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
Who was invited to join from Scotland then, or who would have been impacted.
It would have devalued the Champions League and Europa League which Rangers and Celtic qualify for most years and the television sponsorship of a diminished Champions League would have been severely curtailed reducing income to clubs
If the ESL had been a success UEFA competitions would have been downgraded to a side show and of course Rangers and Celtic would not have been part of the ESL
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Because "his mates" are experts in their field who were offering to help the country not for profit. 🤦♂️
During a pandemic it isn't wise to turn down offers to help from those who know what they're talking about. Especially when they're doing so not for profit.
Of all the things to whinge about, this is scraping the barrel.
I understand No 11 was uneasy about what Dyson was asking for, and it's suggested they had quite deliberately not responded to his firm's requests before Sir James himself then texted Johnson directly about the tax issue https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384807616367452160
Boris was clear in his prezzer yesterday that he expects a third wave in the Autumn and was once again clear that we are going to have to learn to live with Covid, we will not eliminate it. The controversial vaccine certificate scheme was being floated as a possible way of facilitating some of that living. but not in a way that Boris couldn't tiptoe back from if it proves unpopular. So I think in this case the messaging is now pretty much aligned with reality as best as we can judge it. The BBC commented that early in the pandemic Boris had consistently focused on the upside and the possible and had used the word "alas" a lot in subsequent presentations. The consensus was that was no longer the case and he is being more cautious.
The scientists seem clear that Covid isn't going to miraculously disappear on 21st June as billed. When restrictions carry on an awful lot of people who take the PM at face value (helped along by the friendly press) are going to be mightily pissed off.
We're 13 months into this, and I wouldn't be surprised if another year down the line we aren't still enjoying Covid restrictions of some kind. I hope not, but hope isn't enough, nor is mass vaccination of the UK population against the existing strain.
Realistically there's not a huge amount more that we can do to protect ourselves after we've all been double-dosed. And, the vaccines work so well that the worst-case scenario for Covid will then be a lot less severe than a bad flu season.
So there's no justification for any (domestic) restrictions at that point. We get vaccinated and then the Emergency (at least domestically) is over - though of course the public health professionals will keep working on reducing the risks further with boosters against variants, etc.
I'd keep travel restrictions until other countries are also vaccinated. Apart from anything else it would provide more motivation to us to help that happen as quickly as possible.
I agree with you up to a point - though blocking people from travelling abroad on holiday will be seen as a domestic restriction!
I understand No 11 was uneasy about what Dyson was asking for, and it's suggested they had quite deliberately not responded to his firm's requests before Sir James himself then texted Johnson directly about the tax issue https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384807616367452160
I'm told Sunak did not and has never had any personal contact with Sir James Dyson
Sunak is clearly a naive angry youngster, or something.
And of course, Treasury set precedent a few weeks ago when they published Sunak's texts to David Cameron about Greensill - we have asked No 10 if they will do the same with Johnson's texts to Dyson https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384808261669507073
That may well answer the question of who is leaking this stuff
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Weren't we pursuing all avenues as it was? There's not exactly a glut of similar companies with the right sort of expertise, even in this country.
A variety of avenues were tried. The main issue was that standard ventilators are not produced in massive assembly line, so trying to get an existing manufacturer to make 10,000 was simply not possible.
The existing designs weren't amenable to mass production, so this is where efforts such as Dyson's came in - a design that would be mass produceable.
I think that at one point, there were something like a dozen efforts in parallel - produce more of the traditional ventilators, create a mass produceable one, create new devices to do a similar job etc.
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
That's a lot closer than I expected it to be and who the fuck is Omilana?
All I know about Omilana is that she's the only candidate who couldn't or wouldn't stump up £10k to get her profile into the info booklet that gets sent to all voters. So either she's super hard up for cash, or has zero expectations of winning and isn't really trying, or assumes none of her likely voters can read so needs to reach them in other ways.
I understand No 11 was uneasy about what Dyson was asking for, and it's suggested they had quite deliberately not responded to his firm's requests before Sir James himself then texted Johnson directly about the tax issue https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384807616367452160
I'm told Sunak did not and has never had any personal contact with Sir James Dyson
Sorry, but nobody who is remotely fair minded has an issue with this one.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Weren't we pursuing all avenues as it was? There's not exactly a glut of similar companies with the right sort of expertise, even in this country.
There is not a glut, but there were companies that actually have the expertise that were ignored so they could pretend a vacuum cleaner company could make a ventilator that was not proven it wouldn't kill people -devices need to go through regulatory processes to demonstrate efficacy in a similar way to a drug. It was fucking ignorant.
1. As the government are not going to underwrite the huge debt football is now in, torpedoing footballs best money making schemes out of that debt is a courageous political decision.
Why aren't they? That would be #classicjohnson.
Watch the money flood out of English football now.
And watch Lineker and co wailing then about where all the investors have gone......wah wah.
Well you and those idiots Johnson and Dowden turned their assets into 'temporary custodianship'.
So be it were that the case.
But it won't be as the Premier League is the premier league around the world for a reason.
We'll see.
The Prem is the prem chiefly because it has a good share of the world's best players.
Watch them take a hike when the money runs out.
And watch the same loudmouths protesting about how its their club wailing about that when the time comes.
It seems to be the Spanish and Italian clubs that are in more serious financial difficulties, while English clubs are more profitable, because of the greater global appeal of the Premier League.
Where is the money that will take players out of the Premier League?
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
You have an army of experienced electrical equipment designers familiar with Dyson's technology and the rest in your Cornflake packet? Impressive .
In the end it went nowhere, and the demand for wotsit-machines was reduced ... so they were not needed.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
I think the bigger scandal of this is not todays story but the real story that has never been covered and that was that anyone who knows anything about medical devices knows that you don't ask a vacuum cleaner or digger manufacturer to make medical devices. It is as dumb as suggesting a brewing company should make vaccines. Time was wasted on giving publicity to companies that were run by Brexit supporting cronies of Boris Johnson when proper medical device companies that had capacity and knowhow with respect to Class 2 and Class 3 regulated medical devices were ignored. I was apoplectic about it then and I still am now.
The most effective devices - which ended up invalidating the idea of mass producing traditional ventilators - were produced by an F1 engineering team.
One of the best videos to come out of the pandemic last year:
10,000 CPAP machines manufactured and delivered, from backwards-engineering an existing single old device, in less than a month.
Then they open-sourced the whole project, down to the program files for the CNC machines, and there's now several dozen countries where they are being produced. Well done Mercedes
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
No mismanagement since they did this scheme in parallel with other schemes. The one that worked and made this one redundant was from a Formula 1 company.
Its like the vaccine project all over again. Don't pick one horse and run with it - back them all and see which works.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
I think the bigger scandal of this is not todays story but the real story that has never been covered and that was that anyone who knows anything about medical devices knows that you don't ask a vacuum cleaner or digger manufacturer to make medical devices. It is as dumb as suggesting a brewing company should make vaccines. Time was wasted on giving publicity to companies that were run by Brexit supporting cronies of Boris Johnson when proper medical device companies that had capacity and knowhow with respect to Class 2 and Class 3 regulated medical devices were ignored. I was apoplectic about it then and I still am now.
The most effective devices - which ended up invalidating the idea of mass producing traditional ventilators - were produced by an F1 engineering team.
One of the best videos to come out of the pandemic last year:
10,000 CPAP machines manufactured and delivered, from backwards-engineering an existing single old device, in less than a month.
Then they open-sourced the whole project, down to the program files for the CNC machines, and there's now several dozen countries where they are being produced. Well done Mercedes
I wonder if Mercedes billed the government to compensate them for their employees' lost time?
That's a lot closer than I expected it to be and who the fuck is Omilana?
If it is accurate it suggests the shine is fially coming off Khan and revealing the vacuum beneath. I think the tories may actually be up a little and now that boris has saved football whoi knows what is to come.......
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
Philip , stop digging and just accept they are greedy grasping Fcukwits and had no interest in doing good, they wanted to make more money and avoid tax. How anyone can try to justify it is unbelievable.
Tories regretting not putting out a halfway capable candidate now. Stewart as the Tory would have won this given the vaccination boost.
Dunno, I read that as meaning that by the final round, any Tory candidate would really struggle unless they are at more or less 50% up front. Presumably Boris used to get LibDem transfers.
The Khan vote is pretty soft. I will probably vote Poritt or Berry 1st pref and Khan 2nd pref but Stewart would have been a clear 1st pref. Stewart is a good campaigner and would allow Tories to get both remain and leave voters here.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Because "his mates" are experts in their field who were offering to help the country not for profit. 🤦♂️
During a pandemic it isn't wise to turn down offers to help from those who know what they're talking about. Especially when they're doing so not for profit.
Of all the things to whinge about, this is scraping the barrel.
Oh for fucks sake Philip. I have suggested you try commenting on things you have knowledge of before, but I can not think of any time it has been more applicable. They might be experts in "their" field, but a vacuum cleaner or a digger is not a fucking ventilator. This was pure and simple cronyism or incompetence on a grand scale or both. Take your pick.
