occasional Brexit thing that might be impactful. But ultimately somebody has to put in the effort to write them and with free stuff like this the person who does the work gets to pick the subject, if you want more US threads then write some yourself and send them in...
The European Union aims to spend up to €10 billion over the next seven years to help build up a homegrown cloud computing sector that could rival foreign corporations such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba.
Twenty-five EU countries signed a joint declaration Thursday pledging public money to power up the cloud sector and establishing the "European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud," a partnership geared toward facilitating such projects.
It has never been clear what the supposed EU limits on state aid are that we object to and we probably cannot be told lest Conservatives rise up in horror at the scale of Boris's and Cummings' plans.
The issue IMO is that the EU have lots of state aid rules which they simply ignore when it suits them - and they wanted to UK to sign up to similar rules but with a legal enforcement backing.
So the EU investing in new technology companies is fine by their own political court, but if the UK does the same they'd be in breech of the agreement and face punishment.
Germany seems to be allowed to invest. There is a paradox that this Conservative government depends on its supporters who would look askance at Labour investing even half as much, opposing any EU restrictions at all.
The European Union aims to spend up to €10 billion over the next seven years to help build up a homegrown cloud computing sector that could rival foreign corporations such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba.
Twenty-five EU countries signed a joint declaration Thursday pledging public money to power up the cloud sector and establishing the "European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud," a partnership geared toward facilitating such projects.
It has never been clear what the supposed EU limits on state aid are that we object to and we probably cannot be told lest Conservatives rise up in horror at the scale of Boris's and Cummings' plans.
The issue IMO is that the EU have lots of state aid rules which they simply ignore when it suits them - and they wanted to UK to sign up to similar rules but with a legal enforcement backing.
So the EU investing in new technology companies is fine by their own political court, but if the UK does the same they'd be in breech of the agreement and face punishment.
Germany seems to be allowed to invest. There is a paradox that this Conservative government depends on its supporters who would look askance at Labour investing even half as much, opposing any EU restrictions at all.
Not to mention the WTO (where no deal lands us) also has rules on state aid.
Here's an example of the kind of thread I wish political betting would put up over the next 2 weeks. Iowa Senate race is by no means the most exciting but it IS tight and it's quite possible that it will be one of the flip states:
Betting opportunities on this election remain huge with 2 weeks to go. Please can we have more of this?
Am I the only one on here still betting single pounds on the US election?
With every day that passes, things get more murky - with clearly biased polling, politicians getting involved in the electoral process and the popular vote becoming increasingly disconnected from the electoral college.
I think Biden's going to win, and I have a fiver on him at slightly more than evens, but I'm not going to put the house on it. I've also got a fiver on Trump at 6/4.
I have a handful of money on Trump maybe £20 just to have some interest.
Not sure if @ydoethur is up yet, but an interesting few thoughts on indoor ventilation assessment with CO2 meters. They look fairly cheap. I might get one for some of our work areas.
The European Union aims to spend up to €10 billion over the next seven years to help build up a homegrown cloud computing sector that could rival foreign corporations such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba.
Twenty-five EU countries signed a joint declaration Thursday pledging public money to power up the cloud sector and establishing the "European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud," a partnership geared toward facilitating such projects.
These type of mercantilist policies have been at the core of the EU since its creation and it makes the fight about LPF provisions quite baffling. I think that they are more concerned about taxation (despite Eire and Luxemburg) and limited employment rights being used to attract inward investment with unlimited access to the SM but its a weird place for them to choose to fight. Presumably they took the Singapore on Thames rhetoric a bit more seriously than we did.
The European Union aims to spend up to €10 billion over the next seven years to help build up a homegrown cloud computing sector that could rival foreign corporations such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba.
Twenty-five EU countries signed a joint declaration Thursday pledging public money to power up the cloud sector and establishing the "European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud," a partnership geared toward facilitating such projects.
These type of mercantilist policies have been at the core of the EU since its creation and it makes the fight about LPF provisions quite baffling. I think that they are more concerned about taxation (despite Eire and Luxemburg) and limited employment rights being used to attract inward investment with unlimited access to the SM but its a weird place for them to choose to fight. Presumably they took the Singapore on Thames rhetoric a bit more seriously than we did.
