If the government uses, as the article suggests, Brexit as an excuse to ban fois gras then I am now a Europhile. Brexit was about freedom, not banning stuff.
No. Brexit was about the freedom to ban stuff.
Harrumph.
Now, if the Conservative government has been elected on a manifesto of banning fois gras, it would be one thing. But otherwise... Why?
You mean you didn't see it? Page 325 paragraph 2b sub-section 5: 'Frogland measures'.
If the government uses, as the article suggests, Brexit as an excuse to ban fois gras then I am now a Europhile. Brexit was about freedom, not banning stuff.
If you want it, go to France.
I put it up there with bullfighting as an abnormal way to treat animals for the pleasure of the few who enjoy it.
The entire animal foodstuffs industry involves the abnormal treatment of animals.
Now, you can argue that certain practices used to produce fois gras are beyond the pale, although to do that while justifying caged hens who live and die covered in the faeces of their neighbours requires a particularly twisted form of mentality.
But that is very different from simply banning the import of goose liver.
We banned veal crates. It is quite possible to avoid buying abused caged hens by buying free range hens and eggs. There is no cruelty-free alternative when buying foie gras, the "Mr Creosotes" of the animal world.
If the government uses, as the article suggests, Brexit as an excuse to ban fois gras then I am now a Europhile. Brexit was about freedom, not banning stuff.
It’s production in Britain has been banned on animal cruelty grounds for a decade and a half. Because we were in the EU we couldn’t ban its import. So all the U.K. production ban did was export animal cruelty. Just like California....
Which was found to be unconstitutional in the state, thank goodness.
If you legislate against the import on the basis that someone else somewhere is doing something you don't like, then what's next: banning the import of things because the school leaving age from that country is 15?
The product is illegal to manufacture in this country and has been illegal for fifteen years now.
Why should products its illegal to manufacture be allowed to be imported? That's illogical.
If you want the 2006 ban lifted then fair enough. Otherwise it shouldn't be circumvented via imports. Lifting the ban would be the solution to liberalise it, so why not argue for that?
But that's true of gazillions of things we import.
Whether it's certain metals where environmental standards make their mining impossible in the UK. Or chemical compounds where it would be impossible to get a license to manufacture in the UK.
It's been the policy of the UK for decades to export pollution to third world countries.
Why is exporting cruelty different to exporting pollution?
But there's a bigger point.
We are the country that's supposed to be against non tariff barriers.
If we do this, then we can't complain when France or Italy imposes a non tariff barrier that prevents our service exports to those countries on the basis that we don't follow the same "standards" they do. You can't have it both ways - demanding other import what you want to export, while setting laws that prohibit likewise.
This is, ultimately, just a food product that will do no damage to the person that eats it.
If the government uses, as the article suggests, Brexit as an excuse to ban fois gras then I am now a Europhile. Brexit was about freedom, not banning stuff.
If you want it, go to France.
I put it up there with bullfighting as an abnormal way to treat animals for the pleasure of the few who enjoy it.
The entire animal foodstuffs industry involves the abnormal treatment of animals.
Now, you can argue that certain practices used to produce fois gras are beyond the pale, although to do that while justifying caged hens who live and die covered in the faeces of their neighbours requires a particularly twisted form of mentality.
But that is very different from simply banning the import of goose liver.
We banned veal crates. It is quite possible to avoid buying abused caged hens by buying free range hens and eggs. There is no cruelty-free alternative when buying foie gras, the "Mr Creosotes" of the animal world.
In one case (cage free hens) you leave it up to the consumer.
But in this case, you say the consumer does not get to choose between traditional duck liver and fois gras.
If the government uses, as the article suggests, Brexit as an excuse to ban fois gras then I am now a Europhile. Brexit was about freedom, not banning stuff.
It’s production in Britain has been banned on animal cruelty grounds for a decade and a half. Because we were in the EU we couldn’t ban its import. So all the U.K. production ban did was export animal cruelty. Just like California....
Which was found to be unconstitutional in the state, thank goodness.
If you legislate against the import on the basis that someone else somewhere is doing something you don't like, then what's next: banning the import of things because the school leaving age from that country is 15?
The product is illegal to manufacture in this country and has been illegal for fifteen years now.
Why should products its illegal to manufacture be allowed to be imported? That's illogical.
If you want the 2006 ban lifted then fair enough. Otherwise it shouldn't be circumvented via imports. Lifting the ban would be the solution to liberalise it, so why not argue for that?
But that's true of gazillions of things we import.
Whether it's certain metals where environmental standards make their mining impossible in the UK. Or chemical compounds where it would be impossible to get a license to manufacture in the UK.
It's been the policy of the UK for decades to export pollution to third world countries.
Why is exporting cruelty different to exporting pollution?
But there's a bigger point.
We are the country that's supposed to be against non tariff barriers.
If we do this, then we can't complain when France or Italy imposes a non tariff barrier that prevents our service exports to those countries on the basis that we don't follow the same "standards" they do. You can't have it both ways - demanding other import what you want to export, while setting laws that prohibit likewise.
This is, ultimately, just a food product that will do no damage to the person that eats it.
Which chemicals are allowed to be imported that are forbidden by law from being manufactured in this country? Not having a licence to manufacture one, but being able to get a licence if somebody really, really wanted to get it, is an entirely different subject to the law specifically making that chemical illegal to manufacture.
Exporting pollution is a bad thing and not a solution. The government has rightly started to recognise that and take it into account. So it should.
If France or Italy want to forbid services that are illegal in their country they will do so, whether we allow import of a product that Parliament voted to make illegal or not.
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
In Iceland they eat whale meat. Should the UK allow the import of whale meat in your eyes? Based on your logic?
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
So if it were theoretically possible to make fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws (but it was economically impossible to sell it), then it would be OK to sell fois gras (that was made by breaking those laws) in the UK?
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
So if it were theoretically possible to make fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws (but it was economically impossible to sell it), then it would be OK to sell fois gras (that was made by breaking those laws) in the UK?
Well, it's a view.
The product itself is deemed "cruel" yes.
I think you will have missed my edit so I will ask again: in Iceland it is legal to eat whale meat. I went to a restaurant in Rekjavik that had a whale pizza on the menu (pineapple eat your heart out for that one).