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
The issue was creating a mass production capable design. The existing manufacturers don't do mass production - the demand is too low.
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
No mismanagement since they did this scheme in parallel with other schemes. The one that worked and made this one redundant was from a Formula 1 company.
Its like the vaccine project all over again. Don't pick one horse and run with it - back them all and see which works.
To an extent, yes, and to be fair I'd cut the government quite a lot of slack on this. At the time, getting enough ventilators looked like a critical and extremely urgent requirement, although in the end it wasn't. Nonetheless, it does seem that insufficient attention was given to the existing, experienced manufacturers.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Weren't we pursuing all avenues as it was? There's not exactly a glut of similar companies with the right sort of expertise, even in this country.
They had no experience and as proved came up with square root of F all, Patients did not need the floors cleaned. Greedy barstewards.
That's a lot closer than I expected it to be and who the fuck is Omilana?
All I know about Omilana is that she's the only candidate who couldn't or wouldn't stump up £10k to get her profile into the info booklet that gets sent to all voters. So either she's super hard up for cash, or has zero expectations of winning and isn't really trying, or assumes none of her likely voters can read so needs to reach them in other ways.
Either way, 5% sounds... high.
Omalina is a he, as it turns out. Some YouTube meme candidate.
I'm happy to put this matter behind us now. FSG still have my respect, they made a mistake and they've apologised.
If Donald Trump apologised for leading an attempted coup against the USA, would that be enough for you?
If he apologised I would be taken aback and impressed. He doesn't have that in him.
But its a completely different matter, a coup is an illegal criminal and deadly act that saw people die.
Setting up a new sporting competition, on the lines of sporting competitions around the world that they're used to that nobody objects to over there . . . it was a cultural difference. I suspect they didn't understand or realise the significance of the footballing pyramid or what it means. Now they do.
It was a mistake, a mistake borne not from malice but from cultural differences. Should we really hold a grudge over that?
Do me a fucking favour. Cultural differences? No, just no.
If you don't think its a cultural difference you don't understand American sport at all.
The Red Sox finished bottom of their division last year, the Yankees are at the bottom of it right now, tell an American that means that the Red Sox or the Yankees should be relegated from the top of sport and they will look at you like you're having a stroke and speaking gibberish.
A lot of people straight away said this was an American import - and its been rejected swiftly.
Most Americans right now if they've heard about this story will be confused about what the big deal is and why it was a problem.
Sometimes America and England can be alike but on some issues we are very, very different. Yes it is a cultural difference and you're very conceited if you think there's no difference between America and England.
They made a mistake and have learnt their lesson.
Don't lecture me on US sports, I know exactly how it works. What was being proposed in the ESL was nothing like US sports. No draft, no preferential fixture list, no nothing. This was all about bailing out Real and Barca, and the Yanks thought they could make a pretty penny.
They've all been here long enough to understand how our system works. Don't pretend that they don't.
Relegation has never been an issue at the forefront of Liverpool's mind. I really don't think they did think about it in the way we would.
To us the concept of a league without relegation is alien, but to them its entirely natural and never in their time with the club have Liverpool had to battle relegation.
Err, you do realise Liverpool are in danger of being relegated this season?
I know they're below West Ham, but there's no danger of anything worse.
That's the point. West Ham! In the Champions League!
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Weren't we pursuing all avenues as it was? There's not exactly a glut of similar companies with the right sort of expertise, even in this country.
There is not a glut, but there were companies that actually have the expertise that were ignored so they could pretend a vacuum cleaner company could make a ventilator that was not proven it wouldn't kill people -devices need to go through regulatory processes to demonstrate efficacy in a similar way to a drug. It was fucking ignorant.
Yes because what could an engineering company with knowledge of engineering possibly know about engineering eh?
A challenge was set to all who could try and do it and many rose to the challenge. It was open to everyone and yes some companies not normally associated with medicine and more associated with vaccuums or Formula 1 took part.
If it was up to you then I suppose Formula 1 companies wouldn't have been able to take part in the challenge either?
That's a lot closer than I expected it to be and who the fuck is Omilana?
All I know about Omilana is that she's the only candidate who couldn't or wouldn't stump up £10k to get her profile into the info booklet that gets sent to all voters. So either she's super hard up for cash, or has zero expectations of winning and isn't really trying, or assumes none of her likely voters can read so needs to reach them in other ways.
Either way, 5% sounds... high.
I know these things are more confusing now but surely she is a he? Reaches them through youtube.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Weren't we pursuing all avenues as it was? There's not exactly a glut of similar companies with the right sort of expertise, even in this country.
There is not a glut, but there were companies that actually have the expertise that were ignored so they could pretend a vacuum cleaner company could make a ventilator that was not proven it wouldn't kill people -devices need to go through regulatory processes to demonstrate efficacy in a similar way to a drug. It was fucking ignorant.
Yes because what could an engineering company with knowledge of engineering possibly know about engineering eh?
A challenge was set to all who could try and do it and many rose to the challenge. It was open to everyone and yes some companies not normally associated with medicine and more associated with vaccuums or Formula 1 took part.
If it was up to you then I suppose Formula 1 companies wouldn't have been able to take part in the challenge either?
Did the Formula 1 companies expect favourable treatment from their mates in the government as a result?
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
No mismanagement since they did this scheme in parallel with other schemes. The one that worked and made this one redundant was from a Formula 1 company.
Its like the vaccine project all over again. Don't pick one horse and run with it - back them all and see which works.
To an extent, yes, and to be fair I'd cut the government quite a lot of slack on this. At the time, getting enough ventilators looked like a critical requirement, although in the end it wasn't. Nonetheless, it does seem that insufficient attention was given to the existing, experienced manufacturers.
The existing experienced manufacturers couldn't manufacture 10,000 of them in the time available.
That's why the challenge was offered to all manufacturers anywhere to get in touch. Skills in manufacturing are transferable, as Mercedes showed.
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
Only that it was a dodgy way to give massive publicity to Dyson and JCB perhaps. You are absolutely right about their ability to produce medical products though. Absolutely ridiculous, and I suspect even Bozo knew that.
The myth that May could have agreed a softer Brexit ignores the reality that she would have been replaced before the ink was dry .
The problems started when Brexiters changed the goalposts and after having won the referendum decided to push for the hardest version . Leavers polled after the vote had varying views but there was never a majority at that point for a hard Brexit .
As long as freedom of movement was stopped it seemed that was enough . May should have made that the centre point but in her desperation to prove her Brexit credentials went down the harder route .
The rest is history .
What did May do that was unnecessarily "harder"?
What should she have done that stopped freedom of movement if that is your red line (and it was May's) that May didn't do?
Having that as the starting point, May's deal and the backstop left us with an flaccid Brexit.
Once FOM was to be stopped there was no alternative to a very hard brexit. It was a mistake to halt FOM, it could have been possible to introduce some of the bureaucracy and modify benefit system like other member states to enforce free movement of labour and not free movement of pickpockets and tax credits slurpers.
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.
Typical crooked Tory parasites, would not even have cost him a day's interest on his fortune. Their greed is unbounded, never think of doing anything for good , always just greed.
Don't often disagree with you Malcolm but I do here. It is his employees who would have suffered. I guess he could have made it up, but I think it is a reasonable request. The unusual circumstances meant they would be breaking the time limits for staying in the UK potentially and not for their own benefit.
KJH, why did we need to import vacuum cleaner sellers to make medical aids. Instead of feeding cash to their chums the Tories should have funded existing medical suppliers to increase production or design new kit. We saw lots of existing suppliers who were totally ignored and yet all the money was funneled to companies like Dyson and JCB. Mechanical diggers and vacuum cleaners, WTF did they know about medical devices.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Weren't we pursuing all avenues as it was? There's not exactly a glut of similar companies with the right sort of expertise, even in this country.
There is not a glut, but there were companies that actually have the expertise that were ignored so they could pretend a vacuum cleaner company could make a ventilator that was not proven it wouldn't kill people -devices need to go through regulatory processes to demonstrate efficacy in a similar way to a drug. It was fucking ignorant.
Yes because what could an engineering company with knowledge of engineering possibly know about engineering eh?
A challenge was set to all who could try and do it and many rose to the challenge. It was open to everyone and yes some companies not normally associated with medicine and more associated with vaccuums or Formula 1 took part.
If it was up to you then I suppose Formula 1 companies wouldn't have been able to take part in the challenge either?
Did the Formula 1 companies expect favourable treatment from their mates in the government as a result?
Not since Bernie bunged Blair's Labour a million in 1997.
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
No mismanagement since they did this scheme in parallel with other schemes. The one that worked and made this one redundant was from a Formula 1 company.
Its like the vaccine project all over again. Don't pick one horse and run with it - back them all and see which works.
To an extent, yes, and to be fair I'd cut the government quite a lot of slack on this. At the time, getting enough ventilators looked like a critical requirement, although in the end it wasn't. Nonetheless, it does seem that insufficient attention was given to the existing, experienced manufacturers.
The existing experienced manufacturers couldn't manufacture 10,000 of them in the time available.
