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Boris Johnson’s opposition to Indyref2 might be as Herculean as his opposition to a border in the Ir

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  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Charles said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Would it have been better that we didn’t make this change and he didn’t do the work to try and help out in the pandemic?
    And there's the post.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,465

    Scott_xP said:

    V interesting story from Laura about ventilator challenge..

    At the time, other manufacturers felt that in the key March 16th meeting the PM was especially keen to involve Dyson and JCB, as manufacturer-supporters of Brexit, rather than carmakers and aerospace (who succeeded) https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384759633957511172

    The PM? Very keen to grant large contracts to Tory donors as opposed to the companies best equipped to manufacture the critical equipment? Naah, that would be corruption mate, he is flawless and immaculate and would never gift cash to his mates or mistress.

    If Labour were doing it, the usual suspects would be shrieking to high heaven about it.
    Unlikely, as those "usual suspects" are in Labour.....
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,835
    CNN: Healthcare and other essential services across India are close to collapse as a second coronavirus wave that started in mid-March tears through the country with devastating speed.

    Graveyards are running out of space, hospitals are turning away patients, and desperate families are pleading for help on social media for beds and medicine.

    India reported 295,041 cases of coronavirus and 2,023 deaths Wednesday, its highest rise in cases and highest death increase recorded in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a CNN tally of figures from the Indian Ministry of Health.

    "The volume is humongous," said Jalil Parkar, a senior pulmonary consultant at the Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, which had to convert its lobby into an additional Covid ward. "It's just like a tsunami."

    "Things are out of control," said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi.
    "There's no oxygen. A hospital bed is hard to find. It's impossible to get a test. You have to wait over a week. And pretty much every system that could break down in the health care system has broken down," he said.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,240

    Charles said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Would it have been better that we didn’t make this change and he didn’t do the work to try and help out in the pandemic?
    It would have been better to have paid taxes due. Once you establish that helping party donors to avoid paying taxes is in the national interest there is little left to say. Remember that in the same period they have zealously gone after UC claimants to recoup years old money which HMRC had just discovered was paid in error.

    One rule for the little people, another rule for Tory donors. Yet you insist your friends and party are above reproach when it comes to financial standards.
    It's not corporation tax - it was personal income tax.

    And the UK Government was asking these people to come to the UK - it wasn't because they were coming for a personal reasons / a holiday.

    The more I read the story the more I see it for the complete non story. Think about it in reverse, people forced to pay £x in tax because the government is asking their employer to send these named people to solve a UK Government issue? Any sane Company is going to ask for the same before agreeing or telling them where to go.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,465
    eek said:

    moonshine said:

    Well the super league was a fun diversion for a few days.

    Meanwhile in America...

    https://youtu.be/SKsLK_Na7iw

    News bulletin from NBC last week, further softening up of the US public for the biggest story of all time.

    paging @Leon

    It is going to be an unimaginably massive story - but based on 99.9999% speculation. 24 hour rolling news will be mental. "Where is this life in the Universe? Are they more like Alien - or Predator? What will this news do to house prices? We go over now to Meghan Markle for an in-depth interview on what it means for the Royal family....."

    We are going to lose or shit. Be a good time to bury bad news though...

    Things we can't quite explain isn't really prove of aliens from elsewhere...

    That would require metals or compounds no one has a clue how to make or organic matter that has little to do with us.
    Or admitting Roswell wasn't exactly a weather balloon.....
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,614
    edited April 2021
    There will not be an indyref2 allowed or recognised by this Tory government. Banning a legal indyref2 even if the SNP win a majority at Holyrood is supported by 62% of Tory voters on that Mori poll and if Boris has to amend the Scotland Act to do so and respect the wishes of his base so be it

    https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/half-uk-public-say-uk-government-should-allow-another-scottish-independence-referendum-if-snp-win-0

    TSE as a non Tory LD voter obviously backs an indyref2 if the SNP win a majority as do 53% of LD voters in the Mori poll and 65% of Labour voters and an unsurprising 91% of SNP voters but tough, we have a UK Tory majority government with a majority of 80 and what we Tories say goes until 2024. To get a legal and binding indyref2 it would need not only a Nationalist majority in May at Holyrood but also a PM Starmer and Labour led government in 2024, probably reliant on SNP confidence and supply. Until 2024 there will be no binding indyref2 allowed by this Tory government and even if Sturgeon held a referendum we would follow the example of our conservative cousins in Spain, the PP, in 2017 in Catalonia and refuse to recognise such a referendum while telling Unionists to boycott it.

    Any Tory minister not focused on the pivotal task of refusing any concessions to the SNP and refusing a legal indyref2 will in my view have to be sacked over the next year due to lack of loyalty (much as ministers who refused to back delivering Brexit were sacked by Boris) as that will be a top priority of the Boris government after May assuming a Nationalist Holyrood majority, though to be fair those quoted in this article were only saying Boris should grant an indyref2 if the Nationalists won 2/3 of MSPs which still looks beyond them
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Scott_xP said:

    Nothing to see here...

    @REWearmouth: “I am first lord of the Treasury,” Boris Johnson tells James Dyson in text convo mid-pandemic about what tax Dyson… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1384762048408604674

    Absolutely damn right, during a pandemic you do whatever it takes to get the medical equipment we need.

    You'd rather people die than Boris does his job wouldn't you?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Sandpit said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Government moving mountains to get their hands on medical equipment during a global pandemic, really isn't the big story she thinks it is.
    Hang on. Getting the ventilators isn't the issue. Paying tax is. Lets assume a made up number for the tax bill - £500k. Dyson could compensate the employees (and "senior individuals") for the tax paid. And add the £500k on to the contract value if he wanted to.

    We *have* to have tax transparency where foreign-based companies pay due taxes in the UK. Whether they are Tory donors or not.
    In the course of the pandemic there were large numbers of temporary changes made to help in the struggle against COVID. This is another one.

    The change was published and was available to everyone in the category affected
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487
    kjh said:

    Sandpit said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Government moving mountains to get their hands on medical equipment during a global pandemic, really isn't the big story she thinks it is.
    Hang on. Getting the ventilators isn't the issue. Paying tax is. Lets assume a made up number for the tax bill - £500k. Dyson could compensate the employees (and "senior individuals") for the tax paid. And add the £500k on to the contract value if he wanted to.

    We *have* to have tax transparency where foreign-based companies pay due taxes in the UK. Whether they are Tory donors or not.
    That isn't the issue though. Dyson wasn't attempting to profit from it. He just wanted to ensure that the company and staff would not be penalised for overstaying in the UK to achieve a positive aim.

    I have no problem with this. Both Boris and Dyson were trying to do the right thing and didn't want to be caught out by rules not intended for these special circumstances.

    I have campaigned for a defence against against penalties for breaking laws that have unforeseen consequences. We must of all come across 'jobs worths' who have applied rules correctly no matter how irrational they were in the circumstances.

    The only criticism here is it is one rule for Dyson and another for the rest of us because there isn't a defence for the rest of us.
    AIUI the actual tax rule in question - the 90 day residency rule** - has been dropped for everyone, as a lot of people found themselves stuck in various places for months on end during the pandemic. For the senior engineers Dyson was talking about, the tax bill arising from the job in the UK might have been considerably bigger than the size of the contract.

    **If you're a UK citizen living abroad, you're only allowed to spend 90 days in the UK in a tax year, to avoid income tax on worldwide income.
  • Charles said:

    Alistair said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    I'm sure the follow up tweets will have a senior government source saying this is a good thing plus an anti Labour attack line.
    An outrageous story by the BBC. It is Right and Proper that Tory Party donors should be able to avoid paying due taxation during this time of national crisis. Nothing to see here.
    Dyson is offshore for tax reasons. I have my views on that, but it’s not really the issue.

    The government wanted him to come and help.

    If he had come to help he would have upended his tax arrangements

    He pointed this out and they came up with an exception - for everyone - that time spent working on COVID projects didn’t count towards the 90 days for tax residency purposes

    The alternative would have been that Dyson didn’t come to the UK

    Can you explain what is wrong with that sequence of events and decisions?
    Multibillionaire Tory Donor James Dyson not paying taxes like the rest of us.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,465
    Scott_xP said:

    But then your anti Boris posts are not working

    WTF are you talking about?

    We are commenting on an obscure internet blog, not texting Cabinet Ministers...
    "Obscure"? How very dare you.....
  • eek said:

    Charles said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Would it have been better that we didn’t make this change and he didn’t do the work to try and help out in the pandemic?
    It would have been better to have paid taxes due. Once you establish that helping party donors to avoid paying taxes is in the national interest there is little left to say. Remember that in the same period they have zealously gone after UC claimants to recoup years old money which HMRC had just discovered was paid in error.