Should the UK allow the import of whale meat? Should whale pizzas be on the menu here, since its legal in Iceland and no law is broken in its manufacturing there?
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
In Iceland they eat whale meat. Should the UK allow the import of whale meat in your eyes? Based on your logic?
"Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them". So if a country used forced labour without pay that't an internal matter? The Southern States of the US seceded on similar logic.
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
So if it were theoretically possible to make fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws (but it was economically impossible to sell it), then it would be OK to sell fois gras (that was made by breaking those laws) in the UK?
Well, it's a view.
The product itself is deemed "cruel" yes.
I think you will have missed my edit so I will ask again: in Iceland it is legal to eat whale meat. I went to a restaurant in Rekjavik that had a whale pizza on the menu (pineapple eat your heart out for that one).
Should the UK allow the import of whale meat? Should whale pizzas be on the menu here, since its legal in Iceland and no law is broken in its manufacturing there?
Of course it should.
It's a non tariff barrier - with no public health argument - that is designed to discriminate against the exports of another country.
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
In Iceland they eat whale meat. Should the UK allow the import of whale meat in your eyes? Based on your logic?
"Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them". So if a country used forced labour without pay that't an internal matter? The Southern States of the US seceded on similar logic.
I would be happy to have a trade embargo with that country as a result - but the embargo would apply to all products they manufacture not cherrypicking one or two that make headlines.
If the government uses, as the article suggests, Brexit as an excuse to ban fois gras then I am now a Europhile. Brexit was about freedom, not banning stuff.
If you want it, go to France.
I put it up there with bullfighting as an abnormal way to treat animals for the pleasure of the few who enjoy it.
The entire animal foodstuffs industry involves the abnormal treatment of animals.
Now, you can argue that certain practices used to produce fois gras are beyond the pale, although to do that while justifying caged hens who live and die covered in the faeces of their neighbours requires a particularly twisted form of mentality.
But that is very different from simply banning the import of goose liver.
We banned veal crates. It is quite possible to avoid buying abused caged hens by buying free range hens and eggs. There is no cruelty-free alternative when buying foie gras, the "Mr Creosotes" of the animal world.
In one case (cage free hens) you leave it up to the consumer.
But in this case, you say the consumer does not get to choose between traditional duck liver and fois gras.
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
So if it were theoretically possible to make fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws (but it was economically impossible to sell it), then it would be OK to sell fois gras (that was made by breaking those laws) in the UK?
Well, it's a view.
The product itself is deemed "cruel" yes.
I think you will have missed my edit so I will ask again: in Iceland it is legal to eat whale meat. I went to a restaurant in Rekjavik that had a whale pizza on the menu (pineapple eat your heart out for that one).
Should the UK allow the import of whale meat? Should whale pizzas be on the menu here, since its legal in Iceland and no law is broken in its manufacturing there?
Over 97% of Icelanders wouldn't touch whale meat. Sadly, it is only on the menu for tourists....
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
So if it were theoretically possible to make fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws (but it was economically impossible to sell it), then it would be OK to sell fois gras (that was made by breaking those laws) in the UK?
Well, it's a view.
The product itself is deemed "cruel" yes.
I think you will have missed my edit so I will ask again: in Iceland it is legal to eat whale meat. I went to a restaurant in Rekjavik that had a whale pizza on the menu (pineapple eat your heart out for that one).
Should the UK allow the import of whale meat? Should whale pizzas be on the menu here, since its legal in Iceland and no law is broken in its manufacturing there?
Of course it should.
It's a non tariff barrier - with no public health argument - that is designed to discriminate against the exports of another country.
So the entire world should allow whale meat imports because whale hunting is legal in Iceland - and the reason the killing of whales is illegal in the rest of the world should vanish the second its imported?
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
So if it were theoretically possible to make fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws (but it was economically impossible to sell it), then it would be OK to sell fois gras (that was made by breaking those laws) in the UK?
Well, it's a view.
The product itself is deemed "cruel" yes.
I think you will have missed my edit so I will ask again: in Iceland it is legal to eat whale meat. I went to a restaurant in Rekjavik that had a whale pizza on the menu (pineapple eat your heart out for that one).
Should the UK allow the import of whale meat? Should whale pizzas be on the menu here, since its legal in Iceland and no law is broken in its manufacturing there?
Of course it should.
It's a non tariff barrier - with no public health argument - that is designed to discriminate against the exports of another country.
Robert, you are exemplifying perfectly why letting China into the WTO was the worst foreign policy error by the West of the last 70 years. We should not be importing anything from China where they’ve cheated on labour or environmental policy. And if we don’t like the production means of foie gras, we shouldn’t allow its import from anywhere else either.
If the government uses, as the article suggests, Brexit as an excuse to ban fois gras then I am now a Europhile. Brexit was about freedom, not banning stuff.
The most hugely disappointing gastronomic experience I have ever had. Its like butter with sugar added. I used to horrify my French colleagues as I regularly passed over the damned stuff and settled for an olive instead.
This is such an obvious piece of bollocks it’s quite hard not to consider this as a wholly unreliable witness testimony.
Without having watched it, why?
And why wouldn't Archie be a Prince but Eugenie and Beatrice are Princesses.
Because of how far removed they are from the current monarch.
This whole thing makes me a Republican... But isn't Archie slightly closer to the throne than Eugenie or Beatrice ever were?
Because about 100 years ago George V set out the rules that govern the topic. Basically the grandchildren of a monarch are princes/princesses but their children are not. Meghan got upset because she didn’t get special treatment.
I can't decide what was more predictable and predicted. The way the Harry-Meghan saga has ultimately played out over the last few years, or Donald Trump attempting to overturn US democracy.
Much of what has been said in this interview may well be true. I suspect a lot of it rather has elements of truth that have been somewhat misrepresented (and particularly for a US public who are predisposed to think the worse of the institution of the monarchy and lap up criticism of it). Some of it is deliberately conflating what goes on within the Royal Family and their treatment by the UK media. Some of it may just be false.
However i doubt anything that has been said in the interview is really surprising (by that i mean that it was said, not that it is the truth).