That's why the challenge was offered to all manufacturers anywhere to get in touch. Skills in manufacturing are transferable, as Mercedes showed.
Again, Philip stop talking out of your backside. If you are referring to Mercedes McLaren, they already had a significant medical device arm to their business
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Because "his mates" are experts in their field who were offering to help the country not for profit. 🤦♂️
During a pandemic it isn't wise to turn down offers to help from those who know what they're talking about. Especially when they're doing so not for profit.
Of all the things to whinge about, this is scraping the barrel.
Oh for fucks sake Philip. I have suggested you try commenting on things you have knowledge of before, but I can not think of any time it has been more applicable. They might be experts in "their" field, but a vacuum cleaner or a digger is not a fucking ventilator. This was pure and simple cronyism or incompetence on a grand scale or both. Take your pick.
No fucking shit Sherlock. A vacuum cleaner is not a fucking ventilator, nobody said otherwise.
Guess what you fucking idiot, a fucking Formula 1 race car isn't a fucking venilator either.
Get a fucking grip you fucking fuckity fucky fool.
Do we really need such strong fucking language too?
Thinking the owners have "learnt their lesson" over this is as naive as I was thinking noone would ever take drugs in sport again when Ben Johnson was caught in 1988.
If any lessons have been learnt it will be in how not to bungle it. Things they might have done differently to get away with it would be:
Get FIFA's support - make it a world club competition at the outset, perhaps - so that the player's wouldn't be banned from World Cups.
Plan it as an all-in breakaway, not depending on domestic leagues keeping them in. If you're undermining other organisations then you have to go all the way. Half measures won't do.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Weren't we pursuing all avenues as it was? There's not exactly a glut of similar companies with the right sort of expertise, even in this country.
There is not a glut, but there were companies that actually have the expertise that were ignored so they could pretend a vacuum cleaner company could make a ventilator that was not proven it wouldn't kill people -devices need to go through regulatory processes to demonstrate efficacy in a similar way to a drug. It was fucking ignorant.
Yes because what could an engineering company with knowledge of engineering possibly know about engineering eh?
A challenge was set to all who could try and do it and many rose to the challenge. It was open to everyone and yes some companies not normally associated with medicine and more associated with vaccuums or Formula 1 took part.
If it was up to you then I suppose Formula 1 companies wouldn't have been able to take part in the challenge either?
Did the Formula 1 companies expect favourable treatment from their mates in the government as a result?
Not since Bernie bunged Blair's Labour a million in 1997.
I'm not sure what your point is? This isn't a party political point.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Because "his mates" are experts in their field who were offering to help the country not for profit. 🤦♂️
During a pandemic it isn't wise to turn down offers to help from those who know what they're talking about. Especially when they're doing so not for profit.
Of all the things to whinge about, this is scraping the barrel.
Oh for fucks sake Philip. I have suggested you try commenting on things you have knowledge of before, but I can not think of any time it has been more applicable. They might be experts in "their" field, but a vacuum cleaner or a digger is not a fucking ventilator. This was pure and simple cronyism or incompetence on a grand scale or both. Take your pick.
A Mercedes F1 car is also not a ventilator, but that didn't seem to matter.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Because "his mates" are experts in their field who were offering to help the country not for profit. 🤦♂️
During a pandemic it isn't wise to turn down offers to help from those who know what they're talking about. Especially when they're doing so not for profit.
Of all the things to whinge about, this is scraping the barrel.
Oh for fucks sake Philip. I have suggested you try commenting on things you have knowledge of before, but I can not think of any time it has been more applicable. They might be experts in "their" field, but a vacuum cleaner or a digger is not a fucking ventilator. This was pure and simple cronyism or incompetence on a grand scale or both. Take your pick.
A Mercedes F1 car is also not a ventilator, but that didn't seem to matter.
Did Mercedes F1 seek special favours from the government to ensure that they made no loss whatsoever from the "help"?
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.
Typical crooked Tory parasites, would not even have cost him a day's interest on his fortune. Their greed is unbounded, never think of doing anything for good , always just greed.
Don't often disagree with you Malcolm but I do here. It is his employees who would have suffered. I guess he could have made it up, but I think it is a reasonable request. The unusual circumstances meant they would be breaking the time limits for staying in the UK potentially and not for their own benefit.
KJH, why did we need to import vacuum cleaner sellers to make medical aids. Instead of feeding cash to their chums the Tories should have funded existing medical suppliers to increase production or design new kit. We saw lots of existing suppliers who were totally ignored and yet all the money was funneled to companies like Dyson and JCB. Mechanical diggers and vacuum cleaners, WTF did they know about medical devices.
Err, because every available medical supplier was already working flat out and couldn't keep up with demand?
The early stages of the pandemic needed huge resources in complex design and manufacturing thrown at the problem, and dozens of engineering companies stepped up, in many cases at their own expense. Well done to all of them.
That's a lot closer than I expected it to be and who the fuck is Omilana?
All I know about Omilana is that she's the only candidate who couldn't or wouldn't stump up £10k to get her profile into the info booklet that gets sent to all voters. So either she's super hard up for cash, or has zero expectations of winning and isn't really trying, or assumes none of her likely voters can read so needs to reach them in other ways.
Either way, 5% sounds... high.
Omalina is a he, as it turns out. Some YouTube meme candidate.
So he is. 3.4m subs. Probably not enough by a factor of at least 10.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Weren't we pursuing all avenues as it was? There's not exactly a glut of similar companies with the right sort of expertise, even in this country.
There is not a glut, but there were companies that actually have the expertise that were ignored so they could pretend a vacuum cleaner company could make a ventilator that was not proven it wouldn't kill people -devices need to go through regulatory processes to demonstrate efficacy in a similar way to a drug. It was fucking ignorant.
Yes because what could an engineering company with knowledge of engineering possibly know about engineering eh?
A challenge was set to all who could try and do it and many rose to the challenge. It was open to everyone and yes some companies not normally associated with medicine and more associated with vaccuums or Formula 1 took part.
If it was up to you then I suppose Formula 1 companies wouldn't have been able to take part in the challenge either?
I refer to the answer I have just now given on your other post. You are even more ignorant in this area than most other areas you post on, and that really is saying something.
McLaren have a significant medical device consultancy business that long predated Covid. They were an obvious choice because they knew about highly regulated medical grade products. They are not a vacuum cleaner company.
Thinking the owners have "learnt their lesson" over this is as naive as I was thinking noone would ever take drugs in sport again when Ben Johnson was caught in 1988.
If any lessons have been learnt it will be in how not to bungle it. Things they might have done differently to get away with it would be:
Get FIFA's support - make it a world club competition at the outset, perhaps - so that the player's wouldn't be banned from World Cups.
Plan it as an all-in breakaway, not depending on domestic leagues keeping them in. If you're undermining other organisations then you have to go all the way. Half measures won't do.
Opposite of the latter one. Keep the pyramid.
Do a breakaway but with the top clubs qualifying each year still. So that money and who controls the competition is the difference, not qualification.
So West Ham etc can still qualify for it. That was the mistake.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Because "his mates" are experts in their field who were offering to help the country not for profit. 🤦♂️
During a pandemic it isn't wise to turn down offers to help from those who know what they're talking about. Especially when they're doing so not for profit.
Of all the things to whinge about, this is scraping the barrel.
Oh for fucks sake Philip. I have suggested you try commenting on things you have knowledge of before, but I can not think of any time it has been more applicable. They might be experts in "their" field, but a vacuum cleaner or a digger is not a fucking ventilator. This was pure and simple cronyism or incompetence on a grand scale or both. Take your pick.
A Mercedes F1 car is also not a ventilator, but that didn't seem to matter.
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.
Typical crooked Tory parasites, would not even have cost him a day's interest on his fortune. Their greed is unbounded, never think of doing anything for good , always just greed.
Don't often disagree with you Malcolm but I do here. It is his employees who would have suffered. I guess he could have made it up, but I think it is a reasonable request. The unusual circumstances meant they would be breaking the time limits for staying in the UK potentially and not for their own benefit.
KJH, why did we need to import vacuum cleaner sellers to make medical aids. Instead of feeding cash to their chums the Tories should have funded existing medical suppliers to increase production or design new kit. We saw lots of existing suppliers who were totally ignored and yet all the money was funneled to companies like Dyson and JCB. Mechanical diggers and vacuum cleaners, WTF did they know about medical devices.
Err, because every available medical supplier was already working flat out and couldn't keep up with demand?
The early stages of the pandemic needed huge resources in complex design and manufacturing thrown at the problem, and dozens of engineering companies stepped up, in many cases at their own expense. Well done to all of them.
This is exactly my point. Those who stepped up without promise of award or indemnity should be commended. That is patriotism and that is caring for your community.
Those who seemingly were only willing to help if their tax exemption status was protected, well I have nothing but contempt.
Especially considering the monster tax payer bill we all have to pay. You have to pay a bit more tax? Tough sh*t, welcome to the future.
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
No mismanagement since they did this scheme in parallel with other schemes. The one that worked and made this one redundant was from a Formula 1 company.