Aren't the state aid provisions part of maintaining a LPF within the Single Market, rather than an outright ban. Hence this cloud project being pan EU rather than a particular country?
The European Union aims to spend up to €10 billion over the next seven years to help build up a homegrown cloud computing sector that could rival foreign corporations such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba.
Twenty-five EU countries signed a joint declaration Thursday pledging public money to power up the cloud sector and establishing the "European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud," a partnership geared toward facilitating such projects.
These type of mercantilist policies have been at the core of the EU since its creation and it makes the fight about LPF provisions quite baffling. I think that they are more concerned about taxation (despite Eire and Luxemburg) and limited employment rights being used to attract inward investment with unlimited access to the SM but its a weird place for them to choose to fight. Presumably they took the Singapore on Thames rhetoric a bit more seriously than we did.
I'd assumed it was definitely something to do with corporation tax rates, but also about keeping the UK aligned going forward - so if the EU passed some new law about employer pension contributions, employer/contractor relationships, zero hours contracts, minimum-to-maximum wage ratios, working time directive 2.0 etc, then they wanted the UK bound by them too, to avoid us gaining a competitive advantage from their increasing of regulation.
Comments
Yes the national debt has always grown throughout history. But it has never been without limit. Just because the UK has never defaulted, and always been able to borrow to meet its requirements, is not a rule that is set in stone. Not every country has always been so lucky. And there's no guarantee that the UK will be in future.
If you ring the permanently engaged appointment line for about two days on the trot and somebody actually answers, you can get one of the rare appointment slots for about 2 weeks ahead....
It certainly keeps us away from Covid...
I think I may even like Piers a little more than Jeremy.
Piers' explanation of the Hubble sequence of galaxies is wonderful.
https://tinyurl.com/y4y56f45
I think he was an undergraduate at the time.
I am not a lockdown enthusiast, and wouldn't go beyond Tier 2 (though a fortnight half term seems reasonable). I will continue to see my patients and have taken appropriate measures to do so without putting them at unnecessary risk.
It is simply impossible for an NHS working at half capacity because of covid control measures to treat patients at the same rate, during a pandemic. Its going to be bloody awful.
I thought you were in the RoI, & apparently about to be locked down for 6 weeks.
BTW - A new GP? None of the practices are taking on new patients at present. Guess why...
Daughter has been doing exactly what you did. But she faces the very real prospect of closure because of a lack of government support even though she has customers who want the services she provides but cannot because of government diktat.
That diktat is to save the lives and health of the old - like you and me. In return, we should pay to help her and many others like her. That seems fair to me.
You?
There's terrible sound on the interviews for the current report on Newsnight about Kier Starmer. Never happened before AFAIK.
People who want to boycott Rowling and not pay her can by boycotting Harry Potter. People who want to boycott Lineker and not pay him can't because not paying the licence fee (if you want ANY live TV at all) is a criminal offence that you can go to prison for. That's the difference.
No problems at all accessing our local GP practice; service has been different but very responsive and accessible.
Kier Is Exactly Right is a useful mnemonic.
Last time we tried that we had North Sea Oil to pay the bills. Now?
Considering the overwhelming sums of money spent on the pandemic, penny pinching on the 67% is not seeing the wood for the trees.
Unless there are no businesses to employ them in future.
I expect to be hammered for tax for the remaining years of my life.
This year has seen many year's worth of innovation that could boost productivity for years to come. And if most of the bills were paid via QE there shouldn't be too much need for increased taxes either.
I do not think he is entitled to take millions of taxpayers pounds while working for a state broadcaster while broadcasting his opinions. If he wants to do that, he should be a private citizen and not part of the state broadcaster that people go to prison if they don't pay the fees for.
If he wants to get involved with political debate he shouldn't be on the BBC. As for you if you're paid millions to broadcast as part of the public sector then yes you should be impartial too, everyone in the public sector paid millions of pounds in taxes should be unless they can divorce themselves privately from their multimillion pound public sector work.
What undermines the "wear a mask" message more? Lineker popping into a shop once without a mask on, or somebody photographing it and spreading it all over the media as an example of "hypocrisy". It would be interesting if the photographer/media outlet involved has any views on masks. Or just published it for the purpose of creating some controversy, without a thought about whether doing so was responsible.