Unless anything is an outright lie, the Royal family can't very well respond easily to it. And if they stay silent then it will be assumed to be taken that what was said was all true. And no doubt the likes of Nicholas Witchell will be telling us what he thinks they think anyway.
After 3 years of Brexit constant news then 15 month of constant covid news/nannying I was looking forward to be able to enjoy (at least look at ) news again but what do we get - Harry and Meghan crap and self entitlement me me me stuff. Oh well maybe next week
As I point out to him, if you Google Miliband’s name, some of the first results are news stories – “million-dollar Miliband” – about his pay packet as charity CEO, which rose to a staggering $911,796 (around £741,883) in 2019 (an increase of nearly £200,000 in the previous two years, and two-and-a-half times the whopping amount enjoyed by his predecessor in the role). It seems to me and I’d guess to most people, I suggest, an extraordinary amount of money to be paid to work on behalf of the dollar-a-day poor. How does he justify it?
He likes to talk in lists, and he gives me a little list of reasons. “I say to people,” he says, “first, it’s right that it’s public. Second, that there’s an independent process that makes these allocations. Third, that I am paid four-fifths of the average of the peer organisations in New York. And finally, I said to people, look, the financial structure of the organisation is that we’re sitting on $125m endowment that yields seven or $8m a year or has done over the past 10 years. And we make sure that our executive salaries are more than covered by the money that comes from the endowment. So anyone who is donating to us can be confident about where their money is going.”
Basically they spend the income from the endowment on overheads. Entitled prat.
That's an unsustainably high return on the endowment too. Probably top heavy with tech stocks and enjoying the bubble. What are they going to do when it starts to return a more normal $3-4m? Cut their salaries in half?
It’s worse than that. They seem to have adopted a TSR approach (which makes sense) but instead of just spending the yield (the 3% that you are referring to and banking the rest) they are spending the full amount.
Basically that means the endowment will be flat in absolute terms - or a “real terms cut” as Labour would put it.
As far as flu is concerned it wouldn't surprise me if next year and the next few years we actually have a much milder flu season than pre-Covid years, not a tougher one.
Three reasons.
Sadly some who would have succumbed to future flu seasons are already dead.
Future vaccines could be better and have better take up as a result of this past year.
Masks may voluntarily be brought back out by some people for winter which would reduce the risk of flu.
There is, though, one serious factor against the first one. Covid has turned a lot of people who had no significant underlying conditions into people with underlying conditions. My mother survived covid last year. We have found out that it left her with both chronic kidney disease and heart failure (both of them currently manageable, but both increase her vulnerability). A considerable amount of covid survivors (especially in the hundreds of thousands of hospitalised ones) will be in the same category.
That sounds terrible. Sorry to hear that.
Thanks, Philip. Came as quite a nasty shock. It should be manageable, though; the doctors seem fairly unworried about it, but I do worry. It does put in to context the ongoing pressure on the NHS from lasting effects - this is going to have a hangover for decades.
Just checked back; very nasty. Much depends on age and general condition of course. Probably a case of slow and steady, but as one gets older one finds there are physical things one can no longer do, and illness increases the number.
Robert using your logic if blocking the imports of whale meat and foie gras is a "non tariff barrier" despite the products themselves being illegal to manufacture here . . . if child pornography is deemed legal in another country then should child pornography be legal to import in this country?
Would you consider a ban on the import of child pornography to be a "non tariff barrier" that should be dropped?
This is such an obvious piece of bollocks it’s quite hard not to consider this as a wholly unreliable witness testimony.
Without having watched it, why?
And why wouldn't Archie be a Prince but Eugenie and Beatrice are Princesses.
Because of how far removed they are from the current monarch.
This whole thing makes me a Republican... But isn't Archie slightly closer to the throne than Eugenie or Beatrice ever were?
No. Beatrice was fifth in line when she was born. Archie is currently seventh in line. I guess that's because QE2 is still with us and William has three rather than two kids.
He has three?
I guess I'm out of touch
Breed like rabbits, them royals.
Still, we aren't exactly like the House of Saud with 15,000 members. Although if that would keep Meghan happy....
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
So if it were theoretically possible to make fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws (but it was economically impossible to sell it), then it would be OK to sell fois gras (that was made by breaking those laws) in the UK?
Well, it's a view.
The product itself is deemed "cruel" yes.
I think you will have missed my edit so I will ask again: in Iceland it is legal to eat whale meat. I went to a restaurant in Rekjavik that had a whale pizza on the menu (pineapple eat your heart out for that one).
Should the UK allow the import of whale meat? Should whale pizzas be on the menu here, since its legal in Iceland and no law is broken in its manufacturing there?
Over 97% of Icelanders wouldn't touch whale meat. Sadly, it is only on the menu for tourists....
That's what we were told, too. 6 years ago. Traditionally, too, Icelanders didn't catch whatles; they ate those that became stranded and died.
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
So if it were theoretically possible to make fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws (but it was economically impossible to sell it), then it would be OK to sell fois gras (that was made by breaking those laws) in the UK?
Well, it's a view.
The product itself is deemed "cruel" yes.
I think you will have missed my edit so I will ask again: in Iceland it is legal to eat whale meat. I went to a restaurant in Rekjavik that had a whale pizza on the menu (pineapple eat your heart out for that one).
Should the UK allow the import of whale meat? Should whale pizzas be on the menu here, since its legal in Iceland and no law is broken in its manufacturing there?
Over 97% of Icelanders wouldn't touch whale meat. Sadly, it is only on the menu for tourists....
Probably true. But Iceland and tourism to Iceland is so tiny that very few whales each year get killed as a result, so as not to have too damaging an impact on conservation.
If suddenly the entire world allowed the import of whale meat from Iceland as Robert proposes then the volume killed would shoot up massively and they'd be hunted to extinction.
This is such an obvious piece of bollocks it’s quite hard not to consider this as a wholly unreliable witness testimony.
Without having watched it, why?
And why wouldn't Archie be a Prince but Eugenie and Beatrice are Princesses.
Because of how far removed they are from the current monarch.
This whole thing makes me a Republican... But isn't Archie slightly closer to the throne than Eugenie or Beatrice ever were?