    One rule for the little people, another rule for Tory donors. Yet you insist your friends and party are above reproach when it comes to financial standards.
    It's not corporation tax - it was personal income tax.

    And the UK Government was asking these people to come to the UK - it wasn't because they were coming for a personal reasons / a holiday.

    The more I read the story the more I see it for the complete non story. Think about it in reverse, people forced to pay £x in tax because the government is asking their employer to send these named people to solve a UK Government issue? Any sane Company is going to ask for the same before agreeing or telling them where to go.
    How many other business leaders have a direct WhatsApp line into the PM to agree under the table tax deals? Dyson / his company could have recompensated the team the tax they had to pay if he wanted to. As any other company would have to do in the same position.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,240
    ClippP said:

    Scott_xP said:

    But then your anti Boris posts are not working

    WTF are you talking about?

    We are commenting on an obscure internet blog, not texting Cabinet Ministers...
    The only point in your posts is to attack Boris while at the same time he grows in popularity

    It must be very annoying
    Of course Johnson grows in popularity. Everything this government says or does has but one objective - into crease Johnson's personal popularity.

    The rights and wrongs of policy decisions do not matter in the slightest. Johnson is concerned with only one person. And his image.

    That is no way to run a country.
    It's the perfect way to run a country until it all comes crashing down (especially if you can time your departure before it actually crashes).
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,891
    HYUFD said:

    There will not be an indyref2 allowed or recognised by this Tory government. Banning a legal indyref2 even if the SNP win a majority at Holyrood is supported by 62% of Tory voters on that Mori poll and if Boris has to amend the Scotland Act to do so and respect the wishes of his base so be it

    https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/half-uk-public-say-uk-government-should-allow-another-scottish-independence-referendum-if-snp-win-0

    TSE as a non Tory LD voter obviously backs an indyref2 if the SNP win a majority as do 53% of LD voters in the Mori poll and 65% of Labour voters and an unsurprising 91% of SNP voters but tough, we have a Tory majority government with a majority of 80 and what we Tories say goes until 2024, to get indyref2 it would need not only a Nationalist majority in May at Holyrood but also a PM Starmer and Labour led government in 2024, probably reliant on SNP confidence and supply. Until 2024 there will be no binding indyref2 allowed by this Tory government and even if Sturgeon held a referendum we would follow the example of our conservative cousins in Spain, the PP, in 2017 and refuse to recognise such a referendum while telling Unionists to boycott it.

    Any Tory minister not focused on the pivotal task of refusing any concessions to the SNP and refusing a legal indyref2 will in my view have to be sacked over the next year due to lack of loyalty (much as ministers who refused to back delivering Brexit were sacked by Boris) as that will be a top priority of the Boris government after May assuming a Nationalist Holyrood majority, though to be fair those quoted in this article were only saying Boris should grant an indyref2 if the Nationalists won 2/3 of MSPs which still looks beyond them

    Kwasi out or has he been down to the No 10 basement for re-education?

    https://twitter.com/zarkwan/status/1367080981233082368?s=21
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Charles said:

    Alistair said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    I'm sure the follow up tweets will have a senior government source saying this is a good thing plus an anti Labour attack line.
    An outrageous story by the BBC. It is Right and Proper that Tory Party donors should be able to avoid paying due taxation during this time of national crisis. Nothing to see here.
    Dyson is offshore for tax reasons. I have my views on that, but it’s not really the issue.

    The government wanted him to come and help.

    If he had come to help he would have upended his tax arrangements

    He pointed this out and they came up with an exception - for everyone - that time spent working on COVID projects didn’t count towards the 90 days for tax residency purposes

    The alternative would have been that Dyson didn’t come to the UK

    Can you explain what is wrong with that sequence of events and decisions?
    Multibillionaire Tory Donor James Dyson not paying taxes like the rest of us.
    But he is.

    Unless you're based overseas and only coming to the UK at the Government's request to provide urgent medical assistance during a pandemic, and are being treated differently despite the rules being changed for everyone not just Dyson. Are you? We demand to know.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487

    eek said:

    Charles said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Would it have been better that we didn’t make this change and he didn’t do the work to try and help out in the pandemic?
    It would have been better to have paid taxes due. Once you establish that helping party donors to avoid paying taxes is in the national interest there is little left to say. Remember that in the same period they have zealously gone after UC claimants to recoup years old money which HMRC had just discovered was paid in error.

    One rule for the little people, another rule for Tory donors. Yet you insist your friends and party are above reproach when it comes to financial standards.
    It's not corporation tax - it was personal income tax.

    And the UK Government was asking these people to come to the UK - it wasn't because they were coming for a personal reasons / a holiday.

    The more I read the story the more I see it for the complete non story. Think about it in reverse, people forced to pay £x in tax because the government is asking their employer to send these named people to solve a UK Government issue? Any sane Company is going to ask for the same before agreeing or telling them where to go.
    How many other business leaders have a direct WhatsApp line into the PM to agree under the table tax deals? Dyson / his company could have recompensated the team the tax they had to pay if he wanted to. As any other company would have to do in the same position.
    The rules were the same for everyone, not just Dyson's engineers.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,465
    eek said:

    moonshine said:

    Well the super league was a fun diversion for a few days.

    Meanwhile in America...

    https://youtu.be/SKsLK_Na7iw

    News bulletin from NBC last week, further softening up of the US public for the biggest story of all time.

    paging @Leon

    It is going to be an unimaginably massive story - but based on 99.9999% speculation. 24 hour rolling news will be mental. "Where is this life in the Universe? Are they more like Alien - or Predator? What will this news do to house prices? We go over now to Meghan Markle for an in-depth interview on what it means for the Royal family....."

    We are going to lose or shit. Be a good time to bury bad news though...

    Things we can't quite explain isn't really prove of aliens from elsewhere...

    That would require metals or compounds no one has a clue how to make or organic matter that has little to do with us.
    Alternatively, signals that have complex repeating message that is not an exotic form of pulsar.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,764

    kjh said:

    Sandpit said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Government moving mountains to get their hands on medical equipment during a global pandemic, really isn't the big story she thinks it is.
    Hang on. Getting the ventilators isn't the issue. Paying tax is. Lets assume a made up number for the tax bill - £500k. Dyson could compensate the employees (and "senior individuals") for the tax paid. And add the £500k on to the contract value if he wanted to.

    We *have* to have tax transparency where foreign-based companies pay due taxes in the UK. Whether they are Tory donors or not.
    That isn't the issue though. Dyson wasn't attempting to profit from it. He just wanted to ensure that the company and staff would not be penalised for overstaying in the UK to achieve a positive aim.

    I have no problem with this. Both Boris and Dyson were trying to do the right thing and didn't want to be caught out by rules not intended for these special circumstances.

    I have campaigned for a defence against against penalties for breaking laws that have unforeseen consequences. We must of all come across 'jobs worths' who have applied rules correctly no matter how irrational they were in the circumstances.

    The only criticism here is it is one rule for Dyson and another for the rest of us because there isn't a defence for the rest of us.
    Dyson and his "senior individuals" can afford to pay a bit of tax for a few weeks. Dyson can afford to compensate his "senior individuals" for the extra tax they have to pay. Or can pass the value onto the contract cost.

    It is no surprise that the usual suspects are trying to say that Tory donors getting the Chancellor and PM to waive them paying tax is a non-story. There is no Tory sleaze, no no no. All entirely above board.
    I think you are wrong here RP just for a change. Remember I am a LD not a Tory so I can't be put in that bracket.

    Having said that I do accept your point re some Tories reaction. To Charles' credit he engaged in debate with you and I agree with him. Mark however just resorted to the frequent argument that Labour are at it as well, as if that is any sort of defence.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    eek said:

    Charles said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Would it have been better that we didn’t make this change and he didn’t do the work to try and help out in the pandemic?
    It would have been better to have paid taxes due. Once you establish that helping party donors to avoid paying taxes is in the national interest there is little left to say. Remember that in the same period they have zealously gone after UC claimants to recoup years old money which HMRC had just discovered was paid in error.

    One rule for the little people, another rule for Tory donors. Yet you insist your friends and party are above reproach when it comes to financial standards.
    It's not corporation tax - it was personal income tax.

    And the UK Government was asking these people to come to the UK - it wasn't because they were coming for a personal reasons / a holiday.