Its like the vaccine project all over again. Don't pick one horse and run with it - back them all and see which works.
To an extent, yes, and to be fair I'd cut the government quite a lot of slack on this. At the time, getting enough ventilators looked like a critical requirement, although in the end it wasn't. Nonetheless, it does seem that insufficient attention was given to the existing, experienced manufacturers.
The existing experienced manufacturers couldn't manufacture 10,000 of them in the time available.
That's why the challenge was offered to all manufacturers anywhere to get in touch. Skills in manufacturing are transferable, as Mercedes showed.
Again, Philip stop talking out of your backside. If you are referring to Mercedes McLaren, they already had a significant medical device arm to their business
It wasn't the medical team that produced the ventilator, though; it was the F1 team. I saw a talk by the team responsible last year - amazing stuff. I suggest - your knowledge of the pharma industry notwithstanding - it may be you who is talking out of turn here.
And of course, Treasury set precedent a few weeks ago when they published Sunak's texts to David Cameron about Greensill - we have asked No 10 if they will do the same with Johnson's texts to Dyson https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384808261669507073
That may well answer the question of who is leaking this stuff
It will also answer the question as to why the £2.9 million briefing centre was kiboshed by politicians who like to leak stuff off-the-record, once they'd got rid of an over-promoted SpAd who watched The West Wing and thought democracy would be best served by the free flow of (government approved) information. In the immortal words of Sir Humphrey, this is a British democracy.
That's a lot closer than I expected it to be and who the fuck is Omilana?
All I know about Omilana is that she's the only candidate who couldn't or wouldn't stump up £10k to get her profile into the info booklet that gets sent to all voters. So either she's super hard up for cash, or has zero expectations of winning and isn't really trying, or assumes none of her likely voters can read so needs to reach them in other ways.
Either way, 5% sounds... high.
Omalina is a he, as it turns out. Some YouTube meme candidate.
So he is. 3.4m subs. Probably not enough by a factor of at least 10.
Credible as a protest vote for the young, especially with the preference voting system. Can imagine 5th place 2-3%ish beating the other indies if there is betting on that.
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.
Typical crooked Tory parasites, would not even have cost him a day's interest on his fortune. Their greed is unbounded, never think of doing anything for good , always just greed.
Don't often disagree with you Malcolm but I do here. It is his employees who would have suffered. I guess he could have made it up, but I think it is a reasonable request. The unusual circumstances meant they would be breaking the time limits for staying in the UK potentially and not for their own benefit.
KJH, why did we need to import vacuum cleaner sellers to make medical aids. Instead of feeding cash to their chums the Tories should have funded existing medical suppliers to increase production or design new kit. We saw lots of existing suppliers who were totally ignored and yet all the money was funneled to companies like Dyson and JCB. Mechanical diggers and vacuum cleaners, WTF did they know about medical devices.
Err, because every available medical supplier was already working flat out and couldn't keep up with demand?
The early stages of the pandemic needed huge resources in complex design and manufacturing thrown at the problem, and dozens of engineering companies stepped up, in many cases at their own expense. Well done to all of them.
This is exactly my point. Those who stepped up without promise of award or indemnity should be commended. That is patriotism and that is caring for your community.
Those who seemingly were only willing to help if their tax exemption status was protected, well I have nothing but contempt.
Especially considering the monster tax payer bill we all have to pay. You have to pay a bit more tax? Tough sh*t, welcome to the future.
They were bring extra resources into the UK - in which case it's give us the exemption or those people aren't willing to come.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Because "his mates" are experts in their field who were offering to help the country not for profit. 🤦♂️
During a pandemic it isn't wise to turn down offers to help from those who know what they're talking about. Especially when they're doing so not for profit.
Of all the things to whinge about, this is scraping the barrel.
They aren't experts in this particular field according to the actual experts who reportedly couldn't understand why Brexit supporting Tory donors got prioritised over them.
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.
Typical crooked Tory parasites, would not even have cost him a day's interest on his fortune. Their greed is unbounded, never think of doing anything for good , always just greed.
Don't often disagree with you Malcolm but I do here. It is his employees who would have suffered. I guess he could have made it up, but I think it is a reasonable request. The unusual circumstances meant they would be breaking the time limits for staying in the UK potentially and not for their own benefit.
KJH, why did we need to import vacuum cleaner sellers to make medical aids. Instead of feeding cash to their chums the Tories should have funded existing medical suppliers to increase production or design new kit. We saw lots of existing suppliers who were totally ignored and yet all the money was funneled to companies like Dyson and JCB. Mechanical diggers and vacuum cleaners, WTF did they know about medical devices.
Err, because every available medical supplier was already working flat out and couldn't keep up with demand?
The early stages of the pandemic needed huge resources in complex design and manufacturing thrown at the problem, and dozens of engineering companies stepped up, in many cases at their own expense. Well done to all of them.
This is exactly my point. Those who stepped up without promise of award or indemnity should be commended. That is patriotism and that is caring for your community.
Those who seemingly were only willing to help if their tax exemption status was protected, well I have nothing but contempt.
Especially considering the monster tax payer bill we all have to pay. You have to pay a bit more tax? Tough sh*t, welcome to the future.
They were bring extra resources into the UK - in which case it's give us the exemption or those people aren't willing to come.
Exactly. Nothing but contempt. Dyson could clearly have grossed up their salaries to account for the tax but no, it's the British tax payer who has to fund his patriotism. It's ME who has to fund his patriotism.
Pull the other one. Dyson is supposed to believe in Britain.
That's a lot closer than I expected it to be and who the fuck is Omilana?
All I know about Omilana is that she's the only candidate who couldn't or wouldn't stump up £10k to get her profile into the info booklet that gets sent to all voters. So either she's super hard up for cash, or has zero expectations of winning and isn't really trying, or assumes none of her likely voters can read so needs to reach them in other ways.
Either way, 5% sounds... high.
Omalina is a he, as it turns out. Some YouTube meme candidate.
So he is. 3.4m subs. Probably not enough by a factor of at least 10.
He's above 'lost deposit' point though. If he does well, might well 'incite' others to use You Tube. Somehow, probably deviously.
Thinking the owners have "learnt their lesson" over this is as naive as I was thinking noone would ever take drugs in sport again when Ben Johnson was caught in 1988.
If any lessons have been learnt it will be in how not to bungle it. Things they might have done differently to get away with it would be:
Get FIFA's support - make it a world club competition at the outset, perhaps - so that the player's wouldn't be banned from World Cups.
Plan it as an all-in breakaway, not depending on domestic leagues keeping them in. If you're undermining other organisations then you have to go all the way. Half measures won't do.
Opposite of the latter one. Keep the pyramid.
Do a breakaway but with the top clubs qualifying each year still. So that money and who controls the competition is the difference, not qualification.
So West Ham etc can still qualify for it. That was the mistake.
That was the screw up - the founding members should have got shares / guaranteed cash (would have been unfair but meh) but no guaranteed right to play.
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.
Typical crooked Tory parasites, would not even have cost him a day's interest on his fortune. Their greed is unbounded, never think of doing anything for good , always just greed.
Don't often disagree with you Malcolm but I do here. It is his employees who would have suffered. I guess he could have made it up, but I think it is a reasonable request. The unusual circumstances meant they would be breaking the time limits for staying in the UK potentially and not for their own benefit.
KJH, why did we need to import vacuum cleaner sellers to make medical aids. Instead of feeding cash to their chums the Tories should have funded existing medical suppliers to increase production or design new kit. We saw lots of existing suppliers who were totally ignored and yet all the money was funneled to companies like Dyson and JCB. Mechanical diggers and vacuum cleaners, WTF did they know about medical devices.
Err, because every available medical supplier was already working flat out and couldn't keep up with demand?
The early stages of the pandemic needed huge resources in complex design and manufacturing thrown at the problem, and dozens of engineering companies stepped up, in many cases at their own expense. Well done to all of them.
This is exactly my point. Those who stepped up without promise of award or indemnity should be commended. That is patriotism and that is caring for your community.
Those who seemingly were only willing to help if their tax exemption status was protected, well I have nothing but contempt.
Especially considering the monster tax payer bill we all have to pay. You have to pay a bit more tax? Tough sh*t, welcome to the future.
So the world's best and brightest stay in Singapore or go to the USA or help any of many other nations instead. And we don't get the help we need and we don't get a single penny in extra tax either.
Great job there! Way to cut off your nose to spite your face. No wonder you voted for Corbyn, I thought you'd learnt some lessons but nothing has changed. 🤦🏻♂️
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Because "his mates" are experts in their field who were offering to help the country not for profit. 🤦♂️
During a pandemic it isn't wise to turn down offers to help from those who know what they're talking about. Especially when they're doing so not for profit.
Of all the things to whinge about, this is scraping the barrel.
Oh for fucks sake Philip. I have suggested you try commenting on things you have knowledge of before, but I can not think of any time it has been more applicable. They might be experts in "their" field, but a vacuum cleaner or a digger is not a fucking ventilator. This was pure and simple cronyism or incompetence on a grand scale or both. Take your pick.