No. Beatrice was fifth in line when she was born. Archie is currently seventh in line. I guess that's because QE2 is still with us and William has three rather than two kids.
He has three?
I guess I'm out of touch
Breed like rabbits, them royals.
Still, we aren't exactly like the House of Saud with 15,000 members. Although if that would keep Meghan happy....
As I point out to him, if you Google Miliband’s name, some of the first results are news stories – “million-dollar Miliband” – about his pay packet as charity CEO, which rose to a staggering $911,796 (around £741,883) in 2019 (an increase of nearly £200,000 in the previous two years, and two-and-a-half times the whopping amount enjoyed by his predecessor in the role). It seems to me and I’d guess to most people, I suggest, an extraordinary amount of money to be paid to work on behalf of the dollar-a-day poor. How does he justify it?
He likes to talk in lists, and he gives me a little list of reasons. “I say to people,” he says, “first, it’s right that it’s public. Second, that there’s an independent process that makes these allocations. Third, that I am paid four-fifths of the average of the peer organisations in New York. And finally, I said to people, look, the financial structure of the organisation is that we’re sitting on $125m endowment that yields seven or $8m a year or has done over the past 10 years. And we make sure that our executive salaries are more than covered by the money that comes from the endowment. So anyone who is donating to us can be confident about where their money is going.”
Basically they spend the income from the endowment on overheads. Entitled prat.
And I'm reading that going, "It's not as if money is fungible, is it? Oh, wait, that's one of the key purposes of money in the first place."
They could easily augment their donations with some of the income from endowments and it's not as if that's such an obsure concept that people won't instantly spot it. Indefensible, I agree.
Surprisingly people don’t think about it.
As an example, when we set up the Fore, my brother agreed to donate £300k a year. We decided to position it as covering all of the operating costs so that “all donations went directly to help the charities we select”. Completely meaningless distinction - but donors really liked it
This is such an obvious piece of bollocks it’s quite hard not to consider this as a wholly unreliable witness testimony.
Without having watched it, why?
And why wouldn't Archie be a Prince but Eugenie and Beatrice are Princesses.
Because of how far removed they are from the current monarch.
This whole thing makes me a Republican... But isn't Archie slightly closer to the throne than Eugenie or Beatrice ever were?
No. Beatrice was fifth in line when she was born. Archie is currently seventh in line. I guess that's because QE2 is still with us and William has three rather than two kids.
He has three?
I guess I'm out of touch
Breed like rabbits, them royals.
Still, we aren't exactly like the House of Saud with 15,000 members. Although if that would keep Meghan happy....
As far as flu is concerned it wouldn't surprise me if next year and the next few years we actually have a much milder flu season than pre-Covid years, not a tougher one.
Three reasons.
Sadly some who would have succumbed to future flu seasons are already dead.
Future vaccines could be better and have better take up as a result of this past year.
Masks may voluntarily be brought back out by some people for winter which would reduce the risk of flu.
There is, though, one serious factor against the first one. Covid has turned a lot of people who had no significant underlying conditions into people with underlying conditions. My mother survived covid last year. We have found out that it left her with both chronic kidney disease and heart failure (both of them currently manageable, but both increase her vulnerability). A considerable amount of covid survivors (especially in the hundreds of thousands of hospitalised ones) will be in the same category.
That sounds terrible. Sorry to hear that.
Thanks, Philip. Came as quite a nasty shock. It should be manageable, though; the doctors seem fairly unworried about it, but I do worry. It does put in to context the ongoing pressure on the NHS from lasting effects - this is going to have a hangover for decades.
Just checked back; very nasty. Much depends on age and general condition of course. Probably a case of slow and steady, but as one gets older one finds there are physical things one can no longer do, and illness increases the number.
True, though we need to bear in mind that these are on the whole manageable with changes. Your life changes, and you eventually accept it, and get on with whatever the circs are.
I woke one morning in hospital to have a Consultant tell me that I now had diabetes after a side effect of a stomach bug and I would always be taking insulin injections every day, and possibly suffer from a list of complications. In my 30s. A nearly random thing.
Horrible things do happen. And support will be needed and very much deserved. Unfortunately neither the long term nor the short term are easy for chronic conditions.
They required a special exemption from the Queen, who did it for Kate, but not for Meghan.
Because they are children of the second in line, someone in the direct line of succession. Do you really want a situation where an earl would be the first in line?
This is such an obvious piece of bollocks it’s quite hard not to consider this as a wholly unreliable witness testimony.
Without having watched it, why?
And why wouldn't Archie be a Prince but Eugenie and Beatrice are Princesses.
Because of how far removed they are from the current monarch.
This whole thing makes me a Republican... But isn't Archie slightly closer to the throne than Eugenie or Beatrice ever were?
No. Beatrice was fifth in line when she was born. Archie is currently seventh in line. I guess that's because QE2 is still with us and William has three rather than two kids.
He has three?
I guess I'm out of touch
Breed like rabbits, them royals.
Still, we aren't exactly like the House of Saud with 15,000 members. Although if that would keep Meghan happy....
Basically the grandchildren of a monarch are princes/princesses but their children are not. Meghan got upset because she didn’t get special treatment.
But Kate did
Charlotte and Louis are the siblings of the future king not their first cousin
It's to avoid a situation where the heir has five children and each of them has five children and you end up with 25 princes and princesses. Seems quite sensible to keep the royal family quite narrow.
They required a special exemption from the Queen, who did it for Kate, but not for Meghan.
Because they are children of the second in line, someone in the direct line of succession. Do you really want a situation where an earl would be the first in line?
What difference would it make?
And surely George would only be first in line if two out of the Queen, Charles and William died by which point he would become a Prince surely?
It would be quite logical to not give the "prince" or "princess" moniker to children of "spares" but then that principle should surely apply to Andrew's offspring too. It didn't.
The whole thing is weird, but its also probably the least important thing brought up - so probably also the one people will concentrate the most on.
Charlotte and Louis are the siblings of the future king not their first cousin
And they still require a special exemption which was not offered to their cousin
Yes. It’s in the gift of the Queen. Her decision was in line with policy of the slimline royal family.
And it’s just a name. It had no special privileges. It’s a weird thing for someone to get bent out of shape over. I am sure Archie will be happier as just that than as “Prince Archibald”
They required a special exemption from the Queen, who did it for Kate, but not for Meghan.