    The more I read the story the more I see it for the complete non story. Think about it in reverse, people forced to pay £x in tax because the government is asking their employer to send these named people to solve a UK Government issue? Any sane Company is going to ask for the same before agreeing or telling them where to go.
    How many other business leaders have a direct WhatsApp line into the PM to agree under the table tax deals? Dyson / his company could have recompensated the team the tax they had to pay if he wanted to. As any other company would have to do in the same position.
    I would imagine every company being directly asked by the PM to urgently come to the UK during a pandemic to help on an issue of life or death.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,937
    ClippP said:

    Of course Johnson grows in popularity. Everything this government says or does has but one objective - into crease Johnson's personal popularity.

    The rights and wrongs of policy decisions do not matter in the slightest. Johnson is concerned with only one person. And his image.

    That is no way to run a country.

    What would be annoying for the fanbois, if they thought about it, is that BoZo is buying his popularity with their money
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    kjh said:

    Sandpit said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Government moving mountains to get their hands on medical equipment during a global pandemic, really isn't the big story she thinks it is.
    Hang on. Getting the ventilators isn't the issue. Paying tax is. Lets assume a made up number for the tax bill - £500k. Dyson could compensate the employees (and "senior individuals") for the tax paid. And add the £500k on to the contract value if he wanted to.

    We *have* to have tax transparency where foreign-based companies pay due taxes in the UK. Whether they are Tory donors or not.
    That isn't the issue though. Dyson wasn't attempting to profit from it. He just wanted to ensure that the company and staff would not be penalised for overstaying in the UK to achieve a positive aim.

    I have no problem with this. Both Boris and Dyson were trying to do the right thing and didn't want to be caught out by rules not intended for these special circumstances.

    I have campaigned for a defence against against penalties for breaking laws that have unforeseen consequences. We must of all come across 'jobs worths' who have applied rules correctly no matter how irrational they were in the circumstances.

    The only criticism here is it is one rule for Dyson and another for the rest of us because there isn't a defence for the rest of us.
    It wasn’t “one rule for Dyson” though - the change applied to everyone
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,937

    You'd rather people die than Boris does his job wouldn't you?

    150,000 people did die.

    That's what happens with a Clown in charge.

    I would rather someone other than BoZo had his job, which might have prevented some of them.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,614
    edited April 2021

    HYUFD said:

    There will not be an indyref2 allowed or recognised by this Tory government. Banning a legal indyref2 even if the SNP win a majority at Holyrood is supported by 62% of Tory voters on that Mori poll and if Boris has to amend the Scotland Act to do so and respect the wishes of his base so be it

    https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/half-uk-public-say-uk-government-should-allow-another-scottish-independence-referendum-if-snp-win-0

    TSE as a non Tory LD voter obviously backs an indyref2 if the SNP win a majority as do 53% of LD voters in the Mori poll and 65% of Labour voters and an unsurprising 91% of SNP voters but tough, we have a Tory majority government with a majority of 80 and what we Tories say goes until 2024, to get indyref2 it would need not only a Nationalist majority in May at Holyrood but also a PM Starmer and Labour led government in 2024, probably reliant on SNP confidence and supply. Until 2024 there will be no binding indyref2 allowed by this Tory government and even if Sturgeon held a referendum we would follow the example of our conservative cousins in Spain, the PP, in 2017 and refuse to recognise such a referendum while telling Unionists to boycott it.

    Any Tory minister not focused on the pivotal task of refusing any concessions to the SNP and refusing a legal indyref2 will in my view have to be sacked over the next year due to lack of loyalty (much as ministers who refused to back delivering Brexit were sacked by Boris) as that will be a top priority of the Boris government after May assuming a Nationalist Holyrood majority, though to be fair those quoted in this article were only saying Boris should grant an indyref2 if the Nationalists won 2/3 of MSPs which still looks beyond them

    Kwasi out or has he been down to the No 10 basement for re-education?

    https://twitter.com/zarkwan/status/1367080981233082368?s=21
    If the Nationalist parties fail to meet the 2/3 threshold of MSPs as is likely but there is still a Nationalist majority in May and Kwasi says that Boris should grant a recognised and binding indyref2 still then I am afraid Kwasi would have to go if he does not respect the PM's line that 2014 was a once in a generation referendum.

    Though to be fair to Kwasi if the Nationalists fail to get a 2/3 majority he could use that and still be roughly in line with his comments at your link to say no legal and recognised indyref2
  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56819137

    As predicted, Johnson couldn’t stay clean for long
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,937
    edited April 2021
    Johnson and Dyson: Where is the line on lobbying government? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56824869
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Would it have been better that we didn’t make this change and he didn’t do the work to try and help out in the pandemic?
    It would have been better to have paid taxes due. Once you establish that helping party donors to avoid paying taxes is in the national interest there is little left to say. Remember that in the same period they have zealously gone after UC claimants to recoup years old money which HMRC had just discovered was paid in error.

    One rule for the little people, another rule for Tory donors. Yet you insist your friends and party are above reproach when it comes to financial standards.
    Taxes due would have been zero if he stayed wherever he lives

    He came to help the UK

    He asked that those days didn’t count towards the 90 day limit

    That really is the sum total of it
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,387
    eek said:

    ClippP said:

    Scott_xP said:

    But then your anti Boris posts are not working

    WTF are you talking about?

    We are commenting on an obscure internet blog, not texting Cabinet Ministers...
    The only point in your posts is to attack Boris while at the same time he grows in popularity

    It must be very annoying
    Of course Johnson grows in popularity. Everything this government says or does has but one objective - into crease Johnson's personal popularity.

    The rights and wrongs of policy decisions do not matter in the slightest. Johnson is concerned with only one person. And his image.

    That is no way to run a country.
    It's the perfect way to run a country until it all comes crashing down (especially if you can time your departure before it actually crashes).
    If he hadn't used the word 'fix' it would probably all have blown over!

    A significant proportion of the population view Johnson as a crook. The rest, I suspect view him as a lovable rogue. The moment when he stops being lovable is when he'll crash and burn.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487
    Scott_xP said:

    Johnson and Dyson: Where is the line on lobbying government? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56824869

    Laura talks more sense when she's endlessly going on about why can't she go on holiday to places riddled with a pandemic virus.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,937
    It was a national emergency. All hands to the pump. so what would a prime minister be texting a patriotic billionaire businessman about, if not tax?
    https://twitter.com/DAaronovitch/status/1384774062518542337
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,937
    DavidL said:

    Boris keeps getting the big decisions right

    150,000 disagree
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Alistair said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    I'm sure the follow up tweets will have a senior government source saying this is a good thing plus an anti Labour attack line.
    An outrageous story by the BBC. It is Right and Proper that Tory Party donors should be able to avoid paying due taxation during this time of national crisis. Nothing to see here.
    Dyson is offshore for tax reasons. I have my views on that, but it’s not really the issue.

    The government wanted him to come and help.

    If he had come to help he would have upended his tax arrangements

    He pointed this out and they came up with an exception - for everyone - that time spent working on COVID projects didn’t count towards the 90 days for tax residency purposes

    The alternative would have been that Dyson didn’t come to the UK

    Can you explain what is wrong with that sequence of events and decisions?
    Multibillionaire Tory Donor James Dyson not paying taxes like the rest of us.
    I don’t like wealthy people moving offshore to save tax. I think they have a moral obligation to contribute to the communities which supported their success.

    Dyson got no special treatment vs anyone else impacted by the 90 day rule
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,465
    Scott_xP said:

    You'd rather people die than Boris does his job wouldn't you?

    150,000 people did die.

    That's what happens with a Clown in charge.

    I would rather someone other than BoZo had his job, which might have prevented some of them.
    Clowns in charge in France too? Germany? Belgium?

    There was a time when you had an impish sense of humour and posted occasional comments, worthy of thought.

    Then came Brexit and you lost your shit.

    Then came Boris too, and you became doubly incontinent.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,240
    edited April 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    It was a national emergency. All hands to the pump. so what would a prime minister be texting a patriotic billionaire businessman about, if not tax?
    https://twitter.com/DAaronovitch/status/1384774062518542337

    Tax was the reason why the people Boris wanted to help thought they were not in a position to help. It was a block that needed to be fixed and removed.

    Equally it's a risky thing to talk about as its very much a topic where only those who are without sin should cast stones.

    And from my reading of IR35 RP has sailed close to the wind recently (I've seen IR35 investigations won by HMRC over less).
  • Let’s play my favourite game: if Labour was in Government would Tories be calling this kind of act with Dyson out?