There is a concern about possible inflation eventually if too much money creates demand in excess of supply. That is why inflation should be a key measure rather than debt. The debt is a consequence of printing money which is necessary for a growing economy. It really isn't that important.
It's not like household debt at all. That's a misunderstanding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_debt_crises
If we hadn't spent the past decade getting the deficit under control and keeping rates low, if we'd been insane enough to blow our capacity for QE over the past decade, then when the crash hit there would have been no scope left for doing more.
People who think that the debt don't matter, or QE doesn't matter, is the same sort of madness that led people to think a pre-recession deficit by Brown didn't matter. QE just like deficits should be something you only expand if you absolutely have to, not because you want to. An "in case of emergencies" option.
Now is an emergency of course.
Were you in favour of Charles' Moore's suggested candidacy for Chairman of the BBC? I wonder how he would have convinced as politically impartial.
Anyway we're not going to agree, so i'll leave it there.
The UK missed out on much of the roaring 20s primarily because of the UK running deflationary policies and high interest rates due to the Gold Standard. The Thirties growth followed the pound being able to float freely after we left the Gold Standard.
Thankfully today the pound is freely floating and not trapped in the Gold Standard or Single Currency or other such madness.
Nicola Sturgeon's two week 'circuit breaker' gets LONGER: Scotland's nationwide ban on mixing households will stay indefinitely and Holyrood could attempt to ban travelling to England
The UC standard allowance is £94.59 pw.
If you are on the minimum wage of £8.72 per hour and working 40 hours per week you have been earning (to nearest £) £307 after tax & NI. If you're furloughed on 2/3rd of that you'd get £233 pw (£227 after NI).
You're allowed to ignore for UC assessment purposes £118 pw of your earnings assuming you get no help with housing costs (you can only ignore £67pw if you get housing allowance). The rest of your earnings (£114pw or £165pw) reduces your UC by 63p in the £.
So if you get no help with housing costs your total UC support would be £23 pw (£0 if you get housing cost support) Thus your income has gone from £307pw after tax & NI to £250 pw= 81%.
If you get housing support the figures are £307 to £233 pw (75%)
If you were to say that the balance of payments is important because it can create a debt to other countries and eventually we have to pay our way in the world, then I would agree with you.
The balance of payments used to be the key measure. It was central to political debate. This "national debt" meme seems to have taken over. It is rubbish.
https://www.thelocal.it/20181218/two-thirds-of-young-italians-are-still-living-with-their-parents
4th line in. Ouch!
The distinction between QE and money printing is that it is reversible. The BoE can sell the debt to the private sector and then reduce its balance sheet thereby reducing the money supply.
The problem is the percentage of QE which is now Govt debt. That wasn’t the original plan, which was to buy private sector debt, which could be sold back at the appropriate time with fewer consequences. The BoE could easily agree to refinance Govt debt. If sold to the Private sector this would be problematic.
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Juliann Bortz wants to apologize for something she did a few years ago.
The 71-year-old resident of the battleground state of Pennsylvania, a registered Democrat, voted for Donald Trump.It wasn’t that she was unhappy with former President Barack Obama: She voted for him, too. Bortz, who lives in the Lehigh Valley, a swing area, thought a “new approach, a business approach” couldn’t hurt when she cast a ballot for Trump.
“I was wrong. Boy was I wrong,” said Bortz, who is white. Her change of heart is due to the “lies,” the “division” and Trump’s attacks on veterans. And she said there are friends and neighbors just like her — Democrats who voted Republican in 2016 but are now flipping back.
“We were joking about forming a group, like the, 'We're so sorry, group,’” she said.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/trump-white-women-pennsylvania-430165
If you are on minimum wage and getting Universal Credit then you still have to pay National Insurance, if you're full time you have to pay Income Tax, plus then as insult to injury you lose 63p in every extra pound you earn in reduced Universal Credit. Conversely then when you lose earnings you aren't bothered by losing the Income Tax or National Insurance elements of your wages but gain 63p in every take home pound less that you earn in extra Universal Credit.
Thus if your earnings go down by 33% then you gain back 63% in what you have lost in extra Universal Credit. Hence 90% take home pay.