Because they are children of the second in line, someone in the direct line of succession. Do you really want a situation where an earl would be the first in line?
What difference would it make?
And surely George would only be first in line if two out of the Queen, Charles and William died by which point he would become a Prince surely?
I was being a bit facetious. The real purpose is to keep the family small.
This is such an obvious piece of bollocks it’s quite hard not to consider this as a wholly unreliable witness testimony.
Without having watched it, why?
And why wouldn't Archie be a Prince but Eugenie and Beatrice are Princesses.
Because of how far removed they are from the current monarch.
This whole thing makes me a Republican... But isn't Archie slightly closer to the throne than Eugenie or Beatrice ever were?
Because about 100 years ago George V set out the rules that govern the topic. Basically the grandchildren of a monarch are princes/princesses but their children are not. Meghan got upset because she didn’t get special treatment.
So if the Queen passes away before Archie's sister is born, she'll be a princess but he still won't be a prince?
The Queen's uncle was a Nazi sympathiser, Her Majesty herself used to do Nazi salutes, is it any surprise she didn't offer her first non white great-grandchild a title like she did for the Aryan looking Charlotte and Louis?
As far as flu is concerned it wouldn't surprise me if next year and the next few years we actually have a much milder flu season than pre-Covid years, not a tougher one.
Three reasons.
Sadly some who would have succumbed to future flu seasons are already dead.
Future vaccines could be better and have better take up as a result of this past year.
Masks may voluntarily be brought back out by some people for winter which would reduce the risk of flu.
There is, though, one serious factor against the first one. Covid has turned a lot of people who had no significant underlying conditions into people with underlying conditions. My mother survived covid last year. We have found out that it left her with both chronic kidney disease and heart failure (both of them currently manageable, but both increase her vulnerability). A considerable amount of covid survivors (especially in the hundreds of thousands of hospitalised ones) will be in the same category.
That sounds terrible. Sorry to hear that.
Thanks, Philip. Came as quite a nasty shock. It should be manageable, though; the doctors seem fairly unworried about it, but I do worry. It does put in to context the ongoing pressure on the NHS from lasting effects - this is going to have a hangover for decades.
Just checked back; very nasty. Much depends on age and general condition of course. Probably a case of slow and steady, but as one gets older one finds there are physical things one can no longer do, and illness increases the number.
True, though we need to bear in mind that these are on the whole manageable with changes. Your life changes, and you eventually accept it, and get on with whatever the circs are.
I woke one morning in hospital to have a Consultant tell me that I now had diabetes after a side effect of a stomach bug and I would always be taking insulin injections every day, and possibly suffer from a list of complications. In my 30s. A nearly random thing.
Horrible things do happen. And support will be needed and very much deserved. Unfortunately neither the long term nor the short term are easy for chronic conditions.
Very sorry to hear it. I woke up one morning and my wife was dead. That's a gamechanger both mentally and physically. Fortunately I recovered and am now happily remarried, but some never get over it and die soon after.
Story on the BBC website about a doctor couple both 'coming out of retirement' to work on the vaccination effort.
They are aged 55 and 56.
Assuming they were both GPs (or consultants) I imagine it is very easy to accumulate enough money to retire in your early 50s. it depends on how much money you think you actually need to live comfortably.
Charlotte and Louis are the siblings of the future king not their first cousin
And they still require a special exemption which was not offered to their cousin
Yes. It’s in the gift of the Queen. Her decision was in line with policy of the slimline royal family.
And it’s just a name. It had no special privileges. It’s a weird thing for someone to get bent out of shape over. I am sure Archie will be happier as just that than as “Prince Archibald”
It's a policy that has jacked up house prices and made it harder for people who actually need to buy houses to buy them (it's done a great job for those already owning them, which is pointless, they already own a home) vs a policy to pay our nursing staff properly for a job they've done superbly and without complaint over the last year and beyond.
It's obvious to anyone what a better use of the money was.
How does removing a tax on buyers make it harder for a buyer to buy their house? 🙄
Because the sellers simply raise their prices, which they can. Because the buyers aren't buying with their own money, they're buying with a maxed out mortgage. Combine that with a reduction in interest rates and all you've done is raise the price of property while forcing new buyers to take on more debt. That is exactly what has happened.
All of these government 'initiatives' - Help to Buy, LISAs and stamp duty cuts - simply push up prices as described previously.
What we need is to 'encourage' the Buy To Let and other multiple home owner community to release their properties with a fair and equitable tax system on these people, who have had so many tax breaks in the past: - 5% stamp duty loading on acquisition of a second/BTL property (I know we have 3% now) - 3% capital charge PER YEAR - no tax relief on interest paid to buy BTL - double Council Tax on a second property - any capital gain taxed at 40%
That will 'encourage' these people to release these properties! Lots more supply. Prices fall, chance for renters and other aspirant buyers to buy.
Let's do it!
We did this last week.
As a policy, that will do untold damage to the marginal and less well-off members of the community, particularly very significant numbers who cannot access credit.
And in favour of relatively richer people.
It is crazy.
The unholy alliance between the rich and the poor.
The obvious solution has and always will be to increase interest rates slowly to c.3-4% to reduce the profitability of BTL.
Where will the human beings you are proposing to make homeless live?
Houses don't disappear when a landlord sells a property - some else buys it.
That did not answer the question though, what happens to the tenants.
I've no goose in the fois gras debate but it seems illogical to ban it's production on animal cruelty grounds but allow it's import.
It surely should be legal or illegal?
We would not allow the production of an iPhone made in the UK by 15 year olds, because of child labour laws.
Yet we allow the import of iPhones made in China or Vietnam by 15 year olds.
We also don't allow the production of certain types of fur in the UK. Yet we allow their import.
The iPhone is legal to manufacture in this country. Fois gras is not.
I don't understand why fur should be imported if its illegal to manufacture either. With ivory there's a legacy issue so antiques manufactured before a particular date are allowed to be imported but then it was legal to have it until that date too. That would be logical for fur etc too. So any fois gras manufactured before 2006 could be imported but I'm not sure how tasty that would be.