    Yes they would.

    You have your answer.
  • kjh said:

    I think you are wrong here RP just for a change. Remember I am a LD not a Tory so I can't be put in that bracket.

    Having said that I do accept your point re some Tories reaction. To Charles' credit he engaged in debate with you and I agree with him. Mark however just resorted to the frequent argument that Labour are at it as well, as if that is any sort of defence.

    Perhaps - wouldn't be the first time I was wrong. I don't think that I am though for two reasons:
    1 Dyson had no problem paying the £20m cost in his failed ventilator design "from his own deep pockets". SO a small amount to compensate staff / him for tax was well within the ability of his "deep pockets" to cover
    2 After last week's lobbying scandal, Downing Street put it out that the PM was "shocked" over the behavious of civil servants. Yet here he is directly caught in a scandal where the rules governing how ministers behave - transparent, no conflict of interest, out in the open - has been breached.

    Politically nothing will happen because he is untouchable. It doesn't make the open sewer flowing through government right though.

  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,247
    eek said:

    Charles said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Would it have been better that we didn’t make this change and he didn’t do the work to try and help out in the pandemic?
    It would have been better to have paid taxes due. Once you establish that helping party donors to avoid paying taxes is in the national interest there is little left to say. Remember that in the same period they have zealously gone after UC claimants to recoup years old money which HMRC had just discovered was paid in error.

    One rule for the little people, another rule for Tory donors. Yet you insist your friends and party are above reproach when it comes to financial standards.
    It's not corporation tax - it was personal income tax.

    And the UK Government was asking these people to come to the UK - it wasn't because they were coming for a personal reasons / a holiday.

    The more I read the story the more I see it for the complete non story. Think about it in reverse, people forced to pay £x in tax because the government is asking their employer to send these named people to solve a UK Government issue? Any sane Company is going to ask for the same before agreeing or telling them where to go.
    Once you make an exception for the pandemic where do you draw the line?

    Is an economic crisis sufficient reason to make temporary exceptions to the tax code for the wealthy? Growth below trend?

    Where's the tax rebate for NHS workers?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,614
    edited April 2021

    I do think that the inclusion of Latin makes the OP look like a right Starmer - us plegs don't speak Roman.

    Liar considers himself leader Uber alles. Immaculate. Untouchable. I wholly expect him to go down the tone deaf "I am the PM with a big majority and I am in charge" route. Which only guarantees not only Scotland's departure but almost certainly NI as well.

    Once democracy is the tyranny of the masses in another country it ceases to be democracy at all.

    48% of Northern Irish voters in a poll today want to scrap the NI Protocol and remove the border in the Irish Sea actually to only 46% who want to keep the Protocol and the Irish Sea border (in the Irish Republic by contrast 74% want to keep the Protocol)

    https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/opinion-poll-finds-49-in-ni-would-vote-to-stay-in-uk-40337298.html
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,069
    NI opening up to 35-39 shortly. Interestingly it's behind the rest of the UK on first doses. Indicates demand a bit weaker there than elsewhere I think ?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-56799557
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,294
    IanB2 said:

    CNN: Healthcare and other essential services across India are close to collapse as a second coronavirus wave that started in mid-March tears through the country with devastating speed.

    Graveyards are running out of space, hospitals are turning away patients, and desperate families are pleading for help on social media for beds and medicine.

    India reported 295,041 cases of coronavirus and 2,023 deaths Wednesday, its highest rise in cases and highest death increase recorded in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a CNN tally of figures from the Indian Ministry of Health.

    "The volume is humongous," said Jalil Parkar, a senior pulmonary consultant at the Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, which had to convert its lobby into an additional Covid ward. "It's just like a tsunami."

    "Things are out of control," said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi.
    "There's no oxygen. A hospital bed is hard to find. It's impossible to get a test. You have to wait over a week. And pretty much every system that could break down in the health care system has broken down," he said.

    Probably unfair comment but 295,041 managed to find a test...
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,764
    Charles said:

    kjh said:

    Sandpit said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Government moving mountains to get their hands on medical equipment during a global pandemic, really isn't the big story she thinks it is.
    Hang on. Getting the ventilators isn't the issue. Paying tax is. Lets assume a made up number for the tax bill - £500k. Dyson could compensate the employees (and "senior individuals") for the tax paid. And add the £500k on to the contract value if he wanted to.

    We *have* to have tax transparency where foreign-based companies pay due taxes in the UK. Whether they are Tory donors or not.
    That isn't the issue though. Dyson wasn't attempting to profit from it. He just wanted to ensure that the company and staff would not be penalised for overstaying in the UK to achieve a positive aim.

    I have no problem with this. Both Boris and Dyson were trying to do the right thing and didn't want to be caught out by rules not intended for these special circumstances.

    I have campaigned for a defence against against penalties for breaking laws that have unforeseen consequences. We must of all come across 'jobs worths' who have applied rules correctly no matter how irrational they were in the circumstances.

    The only criticism here is it is one rule for Dyson and another for the rest of us because there isn't a defence for the rest of us.
    It wasn’t “one rule for Dyson” though - the change applied to everyone
    Careful, remember I am agreeing with you! I thought there was a generic issue and a specific issue, but regardless it is a fact of life that some will always have more access than the rest of us and anything that can be done to minimise that is welcome.

    Regardless I agree with you that in this case it isn't an issue.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Let’s play my favourite game: if Labour was in Government would Tories be calling this kind of act with Dyson out?

    Yes they would.

    You have your answer.

    I wouldn’t.

    I have a bad habit of looking at the facts in any individual case and forming a view.

    You have your answer
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,937
    Charles said:

    I would appreciate if you didn’t try to make political capital about of large numbers of individual tragedies.

    And I would be happier if they hadn't happened because people like you wanted a Clown in charge

    You won

    Suck it up
  • Charles said:

    Let’s play my favourite game: if Labour was in Government would Tories be calling this kind of act with Dyson out?

    Yes they would.

    You have your answer.

    I wouldn’t.

    I have a bad habit of looking at the facts in any individual case and forming a view.

    You have your answer
    We’ve been over this before just recently, when your “objectivity” was strangely planted on the side of the Tories.
  • ridaligoridaligo Posts: 174

    eek said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Foxy said:

    I think a further Sindyref inevitable, it is just a matter of timing. Having an outline agreed between Westminster and Holyrood of what Indy Scotland would be like would be a useful lesson to learn from the post Brexit fiasco.

    Which is why it won't happen.

    BoZo can't demand a detailed manifesto after all his bullshit for Brexit
    It must be ever so painful for you that despite all your comments Boris gets more popular by the day and today many European newspapers are blaming him for the collapse of the ESL

    He will wear that badge with pride

    Boris 2 - Europe 0
    I don't think stopping English teams playing in a Super League wins Boris any votes in Scotland.
    Actually the SNP were wholly behind Boris as the ESL would have affected football across the UK
    I'm not sure the SNP knows much about Scottish football ... actually the consensus of opinion on the Scottish football forum that I frequent was cheering on the ESL because it was seen as damaging to the EPL. There is no love for the EPL among ordinary Scottish football fans - they hate it because the parachute payments and trickle down solidarity payments inflate the wages of even "bang average" English 3rd and 4th division players making it impossible for the SPL to compete for talent. When your typical wage is £1K or £2K a week, SPL clubs (outside the big 2) are competing with the likes of Shrewsbury Town for players, which Scottish football fans would consider a diddy team. It's no wonder the SPL is considered a pub league ...
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,679
    kjh said:

    Sandpit said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Government moving mountains to get their hands on medical equipment during a global pandemic, really isn't the big story she thinks it is.
    Hang on. Getting the ventilators isn't the issue. Paying tax is. Lets assume a made up number for the tax bill - £500k. Dyson could compensate the employees (and "senior individuals") for the tax paid. And add the £500k on to the contract value if he wanted to.

    We *have* to have tax transparency where foreign-based companies pay due taxes in the UK. Whether they are Tory donors or not.
    That isn't the issue though. Dyson wasn't attempting to profit from it. He just wanted to ensure that the company and staff would not be penalised for overstaying in the UK to achieve a positive aim.

    I have no problem with this. Both Boris and Dyson were trying to do the right thing and didn't want to be caught out by rules not intended for these special circumstances.

    I have campaigned for a defence against against penalties for breaking laws that have unforeseen consequences. We must of all come across 'jobs worths' who have applied rules correctly no matter how irrational they were in the circumstances.