No fucking shit Sherlock. A vacuum cleaner is not a fucking ventilator, nobody said otherwise.
Guess what you fucking idiot, a fucking Formula 1 race car isn't a fucking venilator either.
Get a fucking grip you fucking fuckity fucky fool.
Do we really need such strong fucking language too?
It is the only way to get through to someone as ignorant as you, you saddo. Stop talking crap about matters you have no knowledge on. Oh, dear that will be pretty limiting for you
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Who said those helping were British? You are not helping compatriots if not and being sent by your boss at great financial detriment. Help a comrade out and support him against this injustice
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.
Typical crooked Tory parasites, would not even have cost him a day's interest on his fortune. Their greed is unbounded, never think of doing anything for good , always just greed.
Don't often disagree with you Malcolm but I do here. It is his employees who would have suffered. I guess he could have made it up, but I think it is a reasonable request. The unusual circumstances meant they would be breaking the time limits for staying in the UK potentially and not for their own benefit.
KJH, why did we need to import vacuum cleaner sellers to make medical aids. Instead of feeding cash to their chums the Tories should have funded existing medical suppliers to increase production or design new kit. We saw lots of existing suppliers who were totally ignored and yet all the money was funneled to companies like Dyson and JCB. Mechanical diggers and vacuum cleaners, WTF did they know about medical devices.
Err, because every available medical supplier was already working flat out and couldn't keep up with demand?
The early stages of the pandemic needed huge resources in complex design and manufacturing thrown at the problem, and dozens of engineering companies stepped up, in many cases at their own expense. Well done to all of them.
This is exactly my point. Those who stepped up without promise of award or indemnity should be commended. That is patriotism and that is caring for your community.
Those who seemingly were only willing to help if their tax exemption status was protected, well I have nothing but contempt.
Especially considering the monster tax payer bill we all have to pay. You have to pay a bit more tax? Tough sh*t, welcome to the future.
So the world's best and brightest stay in Singapore or go to the USA or help any of many other nations instead. And we don't get the help we need and we don't get a single penny in extra tax either.
Great job there! Way to cut off your nose to spite your face. No wonder you voted for Corbyn, I thought you'd learnt some lessons but nothing has changed. 🤦🏻♂️
If Dyson was willing to abandon his country in a time of need then that says a lot about him.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Because "his mates" are experts in their field who were offering to help the country not for profit. 🤦♂️
During a pandemic it isn't wise to turn down offers to help from those who know what they're talking about. Especially when they're doing so not for profit.
Of all the things to whinge about, this is scraping the barrel.
Oh for fucks sake Philip. I have suggested you try commenting on things you have knowledge of before, but I can not think of any time it has been more applicable. They might be experts in "their" field, but a vacuum cleaner or a digger is not a fucking ventilator. This was pure and simple cronyism or incompetence on a grand scale or both. Take your pick.
No fucking shit Sherlock. A vacuum cleaner is not a fucking ventilator, nobody said otherwise.
Guess what you fucking idiot, a fucking Formula 1 race car isn't a fucking venilator either.
Get a fucking grip you fucking fuckity fucky fool.
Do we really need such strong fucking language too?
Fucking right we do. We're talking - again - about preferential mates deals for Tory donors. Fuck the fucking fuckers.
Thinking the owners have "learnt their lesson" over this is as naive as I was thinking noone would ever take drugs in sport again when Ben Johnson was caught in 1988.
If any lessons have been learnt it will be in how not to bungle it. Things they might have done differently to get away with it would be:
Get FIFA's support - make it a world club competition at the outset, perhaps - so that the player's wouldn't be banned from World Cups.
Plan it as an all-in breakaway, not depending on domestic leagues keeping them in. If you're undermining other organisations then you have to go all the way. Half measures won't do.
Opposite of the latter one. Keep the pyramid.
Do a breakaway but with the top clubs qualifying each year still. So that money and who controls the competition is the difference, not qualification.
So West Ham etc can still qualify for it. That was the mistake.
That was the screw up - the founding members should have got shares / guaranteed cash (would have been unfair but meh) but no guaranteed right to play.
I wouldn't even go as far as shares/guaranteed cash. No guarantees at all but the money raised goes to the clubs who qualify instead of UEFA.
The clubs would have no guarantees then but would still be tens if not hundreds of millions better off per annum.
Possibly follow the Premier League model of parachute payments too.
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.
Answer: engineers do as much of the work as possible remotely and / or ensure that they do not work in the U.K. for more than 90 days. Result: no additional tax liability.
Two genuine questions:-
1. Were Dyson offering to do the work for free or at very reduced rates? 2. Was it actually necessary for the engineers to base themselves in the U.K. for more than 90 days for this project?
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Weren't we pursuing all avenues as it was? There's not exactly a glut of similar companies with the right sort of expertise, even in this country.
There is not a glut, but there were companies that actually have the expertise that were ignored so they could pretend a vacuum cleaner company could make a ventilator that was not proven it wouldn't kill people -devices need to go through regulatory processes to demonstrate efficacy in a similar way to a drug. It was fucking ignorant.
Yes because what could an engineering company with knowledge of engineering possibly know about engineering eh?
A challenge was set to all who could try and do it and many rose to the challenge. It was open to everyone and yes some companies not normally associated with medicine and more associated with vaccuums or Formula 1 took part.
If it was up to you then I suppose Formula 1 companies wouldn't have been able to take part in the challenge either?
I refer to the answer I have just now given on your other post. You are even more ignorant in this area than most other areas you post on, and that really is saying something.
McLaren have a significant medical device consultancy business that long predated Covid. They were an obvious choice because they knew about highly regulated medical grade products. They are not a vacuum cleaner company.
It wasn't McLaren that did it, it was Mercedes who have no medical division.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Who said those helping were British? You are not helping compatriots if not and being sent by your boss at great financial detriment. Help a comrade out and support him against this injustice
Dyson is British! He controls his employees. He has the power to ensure no financial detriment ensures. The British Government has no need to get involved.
If Dyson doesn't believe helping his country is worth the expense well then what kind of patriot is he?
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.
Typical crooked Tory parasites, would not even have cost him a day's interest on his fortune. Their greed is unbounded, never think of doing anything for good , always just greed.
Don't often disagree with you Malcolm but I do here. It is his employees who would have suffered. I guess he could have made it up, but I think it is a reasonable request. The unusual circumstances meant they would be breaking the time limits for staying in the UK potentially and not for their own benefit.
KJH, why did we need to import vacuum cleaner sellers to make medical aids. Instead of feeding cash to their chums the Tories should have funded existing medical suppliers to increase production or design new kit. We saw lots of existing suppliers who were totally ignored and yet all the money was funneled to companies like Dyson and JCB. Mechanical diggers and vacuum cleaners, WTF did they know about medical devices.
Err, because every available medical supplier was already working flat out and couldn't keep up with demand?
The early stages of the pandemic needed huge resources in complex design and manufacturing thrown at the problem, and dozens of engineering companies stepped up, in many cases at their own expense. Well done to all of them.
This is exactly my point. Those who stepped up without promise of award or indemnity should be commended. That is patriotism and that is caring for your community.
Those who seemingly were only willing to help if their tax exemption status was protected, well I have nothing but contempt.
Especially considering the monster tax payer bill we all have to pay. You have to pay a bit more tax? Tough sh*t, welcome to the future.
So the world's best and brightest stay in Singapore or go to the USA or help any of many other nations instead. And we don't get the help we need and we don't get a single penny in extra tax either.
Great job there! Way to cut off your nose to spite your face. No wonder you voted for Corbyn, I thought you'd learnt some lessons but nothing has changed. 🤦🏻♂️
If Dyson was willing to abandon his country in a time of need then that says a lot about him.
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Who said those helping were British? You are not helping compatriots if not and being sent by your boss at great financial detriment. Help a comrade out and support him against this injustice
Dyson is British! He controls his employees. He has the power to ensure no financial detriment ensures. The British Government has no need to get involved.
If Dyson doesn't believe helping his country is worth the expense well then what kind of patriot is he?
"He controls his employees"
You would not make a very good manager with that attitude.
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.
Typical crooked Tory parasites, would not even have cost him a day's interest on his fortune. Their greed is unbounded, never think of doing anything for good , always just greed.
Don't often disagree with you Malcolm but I do here. It is his employees who would have suffered. I guess he could have made it up, but I think it is a reasonable request. The unusual circumstances meant they would be breaking the time limits for staying in the UK potentially and not for their own benefit.
KJH, why did we need to import vacuum cleaner sellers to make medical aids. Instead of feeding cash to their chums the Tories should have funded existing medical suppliers to increase production or design new kit. We saw lots of existing suppliers who were totally ignored and yet all the money was funneled to companies like Dyson and JCB. Mechanical diggers and vacuum cleaners, WTF did they know about medical devices.
Err, because every available medical supplier was already working flat out and couldn't keep up with demand?
The early stages of the pandemic needed huge resources in complex design and manufacturing thrown at the problem, and dozens of engineering companies stepped up, in many cases at their own expense. Well done to all of them.