I think you're missing the point.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
No you're missing the point.
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
So if it were theoretically possible to make fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws (but it was economically impossible to sell it), then it would be OK to sell fois gras (that was made by breaking those laws) in the UK?
Well, it's a view.
The product itself is deemed "cruel" yes.
I think you will have missed my edit so I will ask again: in Iceland it is legal to eat whale meat. I went to a restaurant in Rekjavik that had a whale pizza on the menu (pineapple eat your heart out for that one).
Should the UK allow the import of whale meat? Should whale pizzas be on the menu here, since its legal in Iceland and no law is broken in its manufacturing there?
Of course it should.
It's a non tariff barrier - with no public health argument - that is designed to discriminate against the exports of another country.
Nope. I am afraid you are coming over as a Free Trade extremist here Robert. By your argument we should be able to import any manner of items that are illegal for production in the UK simply because to do otherwise would be a non tariff barrier. If it is a NT barrier then so be it. We should still ban it and take whatever consequences there are.
But I suspect your main argument here is that you like Fois Gras and that in itself is reason enough not to ban it.
The obvious reposte to your NT barrier argument, even if it had any validity, is that it only applies if you are singling out specific countries for a ban. We would not. We would be banning Fois Gras or whale meat from anywhere in the world in addition to a home manufacture ban. That is not a NT barrier as it is not designed to give our own manufacture of these products a competitive advantage.
Your rapid metamorphosis into a republican Europhile indulging in animal cruelty is rather disturbing.
It would be quite logical to not give the "prince" or "princess" moniker to children of "spares" but then that principle should surely apply to Andrew's offspring too. It didn't.
The whole thing is weird, but its also probably the least important thing brought up - so probably also the one people will concentrate the most on.
The rule is that grandchildren of the monarch get it. It’s entirely arbitrary and any other rule would be just as good. The point is they applied the rules without fear or favour because there was no good reason to do otherwise
The Queen's uncle was a Nazi sympathiser, Her Majesty herself used to do Nazi salutes, is it any surprise she didn't offer her first non white great-grandchild a title like she did for the Aryan looking Charlotte and Louis?
This seems a bit of a stretch. The Queen has been overtly encouraging a kind of moderate bur clear multiculturalism in her Christmas messages for about 20 years, for instance, to a far greater extent than a number of typical rightwing Tories might do ; and this is another dimension of her differences with Thatcher, who she famously disliked, as being divisive.
A couple of other members of the family historically, on the other hand..
This is such an obvious piece of bollocks it’s quite hard not to consider this as a wholly unreliable witness testimony.
Without having watched it, why?
And why wouldn't Archie be a Prince but Eugenie and Beatrice are Princesses.
Because of how far removed they are from the current monarch.
This whole thing makes me a Republican... But isn't Archie slightly closer to the throne than Eugenie or Beatrice ever were?
Because about 100 years ago George V set out the rules that govern the topic. Basically the grandchildren of a monarch are princes/princesses but their children are not. Meghan got upset because she didn’t get special treatment.
So if the Queen passes away before Archie's sister is born, she'll be a princess but he still won't be a prince?
To be honest I have no idea!
I would imagine that the future King George VII would rectify that if it was the case because you wouldn’t want to have that imbalance
It would be quite logical to not give the "prince" or "princess" moniker to children of "spares" but then that principle should surely apply to Andrew's offspring too. It didn't.
The whole thing is weird, but its also probably the least important thing brought up - so probably also the one people will concentrate the most on.
Speaking personally, I'd be content with with an Earldom.
Basically the grandchildren of a monarch are princes/princesses but their children are not. Meghan got upset because she didn’t get special treatment.
But Kate did
Charlotte and Louis are the siblings of the future king not their first cousin
It's to avoid a situation where the heir has five children and each of them has five children and you end up with 25 princes and princesses. Seems quite sensible to keep the royal family quite narrow.
But that's not the rule. Eliminating grandkids of the king from spare lines from the title would make sense, so Beatrice and Eugenie would not be Prince and Princess. But that isn't the rule is it?
If future King Charles grandkids are supposed to be Princes then excluding them does seem odd.
The Queen's uncle was a Nazi sympathiser, Her Majesty herself used to do Nazi salutes, is it any surprise she didn't offer her first non white great-grandchild a title like she did for the Aryan looking Charlotte and Louis?
It's a policy that has jacked up house prices and made it harder for people who actually need to buy houses to buy them (it's done a great job for those already owning them, which is pointless, they already own a home) vs a policy to pay our nursing staff properly for a job they've done superbly and without complaint over the last year and beyond.
It's obvious to anyone what a better use of the money was.
How does removing a tax on buyers make it harder for a buyer to buy their house? 🙄
Because the sellers simply raise their prices, which they can. Because the buyers aren't buying with their own money, they're buying with a maxed out mortgage. Combine that with a reduction in interest rates and all you've done is raise the price of property while forcing new buyers to take on more debt. That is exactly what has happened.
All of these government 'initiatives' - Help to Buy, LISAs and stamp duty cuts - simply push up prices as described previously.
What we need is to 'encourage' the Buy To Let and other multiple home owner community to release their properties with a fair and equitable tax system on these people, who have had so many tax breaks in the past: - 5% stamp duty loading on acquisition of a second/BTL property (I know we have 3% now) - 3% capital charge PER YEAR - no tax relief on interest paid to buy BTL - double Council Tax on a second property - any capital gain taxed at 40%
That will 'encourage' these people to release these properties! Lots more supply. Prices fall, chance for renters and other aspirant buyers to buy.
Let's do it!
We did this last week.
As a policy, that will do untold damage to the marginal and less well-off members of the community, particularly very significant numbers who cannot access credit.
And in favour of relatively richer people.
It is crazy.
The unholy alliance between the rich and the poor.
The obvious solution has and always will be to increase interest rates slowly to c.3-4% to reduce the profitability of BTL.
Where will the human beings you are proposing to make homeless live?
Houses don't disappear when a landlord sells a property - some else buys it.
That did not answer the question though, what happens to the tenants.
Unless the house has been repossessed by a bank - they will stay in the property until they have found another property to live in.