    The only criticism here is it is one rule for Dyson and another for the rest of us because there isn't a defence for the rest of us.
    You're talking to the wrong person. Rochdale is the jobsworth with a clipboard confiscating your eggs at the border because they were 1 degree to warm.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,835
    Scott_xP said:

    DavidL said:

    Boris keeps getting the big decisions right

    150,000 disagree
    You don't even need to resort to that. He's got almost everything wrong; the only sensible decision he's made is to stay out of vaccine procurement - and only then because our top scientists read him the riot act, knowing he would only f**k it up.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,294

    eek said:

    moonshine said:

    Well the super league was a fun diversion for a few days.

    Meanwhile in America...

    https://youtu.be/SKsLK_Na7iw

    News bulletin from NBC last week, further softening up of the US public for the biggest story of all time.

    paging @Leon

    It is going to be an unimaginably massive story - but based on 99.9999% speculation. 24 hour rolling news will be mental. "Where is this life in the Universe? Are they more like Alien - or Predator? What will this news do to house prices? We go over now to Meghan Markle for an in-depth interview on what it means for the Royal family....."

    We are going to lose or shit. Be a good time to bury bad news though...

    Things we can't quite explain isn't really prove of aliens from elsewhere...

    That would require metals or compounds no one has a clue how to make or organic matter that has little to do with us.
    Alternatively, signals that have complex repeating message that is not an exotic form of pulsar.
    I watched that report from the us. At the end a source was quoted as saying they have much better footage that’s not been released. At which point I say yeah, right. Always the way with these things. Despite the explosion in video and camera technology over the last 30 years we still only ever see blurry images. I’d be delighted if aliens really were among us (assuming Vulcans not predator) but I will believe it when I see it, not based on more project blue book nonsense.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487

    kjh said:

    I think you are wrong here RP just for a change. Remember I am a LD not a Tory so I can't be put in that bracket.

    Having said that I do accept your point re some Tories reaction. To Charles' credit he engaged in debate with you and I agree with him. Mark however just resorted to the frequent argument that Labour are at it as well, as if that is any sort of defence.

    Perhaps - wouldn't be the first time I was wrong. I don't think that I am though for two reasons:
    1 Dyson had no problem paying the £20m cost in his failed ventilator design "from his own deep pockets". SO a small amount to compensate staff / him for tax was well within the ability of his "deep pockets" to cover
    2 After last week's lobbying scandal, Downing Street put it out that the PM was "shocked" over the behavious of civil servants. Yet here he is directly caught in a scandal where the rules governing how ministers behave - transparent, no conflict of interest, out in the open - has been breached.

    Politically nothing will happen because he is untouchable. It doesn't make the open sewer flowing through government right though.

    The situation was as follows, the numbers may of course be slightly different:

    1. British engineer living abroad gets paid £1m a year by Dyson in salary and bonuses.
    2. Dyson volunteers engineer to come to UK for £300 a day, to work on an emergency government project.
    3. Engineer exposes himself to personal tax liability of £440k (income tax on the £1m) if he stays in UK for more than 90 days.
    4. Government agrees to relax the 90 day rule because global pandemic.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Let’s play my favourite game: if Labour was in Government would Tories be calling this kind of act with Dyson out?

    Yes they would.

    You have your answer.

    I wouldn’t.

    I have a bad habit of looking at the facts in any individual case and forming a view.

    You have your answer
    We’ve been over this before just recently, when your “objectivity” was strangely planted on the side of the Tories.
    No - you claim it is.

    In most cases at the moment it’s opponents of the government attacking them on flimsy grounds. I just point out the weaknesses in the attacks. That may come across as one sided but is simply objective.
  • Also, the £2.9 million briefing room, can somebody please justify this?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,835

    Also, the £2.9 million briefing room, can somebody please justify this?

    I see Allegra's being sent off to a new job looking after the climate conference.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,294
    Scott_xP said:

    DavidL said:

    Boris keeps getting the big decisions right

    150,000 disagree
    How many should he have saved? I see nowhere comparable where no one has died.
  • Cocky_cockneyCocky_cockney Posts: 760
    edited April 2021
    Sandpit said:

    My office are all laughing their arses off about the Super League plans collapsing.

    At a time of such polarisation and division in society, it's great to have everyone agree that these scumbag club chairmen trying to sell out the fans - then failing miserably when they underestimated the reaction - is the most brilliant story of the year so far!

    Yes. Although I still come back to the point that few of these same fans were complaining when the rich club chairmen landed them huge glamorous signings and silverware.

    The roots of this lay a long way back.

    Take a club like Man City. Middling to good, decent fan base. Then a huge buyout and MASSIVE injection of overseas funding turned it into something it never was.

    So why the plans for the ESL came as such a shock baffles me. The writing was on the wall and this isn't over yet. I reckon the plans will return in other forms, maybe a drip feed. These owners are big businessmen used to getting their way.

    The days when fans really had a say in the running of these big clubs has, I'm afraid, long gone. Which is why I handed back my season ticket. It's no longer the game I supported from my youth, at least not at that level.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Also, the £2.9 million briefing room, can somebody please justify this?

    Look at the breakdown of costs.

    I have been getting quotes to fit out my place in London with proper WiFi, streaming capability and full AV. You are easily talking well into 6 figures even for a pretty basic offering. I would imagine you need far more capabilities so that the TV providers can operate effectively.

    And then you have everything else involved in refitting a historic building
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,737
    eek said:

    moonshine said:

    Well the super league was a fun diversion for a few days.

    Meanwhile in America...

    https://youtu.be/SKsLK_Na7iw

    News bulletin from NBC last week, further softening up of the US public for the biggest story of all time.

    paging @Leon

    It is going to be an unimaginably massive story - but based on 99.9999% speculation. 24 hour rolling news will be mental. "Where is this life in the Universe? Are they more like Alien - or Predator? What will this news do to house prices? We go over now to Meghan Markle for an in-depth interview on what it means for the Royal family....."

    We are going to lose or shit. Be a good time to bury bad news though...

    Things we can't quite explain isn't really prove of aliens from elsewhere...

    That would require metals or compounds no one has a clue how to make or organic matter that has little to do with us.
    If you know of a metal or compound that can withstand 150Gs in earth’s atmosphere, then there’s a world of materials scientists that would like to hear from you.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677

    Also, the £2.9 million briefing room, can somebody please justify this?

    It's only 0.01% of a track and trace system that doesn't work so don't worry about it.

    People with disabilities still have to pay to park at hospitals though. Perhaps they should send Johnson a text to see if he can "fix" it.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,833
    Trouble is peoples' attention span ain't that great.

    Someone (anyone) helping out in a national emergency, indeed being asked to help by that nation, enquiring if this would mean financial disadvantage (it is one thing giving freely in time of need, it is another paying to do so), and then provoking a sensible rule change that applies to everyone.

    Is fine.

    Tax. Texts. Billionaire. Chums. Sleaze.

    Is what many will take from it.

    If nothing else it proves what a twat BoJo is as he should have outsourced this including the comms to No.23 at the Treasury who would have given the protocol in a dispassionate manner.

    Plus who leaked the texts?!
  • moonshine said:

    eek said:

    moonshine said:

    Well the super league was a fun diversion for a few days.

    Meanwhile in America...

    https://youtu.be/SKsLK_Na7iw

    News bulletin from NBC last week, further softening up of the US public for the biggest story of all time.

    paging @Leon

    It is going to be an unimaginably massive story - but based on 99.9999% speculation. 24 hour rolling news will be mental. "Where is this life in the Universe? Are they more like Alien - or Predator? What will this news do to house prices? We go over now to Meghan Markle for an in-depth interview on what it means for the Royal family....."

    We are going to lose or shit. Be a good time to bury bad news though...

    Things we can't quite explain isn't really prove of aliens from elsewhere...

    That would require metals or compounds no one has a clue how to make or organic matter that has little to do with us.
    If you know of a metal or compound that can withstand 150Gs in earth’s atmosphere, then there’s a world of materials scientists that would like to hear from you.
    We already have that material. It is used to make the tinfoil hats that protect 5g/Covid conspiracy loons from Bill Gates.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,701
    DavidL said:

    ClippP said:

    Scott_xP said:

    But then your anti Boris posts are not working

    WTF are you talking about?

    We are commenting on an obscure internet blog, not texting Cabinet Ministers...
    The only point in your posts is to attack Boris while at the same time he grows in popularity

    It must be very annoying
    Of course Johnson grows in popularity. Everything this government says or does has but one objective - into crease Johnson's personal popularity.