Which is why Universal Credit (and its predecessors were just as bad) is a major poverty trap. We effectively tax people on Universal Credit far, far, far more than anyone else.
Starmer is far closer to Jacinda
There was an amusing interview on R4 when he was duffed up by Evan Davies the other day. Mark just kept on repeating, "We like to be careful in Wales, you know".
I think Christmas 2021 is possible.
Some areas of West Wales have seen very few fatalities. I think then nearest fatality to my town is 40 miles away. And we now have the toughest restrictions in the UK.
So in your scenario the takehome pay has gone from 307 to 227 a loss of £80. UC would taper by 63% less than that, so that would increase the UC claim by £50.40 - so the takehome pay would net of UC and NI be reduced from £307 to £277 which is 90%
However much those on fixed incomes protest.
Supposedly Starmer was not Captain Remain and was pushing for a Brexit deal, it was McDonnell that went full in on second ref.
It seems Starmer's political instincts are spot on, a Brexit deal would have prevented GE19
It is a big call, and time will tell.
4-4: Roberts with the "Liberals".
I wonder if Biden will be tempted to appoint just one more Justice - and make it Merrick Garland even though he's far older than any new Justice would normally be - which would notionally make it 6-4 but with the good chance Roberts makes it 5-5 if anything too outrageous.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-election-court-pennsylvania/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-republican-bid-to-limit-mail-in-voting-in-pennsylvania-idUKKBN2742ZE
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1318311552894853121?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1318327089431564288?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1318274703925137411?s=20
https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1318273278046359552?s=20
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/19/us/trump-vs-biden#taking-aim-at-interruptions-the-debate-commission-will-mute-trump-and-biden-during-portions-of-thursdays-debate
Not sure if Trump will still be in at this point.
NB. 2.5m have already voted by post in Florida.
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/10/19/florida-shatters-opening-day-record-for-early-voting-1327488
But what I could do is not watch her Strike series on the BBC. Except, hold on, it's the damn BBC again. So does that mean Rowling is now subject to the same rules (real or imagined by right-wing critics) as Lineker, at least while her programmes are on?
... That illusion has had real costs. State and local governments spent at least $400 million, largely on land and infrastructure Foxconn will likely never need. Residents were pushed from their homes under threat of eminent domain and dozens of houses bulldozed to clear property Foxconn doesn’t know what to do with. And a recurring cycle of new recruits joined the project, eager to help it succeed, only to become trapped in a mirage...
An utter con, disastrously executed.
In the second case, the UK unilaterally lowered the coupon (i.e. the interest rate) on certain outstanding bonds from 5% to 3.5% because (to put it bluntly) it couldn't afford the full 5%.
Six countries have never defaulted at all: New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Denmark, Canada and the USA.
IMF says austerity is not inevitable to ease pandemic impact on public finances
Nations that can borrow freely can stabilise debt without fiscal adjustment, fund suggests
https://www.ft.com/content/722ef9c0-36f6-4119-a00b-06d33fced78f
He didn't have anything else.
Two weeks to go in probably the most important election of my lifetime: one that will also shape the UK for the next decade.
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/10/19/joni-ernst-iowa-senate-race-zeleny-dnt-lead-vpx.cnn
Betting opportunities on this election remain huge with 2 weeks to go. Please can we have more of this?
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-pledges-e10-billion-to-power-up-industrial-cloud-sector/
The European Union aims to spend up to €10 billion over the next seven years to help build up a homegrown cloud computing sector that could rival foreign corporations such as Amazon, Google and Alibaba.
Twenty-five EU countries signed a joint declaration Thursday pledging public money to power up the cloud sector and establishing the "European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud," a partnership geared toward facilitating such projects.
So the EU investing in new technology companies is fine by their own political court, but if the UK does the same they'd be in breech of the agreement and face punishment.
With every day that passes, things get more murky - with clearly biased polling, politicians getting involved in the electoral process and the popular vote becoming increasingly disconnected from the electoral college.
I think Biden's going to win, and I have a fiver on him at slightly more than evens, but I'm not going to put the house on it. I've also got a fiver on Trump at 6/4.
https://twitter.com/grahamja51/status/1318425341724135425?s=09
I am applying the gravity theory of political events to the US election. It is of course a huge political betting event but it is in a distant land.
Keep the UK-focused articles coming.