Having had to deal with a few issues for friends in the recent past Rule No 1 as a tenant is that you don't leave a property until you have somewhere else to live or a High Court Bailiff is knocking on your door with an immediate eviction notice.
The first thing anyone who deals with housing will tell you is that even if the tenancy has expired and notice has been correctly served you don't leave if you have no where else to go to.
The Queen's uncle was a Nazi sympathiser, Her Majesty herself used to do Nazi salutes, is it any surprise she didn't offer her first non white great-grandchild a title like she did for the Aryan looking Charlotte and Louis?
That’s a very unpleasant smear
Shame on you
TSE is in his - I want to shock and provoke everyone mode - he's trying to drum up hits on a dull Monday.
It's a policy that has jacked up house prices and made it harder for people who actually need to buy houses to buy them (it's done a great job for those already owning them, which is pointless, they already own a home) vs a policy to pay our nursing staff properly for a job they've done superbly and without complaint over the last year and beyond.
It's obvious to anyone what a better use of the money was.
How does removing a tax on buyers make it harder for a buyer to buy their house? 🙄
Because the sellers simply raise their prices, which they can. Because the buyers aren't buying with their own money, they're buying with a maxed out mortgage. Combine that with a reduction in interest rates and all you've done is raise the price of property while forcing new buyers to take on more debt. That is exactly what has happened.
All of these government 'initiatives' - Help to Buy, LISAs and stamp duty cuts - simply push up prices as described previously.
What we need is to 'encourage' the Buy To Let and other multiple home owner community to release their properties with a fair and equitable tax system on these people, who have had so many tax breaks in the past: - 5% stamp duty loading on acquisition of a second/BTL property (I know we have 3% now) - 3% capital charge PER YEAR - no tax relief on interest paid to buy BTL - double Council Tax on a second property - any capital gain taxed at 40%
That will 'encourage' these people to release these properties! Lots more supply. Prices fall, chance for renters and other aspirant buyers to buy.
Let's do it!
We did this last week.
As a policy, that will do untold damage to the marginal and less well-off members of the community, particularly very significant numbers who cannot access credit.
And in favour of relatively richer people.
It is crazy.
The unholy alliance between the rich and the poor.
The obvious solution has and always will be to increase interest rates slowly to c.3-4% to reduce the profitability of BTL.
Where will the human beings you are proposing to make homeless live?
Ummm, in houses/flats like they do now?
For every BTL property sold to a first time buyer, that's one less person competing in the rental sector.
You don't understand how housing occupation works.
The rental sector is far more densely occupied than the Owner Occupied sector, so when you move X people from the rental sector to OO - by whatever mechanism you are using to close down rental - you need a lot more houses.
I posted the stats the other day. These are in the English Housing Survey.
Nearly Half of OO houses are underoccupied - the official stat is 2 or more spare bedrooms.
For rental that is under 10%.
Therefore you are creating a lot of people with nowhere to live - homeless.
And you need to have a policy where you will put the people you are making homeless.
For all that Sturgeon was awful in the committee and potentially damaging to both the SNP and the indy movement, "ended all hopes" is probably a bit high on the premature hyperbole scale.
If the government uses, as the article suggests, Brexit as an excuse to ban fois gras then I am now a Europhile. Brexit was about freedom, not banning stuff.
The most hugely disappointing gastronomic experience I have ever had. Its like butter with sugar added. I used to horrify my French colleagues as I regularly passed over the damned stuff and settled for an olive instead.
I agree , tried once and it was horrific, horrible taste.
It's a policy that has jacked up house prices and made it harder for people who actually need to buy houses to buy them (it's done a great job for those already owning them, which is pointless, they already own a home) vs a policy to pay our nursing staff properly for a job they've done superbly and without complaint over the last year and beyond.
It's obvious to anyone what a better use of the money was.
How does removing a tax on buyers make it harder for a buyer to buy their house? 🙄
Because the sellers simply raise their prices, which they can. Because the buyers aren't buying with their own money, they're buying with a maxed out mortgage. Combine that with a reduction in interest rates and all you've done is raise the price of property while forcing new buyers to take on more debt. That is exactly what has happened.
All of these government 'initiatives' - Help to Buy, LISAs and stamp duty cuts - simply push up prices as described previously.
What we need is to 'encourage' the Buy To Let and other multiple home owner community to release their properties with a fair and equitable tax system on these people, who have had so many tax breaks in the past: - 5% stamp duty loading on acquisition of a second/BTL property (I know we have 3% now) - 3% capital charge PER YEAR - no tax relief on interest paid to buy BTL - double Council Tax on a second property - any capital gain taxed at 40%
That will 'encourage' these people to release these properties! Lots more supply. Prices fall, chance for renters and other aspirant buyers to buy.
Let's do it!
We did this last week.
As a policy, that will do untold damage to the marginal and less well-off members of the community, particularly very significant numbers who cannot access credit.
And in favour of relatively richer people.
It is crazy.
The unholy alliance between the rich and the poor.
The obvious solution has and always will be to increase interest rates slowly to c.3-4% to reduce the profitability of BTL.
Where will the human beings you are proposing to make homeless live?
Ummm, in houses/flats like they do now?
For every BTL property sold to a first time buyer, that's one less person competing in the rental sector.
You don't understand how housing occupation works.
The rental sector is far more densely occupied than the Owner Occupied sector, so when you move X people from the rental sector to OO - by whatever mechanism you are using to close down rental - you need a lot more houses.
I posted the stats the other day. These are in the English Housing Survey.
Nearly Half of OO houses are underoccupied - the official stat is 2 or more spare bedrooms.
For rental that is under 10%.
Therefore you are creating a lot of people with nowhere to live - homeless.
And you need to have a policy where you will put the people you are making homeless.
You are taking 2 things there and combining them in a way that makes little sense.
Few people have the money that allows then to rent a 5 bedroom house when they need 3 or a 3 bedroom house when they need 1.
But that doesn't correlate to available rental housing in any shape or form.
Back on topic, I've been having a look at the Heavy Woollen Independents, who got 12% as TSE shows. The current leader is ex-UKIP and the party Facebook site is a mixture of rants about crime and local good works. But it also looks very cobwebbed - nothing since last August. Combined with the 3.2% Brexit Party vote, there's a chunky right-wing vote that may not contest a by-election very seriously. I'd be concerned about Labour's chances if it happens any time soon.