    The rights and wrongs of policy decisions do not matter in the slightest. Johnson is concerned with only one person. And his image.

    That is no way to run a country.
    It is an absolute outrage. Boris keeps getting the big decisions right and what he does is popular leaving those who have an irrational hatred of the man gnashing their teeth in despair. Surely there has to be an ECHR angle to this? Its not fair that people like @Scott_xP and @RochdalePioneers are reduced to complaining about a tax break given to engineers coming to this country to save lives. Its just demeaning for them. Something must be done.
    It is the way it has always been. The less that the hate filled messages of the left get through to voters and the polls..., the nastier the tone becomes. Its the main reason why I could never vote Labour... knowing what scum there is in a significant proportion of the party.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,752

    IanB2 said:

    CNN: Healthcare and other essential services across India are close to collapse as a second coronavirus wave that started in mid-March tears through the country with devastating speed.

    Graveyards are running out of space, hospitals are turning away patients, and desperate families are pleading for help on social media for beds and medicine.

    India reported 295,041 cases of coronavirus and 2,023 deaths Wednesday, its highest rise in cases and highest death increase recorded in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a CNN tally of figures from the Indian Ministry of Health.

    "The volume is humongous," said Jalil Parkar, a senior pulmonary consultant at the Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, which had to convert its lobby into an additional Covid ward. "It's just like a tsunami."

    "Things are out of control," said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi.
    "There's no oxygen. A hospital bed is hard to find. It's impossible to get a test. You have to wait over a week. And pretty much every system that could break down in the health care system has broken down," he said.

    Probably unfair comment but 295,041 managed to find a test...
    Unless they had 100% positivity many times that number. But a health system that creaks in the best of times must be almost unbearably burdened now and additional deaths will be the price. It's tragic. What I never did understand is how they got off so relatively lightly last year. What has changed?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487
    Charles said:

    Also, the £2.9 million briefing room, can somebody please justify this?

    Look at the breakdown of costs.

    I have been getting quotes to fit out my place in London with proper WiFi, streaming capability and full AV. You are easily talking well into 6 figures even for a pretty basic offering. I would imagine you need far more capabilities so that the TV providers can operate effectively.

    And then you have everything else involved in refitting a historic building
    Presumably behind the room we see is a fully-functional TV studio control room, with redundant power, air conditioning, false floor and ceiling for cable runs, outputs for the various TV feeds - all done in a Grade I listed building.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    TOPPING said:

    Trouble is peoples' attention span ain't that great.

    Someone (anyone) helping out in a national emergency, indeed being asked to help by that nation, enquiring if this would mean financial disadvantage (it is one thing giving freely in time of need, it is another paying to do so), and then provoking a sensible rule change that applies to everyone.

    Is fine.

    Tax. Texts. Billionaire. Chums. Sleaze.

    Is what many will take from it.

    If nothing else it proves what a twat BoJo is as he should have outsourced this including the comms to No.23 at the Treasury who would have given the protocol in a dispassionate manner.

    Plus who leaked the texts?!

    That’s what I don’t understand.

    Neither Boris or Dyson look good as a result. But who else had access - the Treasury?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,069
    Jim Steinman's discography - bloody hell. RIP.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,737

    moonshine said:

    eek said:

    moonshine said:

    Well the super league was a fun diversion for a few days.

    Meanwhile in America...

    https://youtu.be/SKsLK_Na7iw

    News bulletin from NBC last week, further softening up of the US public for the biggest story of all time.

    paging @Leon

    It is going to be an unimaginably massive story - but based on 99.9999% speculation. 24 hour rolling news will be mental. "Where is this life in the Universe? Are they more like Alien - or Predator? What will this news do to house prices? We go over now to Meghan Markle for an in-depth interview on what it means for the Royal family....."

    We are going to lose or shit. Be a good time to bury bad news though...

    Things we can't quite explain isn't really prove of aliens from elsewhere...

    That would require metals or compounds no one has a clue how to make or organic matter that has little to do with us.
    If you know of a metal or compound that can withstand 150Gs in earth’s atmosphere, then there’s a world of materials scientists that would like to hear from you.
    We already have that material. It is used to make the tinfoil hats that protect 5g/Covid conspiracy loons from Bill Gates.
    This is still the typical kind of response in this country still. The cracking of British cynicism is going to be amusing to behold.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,891
    IanB2 said:

    Also, the £2.9 million briefing room, can somebody please justify this?

    I see Allegra's being sent off to a new job looking after the climate conference.
    Not sure if she had organising torch lit parades and flegs on her career goals list, but if it puts artisanal sourdough on the table..
  • ridaligoridaligo Posts: 174
    Sandpit said:

    kjh said:

    I think you are wrong here RP just for a change. Remember I am a LD not a Tory so I can't be put in that bracket.

    Having said that I do accept your point re some Tories reaction. To Charles' credit he engaged in debate with you and I agree with him. Mark however just resorted to the frequent argument that Labour are at it as well, as if that is any sort of defence.

    Perhaps - wouldn't be the first time I was wrong. I don't think that I am though for two reasons:
    1 Dyson had no problem paying the £20m cost in his failed ventilator design "from his own deep pockets". SO a small amount to compensate staff / him for tax was well within the ability of his "deep pockets" to cover
    2 After last week's lobbying scandal, Downing Street put it out that the PM was "shocked" over the behavious of civil servants. Yet here he is directly caught in a scandal where the rules governing how ministers behave - transparent, no conflict of interest, out in the open - has been breached.

    Politically nothing will happen because he is untouchable. It doesn't make the open sewer flowing through government right though.

    The situation was as follows, the numbers may of course be slightly different:

    1. British engineer living abroad gets paid £1m a year by Dyson in salary and bonuses.
    2. Dyson volunteers engineer to come to UK for £300 a day, to work on an emergency government project.
    3. Engineer exposes himself to personal tax liability of £440k (income tax on the £1m) if he stays in UK for more than 90 days.
    4. Government agrees to relax the 90 day rule because global pandemic.
    Exactly ... and our dopey journalists have a duty to understand this and report the facts.

    This is not Tory donor getting a bung ... this is company trying to do the right thing during a national crisis and making sure their employees are not personally screwed over for volunteering to help.
  • kjh said:

    I think you are wrong here RP just for a change. Remember I am a LD not a Tory so I can't be put in that bracket.

    Having said that I do accept your point re some Tories reaction. To Charles' credit he engaged in debate with you and I agree with him. Mark however just resorted to the frequent argument that Labour are at it as well, as if that is any sort of defence.

    Perhaps - wouldn't be the first time I was wrong. I don't think that I am though for two reasons:
    1 Dyson had no problem paying the £20m cost in his failed ventilator design "from his own deep pockets". SO a small amount to compensate staff / him for tax was well within the ability of his "deep pockets" to cover
    2 After last week's lobbying scandal, Downing Street put it out that the PM was "shocked" over the behavious of civil servants. Yet here he is directly caught in a scandal where the rules governing how ministers behave - transparent, no conflict of interest, out in the open - has been breached.

    Politically nothing will happen because he is untouchable. It doesn't make the open sewer flowing through government right though.

    I think the point which has been made on here by @Charles and others is that there is nothing in this story to suggest Boris has done anything wrong in his dealing with Dyson

    There are certainly legitimate issues to attack Boris on, but it is sensible for his critics to choose the correct story rather than everything Boris does is a 'gotcha' moment
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56819137

    As predicted, Johnson couldn’t stay clean for long

    Perfectly clean.

    You ask someone to help out during a pandemic it's entirely reasonable to have a conversation on how to fix any issues that results in.

    Dyson lost money on this project, it wasn't a scam. He did it to help us out.

    A "thank you" would be more appropriate.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,937
    “Such is the backlog of Johnson scandals that reporters are still asking about ones from when he was London Mayor, five years ago. We’re hoping to get to 2020’s scandals in about 18 months.”
    @RobDotHutton https://thecritic.co.uk/handle-this-situation-maturely/
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    Scott_xP said:

    Charles said:

    I would appreciate if you didn’t try to make political capital about of large numbers of individual tragedies.

    And I would be happier if they hadn't happened because people like you wanted a Clown in charge

    You won

    Suck it up
    You are coming across as borderline insane. Did individual tragedies not happen in Wales, or in Scotland, or in N. Ireland -- or in all the countries of Europe?