This is exactly my point. Those who stepped up without promise of award or indemnity should be commended. That is patriotism and that is caring for your community.
Those who seemingly were only willing to help if their tax exemption status was protected, well I have nothing but contempt.
Especially considering the monster tax payer bill we all have to pay. You have to pay a bit more tax? Tough sh*t, welcome to the future.
So the world's best and brightest stay in Singapore or go to the USA or help any of many other nations instead. And we don't get the help we need and we don't get a single penny in extra tax either.
Great job there! Way to cut off your nose to spite your face. No wonder you voted for Corbyn, I thought you'd learnt some lessons but nothing has changed. 🤦🏻♂️
If Dyson was willing to abandon his country in a time of need then that says a lot about him.
So much for patriotism or believing in Britain.
Dyson is not his employees.
I'm not sure which part of "Dyson could have grossed up his employees' salaries to account for any additional tax liability" you do not understand.
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
Or like the vaccines in a time of emergency all reasonable avenues were pursued.
Thinking the owners have "learnt their lesson" over this is as naive as I was thinking noone would ever take drugs in sport again when Ben Johnson was caught in 1988.
If any lessons have been learnt it will be in how not to bungle it. Things they might have done differently to get away with it would be:
Get FIFA's support - make it a world club competition at the outset, perhaps - so that the player's wouldn't be banned from World Cups.
Plan it as an all-in breakaway, not depending on domestic leagues keeping them in. If you're undermining other organisations then you have to go all the way. Half measures won't do.
Opposite of the latter one. Keep the pyramid.
Do a breakaway but with the top clubs qualifying each year still. So that money and who controls the competition is the difference, not qualification.
So West Ham etc can still qualify for it. That was the mistake.
That was the screw up - the founding members should have got shares / guaranteed cash (would have been unfair but meh) but no guaranteed right to play.
I wouldn't even go as far as shares/guaranteed cash. No guarantees at all but the money raised goes to the clubs who qualify instead of UEFA.
The clubs would have no guarantees then but would still be tens if not hundreds of millions better off per annum.
I was talking about the original ESL plan which had founding members getting shares / cash. You could (almost) justify that but you couldn't justify the guaranteed entry bit.
Now having screwed things up so badly UEFA will keep control of the Champions league money pot for the next 10 years for won't of complete misunderstanding of what European football supporters expect.
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
No mismanagement since they did this scheme in parallel with other schemes. The one that worked and made this one redundant was from a Formula 1 company.
Its like the vaccine project all over again. Don't pick one horse and run with it - back them all and see which works.
To an extent, yes, and to be fair I'd cut the government quite a lot of slack on this. At the time, getting enough ventilators looked like a critical requirement, although in the end it wasn't. Nonetheless, it does seem that insufficient attention was given to the existing, experienced manufacturers.
The existing experienced manufacturers couldn't manufacture 10,000 of them in the time available.
That's why the challenge was offered to all manufacturers anywhere to get in touch. Skills in manufacturing are transferable, as Mercedes showed.
Again, Philip stop talking out of your backside. If you are referring to Mercedes McLaren, they already had a significant medical device arm to their business
It wasn't the medical team that produced the ventilator, though; it was the F1 team. I saw a talk by the team responsible last year - amazing stuff. I suggest - your knowledge of the pharma industry notwithstanding - it may be you who is talking out of turn here.
Sorry, my main area is not pharma it is devices. McLaren was able to do it because it had the ability to manufacture to the quality systems required by ISO 13485 and knew the regulatory and safety requirements. That would be due to their medical affliiate knowledge
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.
Answer: engineers do as much of the work as possible remotely and / or ensure that they do not work in the U.K. for more than 90 days. Result: no additional tax liability.
Two genuine questions:-
1. Were Dyson offering to do the work for free or at very reduced rates? 2. Was it actually necessary for the engineers to base themselves in the U.K. for more than 90 days for this project?
Strong betting move to the Cons on Hartlepool. 1.5 now.
I could cash out for 36% of my Tory win profit... which is tempting. OTOH, if its insider betting due to a good poll then it might be worth hanging on…
In fact, if Dyson's employees payed more tax as a result of coming back to Britain (oh the humanity), then Dyson was free to top-up their remuneration as a COVID bonus to make up for it.
But of course it's up to the British tax payer to ensure that no loss was suffered whatosever.
What on earth happened to charity? What on earth happened to civic duty?
Shameless.
I think there is an issue with an employer trying to pay an employees personal tax - it becomes a benefit in kind, and itself is taxable? Creates a problematic loop, IIRC?
Any tax experts?
Bonuses are grossed up all the time so that the amount received net of tax is the amount intended, regardless of the tax rate paid by the employee.
Strong betting move to the Cons on Hartlepool. 1.5 now.
I could cash out for 36% of my Tory win profit... which is tempting. OTOH, if its insider betting due to a good poll then it might be worth hanging on…
The Tories are going to win Hartlepool absolutely no problem.
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.
Typical crooked Tory parasites, would not even have cost him a day's interest on his fortune. Their greed is unbounded, never think of doing anything for good , always just greed.
Don't often disagree with you Malcolm but I do here. It is his employees who would have suffered. I guess he could have made it up, but I think it is a reasonable request. The unusual circumstances meant they would be breaking the time limits for staying in the UK potentially and not for their own benefit.
KJH, why did we need to import vacuum cleaner sellers to make medical aids. Instead of feeding cash to their chums the Tories should have funded existing medical suppliers to increase production or design new kit. We saw lots of existing suppliers who were totally ignored and yet all the money was funneled to companies like Dyson and JCB. Mechanical diggers and vacuum cleaners, WTF did they know about medical devices.
Err, because every available medical supplier was already working flat out and couldn't keep up with demand?
The early stages of the pandemic needed huge resources in complex design and manufacturing thrown at the problem, and dozens of engineering companies stepped up, in many cases at their own expense. Well done to all of them.
This is exactly my point. Those who stepped up without promise of award or indemnity should be commended. That is patriotism and that is caring for your community.
Those who seemingly were only willing to help if their tax exemption status was protected, well I have nothing but contempt.
Especially considering the monster tax payer bill we all have to pay. You have to pay a bit more tax? Tough sh*t, welcome to the future.
So the world's best and brightest stay in Singapore or go to the USA or help any of many other nations instead. And we don't get the help we need and we don't get a single penny in extra tax either.
Great job there! Way to cut off your nose to spite your face. No wonder you voted for Corbyn, I thought you'd learnt some lessons but nothing has changed. 🤦🏻♂️
If Dyson was willing to abandon his country in a time of need then that says a lot about him.
So much for patriotism or believing in Britain.
Dyson is not his employees.
I'm not sure which part of "Dyson could have grossed up his employees' salaries to account for any additional tax liability" you do not understand.
That it's not true.
If they'd hit the 90 day threshold then it's not only income from Dyson that could be taxed.
If the UK state is asking for something it seems entirely reasonable that the UK state sorts out the difficulties.
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
Or like the vaccines in a time of emergency all reasonable avenues were pursued.
Absolutely. This is a classic attempt to throw loads of manure and hope some of it sticks. Such a strategy is very high risk though. Because you lump in things like this which are very easily explained and its hard not to be cynical of the motives of those trying to exploit it and other maybe more serious things.
The throw heaps and heaps approach eventually brought down Corbyn, so i can see it working, but it can go the other way and it is all trivial.
The 'slow burn' narrative is what some in Labour are keen to push, but to push the metaphor their over enthusiasm having set something off they're now piling on lots of things that just wont set alight and are smothering it.
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
No mismanagement since they did this scheme in parallel with other schemes. The one that worked and made this one redundant was from a Formula 1 company.
Its like the vaccine project all over again. Don't pick one horse and run with it - back them all and see which works.
To an extent, yes, and to be fair I'd cut the government quite a lot of slack on this. At the time, getting enough ventilators looked like a critical requirement, although in the end it wasn't. Nonetheless, it does seem that insufficient attention was given to the existing, experienced manufacturers.
The existing experienced manufacturers couldn't manufacture 10,000 of them in the time available.
That's why the challenge was offered to all manufacturers anywhere to get in touch. Skills in manufacturing are transferable, as Mercedes showed.
Again, Philip stop talking out of your backside. If you are referring to Mercedes McLaren, they already had a significant medical device arm to their business
They haven't been Mercedes-McLaren since 2014. I fucking hate F1 (motorsport for people who don't like motorsport) and even I know that.
An interesting study by the Resolution Foundation on income disparities in the UK compared with other European countries, and on the impact of the pandemic on those disparities:
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.
Answer: engineers do as much of the work as possible remotely and / or ensure that they do not work in the U.K. for more than 90 days. Result: no additional tax liability.
Two genuine questions:-
1. Were Dyson offering to do the work for free or at very reduced rates? 2. Was it actually necessary for the engineers to base themselves in the U.K. for more than 90 days for this project?
2 - I suspect it was - I used to fly round Europe because face to face is the only way you can see what is really happening. It's clear that James Dyson (who really should know what was required thought it was essential) 1 - I'm not aware that Dyson asked or received a penny - as I stated earlier.