Remember also that this was a very good area for the BNP in the past. David Exley was elected to Kirklees council and a Conservative councillor defected to them.
Comments
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56316850
20. Ban imports of Foie Gras to restrict the market for this cruel and inhumane product.
https://labour.org.uk/issues/animal-welfare-manifesto/
You do know Boris is a poor posh man's Jeremy Corbyn?
May make 2022 even more unpredictable, combining new tyres with a significant new set of rules.
Whether it's certain metals where environmental standards make their mining impossible in the UK. Or chemical compounds where it would be impossible to get a license to manufacture in the UK.
It's been the policy of the UK for decades to export pollution to third world countries.
Why is exporting cruelty different to exporting pollution?
But there's a bigger point.
We are the country that's supposed to be against non tariff barriers.
If we do this, then we can't complain when France or Italy imposes a non tariff barrier that prevents our service exports to those countries on the basis that we don't follow the same "standards" they do. You can't have it both ways - demanding other import what you want to export, while setting laws that prohibit likewise.
This is, ultimately, just a food product that will do no damage to the person that eats it.
But in this case, you say the consumer does not get to choose between traditional duck liver and fois gras.
Exporting pollution is a bad thing and not a solution. The government has rightly started to recognise that and take it into account. So it should.
If France or Italy want to forbid services that are illegal in their country they will do so, whether we allow import of a product that Parliament voted to make illegal or not.
We are banning the import of fois gras because their creation involved the breaking of UK animal cruelty laws. The manufacture of iPhones involves the breaking of UK child protection laws (and a bunch of other ones, I would note).
Different countries set different labour standards and that is up to them.
If it were possible to manufacture fois gras without breaking animal cruelty laws then that would be different, but it isn't. The cruelty is built into the product. That doesn't apply to other products.
In Iceland they eat whale meat. Should the UK allow the import of whale meat in your eyes? Based on your logic?
Well, it's a view.
I think you will have missed my edit so I will ask again: in Iceland it is legal to eat whale meat. I went to a restaurant in Rekjavik that had a whale pizza on the menu (pineapple eat your heart out for that one).
Should the UK allow the import of whale meat? Should whale pizzas be on the menu here, since its legal in Iceland and no law is broken in its manufacturing there?
It's a non tariff barrier - with no public health argument - that is designed to discriminate against the exports of another country.
thats the delightful hypocrisy of the global economy
we closed down loads of our manufacturing under Blair by taxing the ass off energy so that China could open up more coal power stations.
And as for waste recycling .......
Basically that means the endowment will be flat in absolute terms - or a “real terms cut” as Labour would put it.
It’s utterly irresponsible
Would you consider a ban on the import of child pornography to be a "non tariff barrier" that should be dropped?
If suddenly the entire world allowed the import of whale meat from Iceland as Robert proposes then the volume killed would shoot up massively and they'd be hunted to extinction.
Kate got special treatment. Meghan did not.
How the hell would I???
As an example, when we set up the Fore, my brother agreed to donate £300k a year. We decided to position it as covering all of the operating costs so that “all donations went directly to help the charities we select”. Completely meaningless distinction - but donors really liked it
Kate knew what she was about from the time she walked into Williams student party in a see-through dress.
You know she's pregnant right?
I woke one morning in hospital to have a Consultant tell me that I now had diabetes after a side effect of a stomach bug and I would always be taking insulin injections every day, and possibly suffer from a list of complications. In my 30s. A nearly random thing.
Horrible things do happen. And support will be needed and very much deserved. Unfortunately neither the long term nor the short term are easy for chronic conditions.
They are aged 55 and 56.
And surely George would only be first in line if two out of the Queen, Charles and William died by which point he would become a Prince surely?
The whole thing is weird, but its also probably the least important thing brought up - so probably also the one people will concentrate the most on.
And it’s just a name. It had no special privileges. It’s a weird thing for someone to get bent out of shape over. I am sure Archie will be happier as just that than as “Prince Archibald”
Read the line I was replying to. They are first cousins of the future king not the siblings.
But I suspect your main argument here is that you like Fois Gras and that in itself is reason enough not to ban it.
The obvious reposte to your NT barrier argument, even if it had any validity, is that it only applies if you are singling out specific countries for a ban. We would not. We would be banning Fois Gras or whale meat from anywhere in the world in addition to a home manufacture ban. That is not a NT barrier as it is not designed to give our own manufacture of these products a competitive advantage.
Your rapid metamorphosis into a republican Europhile indulging in animal cruelty is rather disturbing.
The policy is that George is a Prince, and his siblings are not.
The Queen adjusted the policy for Kate, but not Meghan.
But I agree, Archie will probably be happier without it. Doesn't change the fact his cousins got special treatment.
A couple of other members of the family historically, on the other hand..
I would imagine that the future King George VII would rectify that if it was the case because you wouldn’t want to have that imbalance
If future King Charles grandkids are supposed to be Princes then excluding them does seem odd.
An exemption was made for Charlotte and Louis as siblings of the future king
Shame on you
NEW THREAD
It is inequitable to have a situation where only 1 of 3 siblings is a Prince. The queen addressed that.
Having had to deal with a few issues for friends in the recent past Rule No 1 as a tenant is that you don't leave a property until you have somewhere else to live or a High Court Bailiff is knocking on your door with an immediate eviction notice.
The first thing anyone who deals with housing will tell you is that even if the tenancy has expired and notice has been correctly served you don't leave if you have no where else to go to.
The rental sector is far more densely occupied than the Owner Occupied sector, so when you move X people from the rental sector to OO - by whatever mechanism you are using to close down rental - you need a lot more houses.
I posted the stats the other day. These are in the English Housing Survey.
Nearly Half of OO houses are underoccupied - the official stat is 2 or more spare bedrooms.
For rental that is under 10%.
Therefore you are creating a lot of people with nowhere to live - homeless.
And you need to have a policy where you will put the people you are making homeless.
Few people have the money that allows then to rent a 5 bedroom house when they need 3 or a 3 bedroom house when they need 1.
But that doesn't correlate to available rental housing in any shape or form.