    ----

    Perhaps it is obvious -- but it has begun to dawn on me quite how long & complicated a Public Inquiry into Covid will be. It really is an incredibly complex matter, with many different sub-strands (care homes, SAGE, modelling, PPE, vaccines, lockdown timings, NHS resources). It has took at look at measures in all 4 countries in the UK, as well as carry out comparisons with the response in other countries

    The Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday took 12 years -- it is infamous for its excessive length and cost. And it was looking at the events that led to the death of 13 people on one afternoon on Sunday 30 January 1972.

    I can't see the COVID Public Inquiry being shorter than this. It is going to run for more than a decade.

    So, maybe @Scott_xP should run the Inquiry.

    At least it will be cheap & fast. "The Clown Did it" . We'll save millions on judges and lawyers.😀
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,937
    ridaligo said:

    This is not Tory donor getting a bung ...

    It really is though.

    Text to the PM not about manufacturing, or requirements, or distribution, or lead times.

    It's about Tax
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,937

    At least it will be cheap & fast. "The Clown Did it" . We'll save millions on judges and lawyers.😀

    Perhaps the fanbois should run it?

    "But he's popular" is all it would need...
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,752

    Sandpit said:

    My office are all laughing their arses off about the Super League plans collapsing.

    At a time of such polarisation and division in society, it's great to have everyone agree that these scumbag club chairmen trying to sell out the fans - then failing miserably when they underestimated the reaction - is the most brilliant story of the year so far!

    Yes. Although I still come back to the point that few of these same fans were complaining when the rich club chairmen landed them huge glamorous signings and silverware.

    The roots of this lay a long way back.

    Take a club like Man City. Middling to good, decent fan base. Then a huge buyout and MASSIVE injection of overseas funding turned it into something it never was.

    So why the plans for the ESL came as such a shock baffles me. The writing was on the wall and this isn't over yet. I reckon the plans will return in other forms, maybe a drip feed. These owners are big businessmen used to getting their way.

    The days when fans really had a say in the running of these big clubs has, I'm afraid, long gone. Which is why I handed back my season ticket. It's no longer the game I supported from my youth, at least not at that level.
    Indeed and the unreality goes on. We like the German model of fan ownership. So where are the fans going to get $1.25bn- $1,5bn to acquire half of Man Utd, for example? The idea seems to be that they should be given these shares because they wear a replica shirt.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,835

    Scott_xP said:

    DavidL said:

    Boris keeps getting the big decisions right

    150,000 disagree
    How many should he have saved? I see nowhere comparable where no one has died.
    Our deaths figure is likely to be at the worse end of the table, simply because of the big mistake made with care homes back at the beginning of the crisis. But on cases, we're now mid table and if these third waves pick up around the world, could end up in the better half of the statistics. Whereas our headstart on vaccine supply gave us a one-off advantage, it looks like it'll be our very low levels of vaccine hesitancy, compared to both the US and Europe, that could prove decisive.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,689
    edited April 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    Charles said:

    I would appreciate if you didn’t try to make political capital about of large numbers of individual tragedies.

    And I would be happier if they hadn't happened because people like you wanted a Clown in charge

    You won

    Suck it up
    Every time I feel sad about the state of the country, I thank my lucky stars I voted for Boris. Because otherwise* Corbyn would be in charge. Could you imagine the carnage we might be going through now if the result had been otherwise? Boris might not have been exactly my preferred flavour of politician, but thank God Corbyn's not in charge.

    To be clear, I think the handling of the pandemic has been disastrous. Not because of the number of people who have died - my view is that from a death toll point of view that would have happened, give or take a margin or error, whichever path we had taken from a roadmap based on sanity - but on the damage which has been done to the economy and the country's democratic institutions. But would it have been better with Corbyn? You have been driven insane by your hatred for Boris if you think so.

    Alternatively, maybe you can concoct a counterfactual (note: you can't) whereby Labour had managed to have a non-insane leader like, say, Kier Starmer who ended up in charge of the country. He would have made exactly the same decision at each point of the pandemic, dully following sage advice almost all of the time as this lot have done. Don't delude yourself otherwise.

    (Would he have had the confidence to go it alone on vaccine procurement? Let's give him some credit and say possibly he would. Perhaps.)




    *of course not otherwise. My vote made no difference in my safe Labour constituency or nationwide. But you get the gist.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487
    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This is not Tory donor getting a bung ...

    It really is though.

    Text to the PM not about manufacturing, or requirements, or distribution, or lead times.

    It's about Tax
    Because he's the politician. Dyson knows all about answering questions regarding manufacturing, requirements, distribution and lead times, but tax is a question for the guy in charge of the Treasury.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,553
    Pulpstar said:

    NI opening up to 35-39 shortly. Interestingly it's behind the rest of the UK on first doses. Indicates demand a bit weaker there than elsewhere I think ?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-56799557

    Or the populations is lower than it was believed to be.
  • kjh said:

    I think you are wrong here RP just for a change. Remember I am a LD not a Tory so I can't be put in that bracket.

    Having said that I do accept your point re some Tories reaction. To Charles' credit he engaged in debate with you and I agree with him. Mark however just resorted to the frequent argument that Labour are at it as well, as if that is any sort of defence.

    Perhaps - wouldn't be the first time I was wrong. I don't think that I am though for two reasons:
    1 Dyson had no problem paying the £20m cost in his failed ventilator design "from his own deep pockets". SO a small amount to compensate staff / him for tax was well within the ability of his "deep pockets" to cover
    2 After last week's lobbying scandal, Downing Street put it out that the PM was "shocked" over the behavious of civil servants. Yet here he is directly caught in a scandal where the rules governing how ministers behave - transparent, no conflict of interest, out in the open - has been breached.

    Politically nothing will happen because he is untouchable. It doesn't make the open sewer flowing through government right though.

    I think the point which has been made on here by @Charles and others is that there is nothing in this story to suggest Boris has done anything wrong in his dealing with Dyson

    There are certainly legitimate issues to attack Boris on, but it is sensible for his critics to choose the correct story rather than everything Boris does is a 'gotcha' moment
    Before I get boring I will move on. If nothing else it is food for thought for "Laura is a Tory like the rest of the BBC" critics. Remember that this is a BBC scoop not something that I have picked up off Skwarkbox. Perhaps Kuenssberg has completely misread the ministerial code when reporting this latest outrage? Perhaps not.

    The problem with *any* story that isn't football at the moment is that very few people will pay attention. It truly is a good week to bury bad news.

    To answer @Charles above perhaps the leak has been deliberately let out now so that it gets buried?
  • ridaligoridaligo Posts: 174

    Sandpit said:

    My office are all laughing their arses off about the Super League plans collapsing.

    At a time of such polarisation and division in society, it's great to have everyone agree that these scumbag club chairmen trying to sell out the fans - then failing miserably when they underestimated the reaction - is the most brilliant story of the year so far!

    Yes. Although I still come back to the point that few of these same fans were complaining when the rich club chairmen landed them huge glamorous signings and silverware.

    The roots of this lay a long way back.

    Take a club like Man City. Middling to good, decent fan base. Then a huge buyout and MASSIVE injection of overseas funding turned it into something it never was.

    So why the plans for the ESL came as such a shock baffles me. The writing was on the wall and this isn't over yet. I reckon the plans will return in other forms, maybe a drip feed. These owners are big businessmen used to getting their way.

    The days when fans really had a say in the running of these big clubs has, I'm afraid, long gone. Which is why I handed back my season ticket. It's no longer the game I supported from my youth, at least not at that level.
    That's my view. This hasn't gone away. It'll come back in some form. The media will laud "people power" for killing it but it seems clear to me it was the threat of immediate legislation that scuppered it for now.

    Let's see in the coming seasons which 12 teams are more or less permanent features in the latter stage of whatever the CL looks like.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,249
    kjh said:

    kjh said:

    Sandpit said:

    Blimey, if even Kuenssberg is tweeting about it..

    https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384735522556362755?s=21

    Government moving mountains to get their hands on medical equipment during a global pandemic, really isn't the big story she thinks it is.
    Hang on. Getting the ventilators isn't the issue. Paying tax is. Lets assume a made up number for the tax bill - £500k. Dyson could compensate the employees (and "senior individuals") for the tax paid. And add the £500k on to the contract value if he wanted to.

    We *have* to have tax transparency where foreign-based companies pay due taxes in the UK. Whether they are Tory donors or not.
    That isn't the issue though. Dyson wasn't attempting to profit from it. He just wanted to ensure that the company and staff would not be penalised for overstaying in the UK to achieve a positive aim.

    I have no problem with this. Both Boris and Dyson were trying to do the right thing and didn't want to be caught out by rules not intended for these special circumstances.