Strong betting move to the Cons on Hartlepool. 1.5 now.
I was wondering why we here so little on the ground from there. As I've said from day 1 a close labour hold until I hear convincing on the ground rumbles that say otherwise wirth due respect to Gallowgate and RP who've taken the opposite view to me from the start.
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.
Answer: engineers do as much of the work as possible remotely and / or ensure that they do not work in the U.K. for more than 90 days. Result: no additional tax liability.
Two genuine questions:-
1. Were Dyson offering to do the work for free or at very reduced rates? 2. Was it actually necessary for the engineers to base themselves in the U.K. for more than 90 days for this project?
IIRC Dyson (the company) bore all the costs of the development/prototype themselves. I *believe* that they weren't paid anything.
When doing rapid development, it is very useful to get everyone in the same location.
See SpaceX - engineers, designers, fabricators sitting in the same open plan factory/office. I've seen estimates that this decreased the cycle time for changes by *multiple orders of magnitude* - that things that would take conventional, multiple location, aerospace manufacturers months, took hours.
Thinking the owners have "learnt their lesson" over this is as naive as I was thinking noone would ever take drugs in sport again when Ben Johnson was caught in 1988.
If any lessons have been learnt it will be in how not to bungle it. Things they might have done differently to get away with it would be:
Get FIFA's support - make it a world club competition at the outset, perhaps - so that the player's wouldn't be banned from World Cups.
Plan it as an all-in breakaway, not depending on domestic leagues keeping them in. If you're undermining other organisations then you have to go all the way. Half measures won't do.
Opposite of the latter one. Keep the pyramid.
Do a breakaway but with the top clubs qualifying each year still. So that money and who controls the competition is the difference, not qualification.
So West Ham etc can still qualify for it. That was the mistake.
That was the screw up - the founding members should have got shares / guaranteed cash (would have been unfair but meh) but no guaranteed right to play.
I wouldn't even go as far as shares/guaranteed cash. No guarantees at all but the money raised goes to the clubs who qualify instead of UEFA.
The clubs would have no guarantees then but would still be tens if not hundreds of millions better off per annum.
Possibly follow the Premier League model of parachute payments too.
Who on earth pays the referees, match officials, marketing staff, logistics people if UEFA dont get any of the income?
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Because "his mates" are experts in their field who were offering to help the country not for profit. 🤦♂️
During a pandemic it isn't wise to turn down offers to help from those who know what they're talking about. Especially when they're doing so not for profit.
Of all the things to whinge about, this is scraping the barrel.
Oh for fucks sake Philip. I have suggested you try commenting on things you have knowledge of before, but I can not think of any time it has been more applicable. They might be experts in "their" field, but a vacuum cleaner or a digger is not a fucking ventilator. This was pure and simple cronyism or incompetence on a grand scale or both. Take your pick.
No fucking shit Sherlock. A vacuum cleaner is not a fucking ventilator, nobody said otherwise.
Guess what you fucking idiot, a fucking Formula 1 race car isn't a fucking venilator either.
Get a fucking grip you fucking fuckity fucky fool.
Do we really need such strong fucking language too?
Fucking right we do. We're talking - again - about preferential mates deals for Tory donors. Fuck the fucking fuckers.
Things that aren't true, over and over. If this was the case, Plod would be knocking doors down.
Thinking the owners have "learnt their lesson" over this is as naive as I was thinking noone would ever take drugs in sport again when Ben Johnson was caught in 1988.
If any lessons have been learnt it will be in how not to bungle it. Things they might have done differently to get away with it would be:
Get FIFA's support - make it a world club competition at the outset, perhaps - so that the player's wouldn't be banned from World Cups.
Plan it as an all-in breakaway, not depending on domestic leagues keeping them in. If you're undermining other organisations then you have to go all the way. Half measures won't do.
Opposite of the latter one. Keep the pyramid.
Do a breakaway but with the top clubs qualifying each year still. So that money and who controls the competition is the difference, not qualification.
So West Ham etc can still qualify for it. That was the mistake.
That was the screw up - the founding members should have got shares / guaranteed cash (would have been unfair but meh) but no guaranteed right to play.
I wouldn't even go as far as shares/guaranteed cash. No guarantees at all but the money raised goes to the clubs who qualify instead of UEFA.
The clubs would have no guarantees then but would still be tens if not hundreds of millions better off per annum.
I was talking about the original ESL plan which had founding members getting shares / cash. You could (almost) justify that but you couldn't justify the guaranteed entry bit.
Now having screwed things up so badly UEFA will keep control of the Champions league money pot for the next 10 years for won't of complete misunderstanding of what European football supporters expect.
I don't think you could justify either personally. Do the founding Premier League clubs get guaranteed cash?
I agree on the latter. If this changes it will have to be due to a meritocratic design fitting in with European football.
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.
I have some on my desk: iron meteorites do that all the time.
Do meteorites really decelerate at that level without going poot?
Quick back of the envelope calculation - you can have a length of carbon fibre about 2.5km long before 150G will tear it apart (in tension).
Thinking the owners have "learnt their lesson" over this is as naive as I was thinking noone would ever take drugs in sport again when Ben Johnson was caught in 1988.
If any lessons have been learnt it will be in how not to bungle it. Things they might have done differently to get away with it would be:
Get FIFA's support - make it a world club competition at the outset, perhaps - so that the player's wouldn't be banned from World Cups.
Plan it as an all-in breakaway, not depending on domestic leagues keeping them in. If you're undermining other organisations then you have to go all the way. Half measures won't do.
Opposite of the latter one. Keep the pyramid.
Do a breakaway but with the top clubs qualifying each year still. So that money and who controls the competition is the difference, not qualification.
So West Ham etc can still qualify for it. That was the mistake.
That was the screw up - the founding members should have got shares / guaranteed cash (would have been unfair but meh) but no guaranteed right to play.
I wouldn't even go as far as shares/guaranteed cash. No guarantees at all but the money raised goes to the clubs who qualify instead of UEFA.
The clubs would have no guarantees then but would still be tens if not hundreds of millions better off per annum.
Possibly follow the Premier League model of parachute payments too.
Who on earth pays the referees, match officials, marketing staff, logistics people if UEFA dont get any of the income?
The club hosting the match is how it usually works.
Thinking the owners have "learnt their lesson" over this is as naive as I was thinking noone would ever take drugs in sport again when Ben Johnson was caught in 1988.
If any lessons have been learnt it will be in how not to bungle it. Things they might have done differently to get away with it would be:
Get FIFA's support - make it a world club competition at the outset, perhaps - so that the player's wouldn't be banned from World Cups.
Plan it as an all-in breakaway, not depending on domestic leagues keeping them in. If you're undermining other organisations then you have to go all the way. Half measures won't do.
Opposite of the latter one. Keep the pyramid.
Do a breakaway but with the top clubs qualifying each year still. So that money and who controls the competition is the difference, not qualification.
So West Ham etc can still qualify for it. That was the mistake.
That was the screw up - the founding members should have got shares / guaranteed cash (would have been unfair but meh) but no guaranteed right to play.
I wouldn't even go as far as shares/guaranteed cash. No guarantees at all but the money raised goes to the clubs who qualify instead of UEFA.
The clubs would have no guarantees then but would still be tens if not hundreds of millions better off per annum.
Possibly follow the Premier League model of parachute payments too.
Who on earth pays the referees, match officials, marketing staff, logistics people if UEFA dont get any of the income?
The newly created League would. Just as the PL does. It's not a new concept.
UEFA make a big profit on the CL. Net of all that.
They would have been paid had their ventilator design been fit for purpose and been ordered. As Faisal Islam reports, there seemed to be an odd leaning towards non-competent JCB and Dyson (Brexit supporting Tory donors) over the others which seems inextricable...
[I presume you mean 'inexplicable'.]
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
No mismanagement since they did this scheme in parallel with other schemes. The one that worked and made this one redundant was from a Formula 1 company.
Its like the vaccine project all over again. Don't pick one horse and run with it - back them all and see which works.
To an extent, yes, and to be fair I'd cut the government quite a lot of slack on this. At the time, getting enough ventilators looked like a critical requirement, although in the end it wasn't. Nonetheless, it does seem that insufficient attention was given to the existing, experienced manufacturers.
The existing experienced manufacturers couldn't manufacture 10,000 of them in the time available.
That's why the challenge was offered to all manufacturers anywhere to get in touch. Skills in manufacturing are transferable, as Mercedes showed.
Again, Philip stop talking out of your backside. If you are referring to Mercedes McLaren, they already had a significant medical device arm to their business
They haven't been Mercedes-McLaren since 2014. I fucking hate F1 (motorsport for people who don't like motorsport) and even I know that.
Um - there wasn't a Mercedes powered McLaren between 2014 and March 2021...
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?
Those deaths would have been on James Dyson.
The absolute gall of you people defending him for putting his own (despicable) tax arrangements above people's lives.
Sums up everything that is wrong with 21st century capitalism.
You what?
If employees working in and based in Singapore had stayed in Singapore, rather than coming to the UK and working not-for-profit to save lives in the UK, then how would that have put deaths on his head?
"I refuse to come to my own country and save lives of my compatriots unless you change the law to protect my tax arrangements, Boris".
Imagine someone actually saying that.
Then imagine defending someone who said that.
Christ on a bike, there's no morals left whatsoever.
I thought these people were supposed to believe in Britain and the British people?
Imagine defending a position where you'd rather watch people die than give a tax break to the person who could save their lives.
Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine.
If Dyson employees were unwilling to come back to the UK to help the nation during a pandemic, I'm sure there were plenty of companies and employees in the UK who would have been wiling to do the work.
Why does the work have to come from Boris's mates?
Weren't we pursuing all avenues as it was? There's not exactly a glut of similar companies with the right sort of expertise, even in this country.
There is not a glut, but there were companies that actually have the expertise that were ignored so they could pretend a vacuum cleaner company could make a ventilator that was not proven it wouldn't kill people -devices need to go through regulatory processes to demonstrate efficacy in a similar way to a drug. It was fucking ignorant.
Yes because what could an engineering company with knowledge of engineering possibly know about engineering eh?
A challenge was set to all who could try and do it and many rose to the challenge. It was open to everyone and yes some companies not normally associated with medicine and more associated with vaccuums or Formula 1 took part.
If it was up to you then I suppose Formula 1 companies wouldn't have been able to take part in the challenge either?
I refer to the answer I have just now given on your other post. You are even more ignorant in this area than most other areas you post on, and that really is saying something.
McLaren have a significant medical device consultancy business that long predated Covid. They were an obvious choice because they knew about highly regulated medical grade products. They are not a vacuum cleaner company.
It wasn't McLaren that did it, it was Mercedes who have no medical division.
OK, last post on this as it is getting boring. McLaren, Mercedes and a number of others did not produce a new ventilator (as was proposed by the very arrogant Mr. Dyson) they essentially adapted and manufactured (under licence I believe) the Penlon ventilator which is a robust but quite old fashioned British ventilator. All of these organisations had manufacturing standards that would meet the exacting standards of ISO 13485.
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
No - you are missing the point. No extra tax would have been payable if those coming over had stayed less than 90 days. (Couldn't the engineers have done much of the design back in Singapore? Why was it actually necessary for them to be physically present here?) So this was not necessary in order to allow the ventilator work to be done - on the assumption that they didn't need to stay in the UK for more than 3 months. It was only necessary because it might have prevented those people from later coming to work or visit in the U.K. in this tax year thus taking them over the 90 day limit. That further work might well have been nothing to do with the pandemic. Or it might just have been social visits. So why should it be exempt from tax?
These companies were not doing the government a favour. They weren't acting like a charity or volunteers. They were being paid handsomely for their work. They should price the contract appropriately to take account of their costs, including any tax liabilities, arising from the fact that as a result of their decision, freely taken, they have sought to base themselves and employ people based outside the U.K.
Actions have consequences but all too many rich people like lecturing others about this but do not want to apply this simple principle to themselves. That's what annoys.
Did Dyson bill the Government for the work they did?
I don't think any of the firms working on ventilator systems did.
They didn't provide any ventilators. So why would they have been paid.
I have yet to understand why it was necessary for these people to be physically in the country for more than 90 days to design a ventilator. Does anyone know?
Comments
If the ESL had been a success UEFA competitions would have been downgraded to a side show and of course Rangers and Celtic would not have been part of the ESL
During a pandemic it isn't wise to turn down offers to help from those who know what they're talking about. Especially when they're doing so not for profit.
Of all the things to whinge about, this is scraping the barrel.
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384807616367452160
I'm told Sunak did not and has never had any personal contact with Sir James Dyson
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384807814795829249
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1384808261669507073
That may well answer the question of who is leaking this stuff
The existing designs weren't amenable to mass production, so this is where efforts such as Dyson's came in - a design that would be mass produceable.
I think that at one point, there were something like a dozen efforts in parallel - produce more of the traditional ventilators, create a mass produceable one, create new devices to do a similar job etc.
Yes, that is the valid criticism. There was absolutely nothing wrong with a temporary dispensation on the tax rules to prevent those who were trying to help being penalised with a whopping personal tax charge; after all, there were lots of temporary amendments to the rules because of the peculiar circumstances of the pandemic.
However, there does seem to have been a rather naive belief that JCB and Dyson were in a better position to design and produce medical-grade equipment in a hurry than companies with actual experience in the field. (And indeed they weren't, as it turned out).
So, nothing dodgy about this, just mismanagement.
Either way, 5% sounds... high.
This poll seems to indicate his support has dropped or am I mistaken
Where is the money that will take players out of the Premier League?
In the end it went nowhere, and the demand for wotsit-machines was reduced ... so they were not needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij3g8kscdeA
10,000 CPAP machines manufactured and delivered, from backwards-engineering an existing single old device, in less than a month.
Then they open-sourced the whole project, down to the program files for the CNC machines, and there's now several dozen countries where they are being produced. Well done Mercedes
Its like the vaccine project all over again. Don't pick one horse and run with it - back them all and see which works.
They clearly should have done.
A challenge was set to all who could try and do it and many rose to the challenge. It was open to everyone and yes some companies not normally associated with medicine and more associated with vaccuums or Formula 1 took part.
If it was up to you then I suppose Formula 1 companies wouldn't have been able to take part in the challenge either?
Its a PR stunt not a serious campaign.
That's why the challenge was offered to all manufacturers anywhere to get in touch. Skills in manufacturing are transferable, as Mercedes showed.
Guess what you fucking idiot, a fucking Formula 1 race car isn't a fucking venilator either.
Get a fucking grip you fucking fuckity fucky fool.
Do we really need such strong fucking language too?
Get FIFA's support - make it a world club competition at the outset, perhaps - so that the player's wouldn't be banned from World Cups.
Plan it as an all-in breakaway, not depending on domestic leagues keeping them in. If you're undermining other organisations then you have to go all the way. Half measures won't do.
The early stages of the pandemic needed huge resources in complex design and manufacturing thrown at the problem, and dozens of engineering companies stepped up, in many cases at their own expense. Well done to all of them.
McLaren have a significant medical device consultancy business that long predated Covid. They were an obvious choice because they knew about highly regulated medical grade products. They are not a vacuum cleaner company.
Do a breakaway but with the top clubs qualifying each year still. So that money and who controls the competition is the difference, not qualification.
So West Ham etc can still qualify for it. That was the mistake.
Those who seemingly were only willing to help if their tax exemption status was protected, well I have nothing but contempt.
Especially considering the monster tax payer bill we all have to pay. You have to pay a bit more tax? Tough sh*t, welcome to the future.
Pull the other one. Dyson is supposed to believe in Britain.
Great job there! Way to cut off your nose to spite your face. No wonder you voted for Corbyn, I thought you'd learnt some lessons but nothing has changed. 🤦🏻♂️
So much for patriotism or believing in Britain.
The clubs would have no guarantees then but would still be tens if not hundreds of millions better off per annum.
Possibly follow the Premier League model of parachute payments too.
Two genuine questions:-
1. Were Dyson offering to do the work for free or at very reduced rates?
2. Was it actually necessary for the engineers to base themselves in the U.K. for more than 90 days for this project?
If Dyson doesn't believe helping his country is worth the expense well then what kind of patriot is he?
You would not make a very good manager with that attitude.
Now having screwed things up so badly UEFA will keep control of the Champions league money pot for the next 10 years for won't of complete misunderstanding of what European football supporters expect.
The Maths is not hard.
If they'd hit the 90 day threshold then it's not only income from Dyson that could be taxed.
If the UK state is asking for something it seems entirely reasonable that the UK state sorts out the difficulties.
The throw heaps and heaps approach eventually brought down Corbyn, so i can see it working, but it can go the other way and it is all trivial.
The 'slow burn' narrative is what some in Labour are keen to push, but to push the metaphor their over enthusiasm having set something off they're now piling on lots of things that just wont set alight and are smothering it.
https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1384793865983512576
As Torsten Bell says, we don't get nearly enough (well-researched) data on international comparisons when discussing UK government policies.
1 - I'm not aware that Dyson asked or received a penny - as I stated earlier.
He is supposed to be the biggest believer in patriotism and Britain and yet he delegates his charity to the British treasury.
That is deserving of contempt regardless.
When doing rapid development, it is very useful to get everyone in the same location.
See SpaceX - engineers, designers, fabricators sitting in the same open plan factory/office. I've seen estimates that this decreased the cycle time for changes by *multiple orders of magnitude* - that things that would take conventional, multiple location, aerospace manufacturers months, took hours.
I agree on the latter. If this changes it will have to be due to a meritocratic design fitting in with European football.
Believe in Britain my arse.
Real Madrid
Barcelona
Milan
Juventus
Serie A and La Liga really ought to kick them out now.
https://www.formula1.com/en/teams/McLaren.html
Power Unit Mercedes
UEFA make a big profit on the CL. Net of all that.
I have yet to understand why it was necessary for these people to be physically in the country for more than 90 days to design a ventilator. Does anyone know?