    I have campaigned for a defence against against penalties for breaking laws that have unforeseen consequences. We must of all come across 'jobs worths' who have applied rules correctly no matter how irrational they were in the circumstances.

    The only criticism here is it is one rule for Dyson and another for the rest of us because there isn't a defence for the rest of us.
    Dyson and his "senior individuals" can afford to pay a bit of tax for a few weeks. Dyson can afford to compensate his "senior individuals" for the extra tax they have to pay. Or can pass the value onto the contract cost.

    It is no surprise that the usual suspects are trying to say that Tory donors getting the Chancellor and PM to waive them paying tax is a non-story. There is no Tory sleaze, no no no. All entirely above board.
    I think you are wrong here RP just for a change. Remember I am a LD not a Tory so I can't be put in that bracket.

    Having said that I do accept your point re some Tories reaction. To Charles' credit he engaged in debate with you and I agree with him. Mark however just resorted to the frequent argument that Labour are at it as well, as if that is any sort of defence.
    Yeah this is one of those rare examples of Boris & team not being corrupt. A real collectors item.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,294
    IanB2 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    DavidL said:

    Boris keeps getting the big decisions right

    150,000 disagree
    How many should he have saved? I see nowhere comparable where no one has died.
    Our deaths figure is likely to be at the worse end of the table, simply because of the big mistake made with care homes back at the beginning of the crisis. But on cases, we're now mid table and if these third waves pick up around the world, could end up in the better half of the statistics. Whereas our headstart on vaccine supply gave us a one-off advantage, it looks like it'll be our very low levels of vaccine hesitancy, compared to both the US and Europe, that could prove decisive.
    I also think we have been remarkably 'honest' in our deaths reporting. Excess deaths tells a different story. I am not claiming we have done ''well' whatever that means. We have made enormous wrong calls, not least the care homes as you say (although I think that partly lies at the hands of hospitals trying to clear the decks in advance, trying to avoid what they had seen from Italy).
    The issue with the inevitable inquiry will be that people have already made up their minds.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,741
    Mr. Charles, my condolences.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,937
    Cookie said:

    Alternatively, maybe you can concoct a counterfactual (note: you can't) whereby Labour had managed to have a non-insane leader like, say, Kier Starmer ending up in charge of the country.

    No, but you can absolutely concoct a counterfactual where a Tory other than BoZo won the leadership election, or one where BoZo was removed by a Tory party that cared about the fact he is a Clown.

    There were other paths less disastrous than the one the fanbois continue to cheer.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,240
    Sandpit said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This is not Tory donor getting a bung ...

    It really is though.

    Text to the PM not about manufacturing, or requirements, or distribution, or lead times.

    It's about Tax
    Because he's the politician. Dyson knows all about answering questions regarding manufacturing, requirements, distribution and lead times, but tax is a question for the guy in charge of the Treasury.
    and the tax question is the Block - answer the question one way and Dyson can help onshore, answer another way and the Dyson needs to work out if the work can be done remotely or whether it's best not to bother at all.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,174
    Charles said:

    TOPPING said:

    Trouble is peoples' attention span ain't that great.

    Someone (anyone) helping out in a national emergency, indeed being asked to help by that nation, enquiring if this would mean financial disadvantage (it is one thing giving freely in time of need, it is another paying to do so), and then provoking a sensible rule change that applies to everyone.

    Is fine.

    Tax. Texts. Billionaire. Chums. Sleaze.

    Is what many will take from it.

    If nothing else it proves what a twat BoJo is as he should have outsourced this including the comms to No.23 at the Treasury who would have given the protocol in a dispassionate manner.

    Plus who leaked the texts?!

    That’s what I don’t understand.

    Neither Boris or Dyson look good as a result. But who else had access - the Treasury?
    That's a good point; happy governments don't leak. Unless yesterday was seen as a good day to bury bad news.

    As for the substantive issue, the key thing is that businessmen based in tax havens are an irregular noun.

    I am a global businessman.
    You are a tax exile.
    He is a tax dodging citizen of nowhere.

    I'm sure a better solution to reach the same endpoint could have been found. But mates of the government expecting mates rates from the government is a story developing traction. And even if there was quite a lot of justification here, a government complaining about being surrounded by politically motivated attacks is like a fish complaining about being surrounded by water.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,553
    So the Boris haters are obsessing about another irrelevance.

    While continuing to ignore the huge open goal of border control.

    Truly Boris is fortunate in the incompetent derangement of those who hate him.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    TOPPING said:



    Tax. Texts. Billionaire. Chums. Sleaze.

    Is what many will take from it.

    This is the point. Pile it on.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,679
    DavidL said:

    Sandpit said:

    My office are all laughing their arses off about the Super League plans collapsing.

    At a time of such polarisation and division in society, it's great to have everyone agree that these scumbag club chairmen trying to sell out the fans - then failing miserably when they underestimated the reaction - is the most brilliant story of the year so far!

    Yes. Although I still come back to the point that few of these same fans were complaining when the rich club chairmen landed them huge glamorous signings and silverware.

    The roots of this lay a long way back.

    Take a club like Man City. Middling to good, decent fan base. Then a huge buyout and MASSIVE injection of overseas funding turned it into something it never was.

    So why the plans for the ESL came as such a shock baffles me. The writing was on the wall and this isn't over yet. I reckon the plans will return in other forms, maybe a drip feed. These owners are big businessmen used to getting their way.

    The days when fans really had a say in the running of these big clubs has, I'm afraid, long gone. Which is why I handed back my season ticket. It's no longer the game I supported from my youth, at least not at that level.
    Indeed and the unreality goes on. We like the German model of fan ownership. So where are the fans going to get $1.25bn- $1,5bn to acquire half of Man Utd, for example? The idea seems to be that they should be given these shares because they wear a replica shirt.
    Tbh, I think the fans could probably raise the money. It may seem crazy but ultimately the number of fans who would want to invest up to £10k in their club is quite a big number. Spurs have got a three year waiting list for season tickets which start at £1k, cast the net wide enough and I don't think it would be difficult. At least for Man United, Spurs and Arsenal where there are probably quite a few very wealthy fans who would want to own part of the club and benefit from that investment over the long term. It's almost worth creating a Spac, having the fans invest in it and then approaching the club for a buyout or reverse merger.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,487
    Scott_xP said:

    Cookie said:

    Alternatively, maybe you can concoct a counterfactual (note: you can't) whereby Labour had managed to have a non-insane leader like, say, Kier Starmer ending up in charge of the country.

    No, but you can absolutely concoct a counterfactual where a Tory other than BoZo won the leadership election, or one where BoZo was removed by a Tory party that cared about the fact he is a Clown.

    There were other paths less disastrous than the one the fanbois continue to cheer.
    The reason we have the PM we do now, is because the hardcore Remoaners couldn't bring themselves to vote for Mrs May's deal.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,247

    Pulpstar said:

    NI opening up to 35-39 shortly. Interestingly it's behind the rest of the UK on first doses. Indicates demand a bit weaker there than elsewhere I think ?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-56799557

    Or the populations is lower than it was believed to be.
    Believe the population is younger on the island of Ireland.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,387
    DavidL said:

    Sandpit said:

    My office are all laughing their arses off about the Super League plans collapsing.

    At a time of such polarisation and division in society, it's great to have everyone agree that these scumbag club chairmen trying to sell out the fans - then failing miserably when they underestimated the reaction - is the most brilliant story of the year so far!

    Yes. Although I still come back to the point that few of these same fans were complaining when the rich club chairmen landed them huge glamorous signings and silverware.

    The roots of this lay a long way back.

    Take a club like Man City. Middling to good, decent fan base. Then a huge buyout and MASSIVE injection of overseas funding turned it into something it never was.

    So why the plans for the ESL came as such a shock baffles me. The writing was on the wall and this isn't over yet. I reckon the plans will return in other forms, maybe a drip feed. These owners are big businessmen used to getting their way.

    The days when fans really had a say in the running of these big clubs has, I'm afraid, long gone. Which is why I handed back my season ticket. It's no longer the game I supported from my youth, at least not at that level.
    Indeed and the unreality goes on. We like the German model of fan ownership. So where are the fans going to get $1.25bn- $1,5bn to acquire half of Man Utd, for example? The idea seems to be that they should be given these shares because they wear a replica shirt.
    That ship has, perhaps sadly, sailed. One can only do that sort at the start, not rewind and have another go. And the one club that did it, Ebbsfleet, cannot be called a shining example.
This discussion has been closed.