Are we really saying that a Prime Minister with a majority of 80 and well ahead on the polls even in mid term, cannot sack a complete joker from his Cabinet? Because otherwise said joker, who is no longer credible with the back benches to be a whip, would bring the government down?
If that’s really the case then this government hasn’t got long at all then, because it means there’s such filthy dirt on the PM that someone soon will weaponise it.
It's slightly more nuanced than that.
WIlliamson also knows a lot about Boris Johnson's decision to reopen the schools for one day in January.
He also knows that Sunak put the kibosh on extra spending to help pupils.
He also knows about the refusal to let Greenwich close schools just before Christmas
Are we really saying that a Prime Minister with a majority of 80 and well ahead on the polls even in mid term, cannot sack a complete joker from his Cabinet? Because otherwise said joker, who is no longer credible with the back benches to be a whip, would bring the government down?
If that’s really the case then this government hasn’t got long at all then, because it means there’s such filthy dirt on the PM that someone soon will weaponise it.
It's slightly more nuanced than that.
WIlliamson also knows a lot about Boris Johnson's decision to reopen the schools for one day in January.
He also knows that Sunak put the kibosh on extra spending to help pupils.
He also knows about the refusal to let Greenwich close schools just before Christmas
Are we really saying that a Prime Minister with a majority of 80 and well ahead on the polls even in mid term, cannot sack a complete joker from his Cabinet? Because otherwise said joker, who is no longer credible with the back benches to be a whip, would bring the government down?
If that’s really the case then this government hasn’t got long at all then, because it means there’s such filthy dirt on the PM that someone soon will weaponise it.
It's slightly more nuanced than that.
WIlliamson also knows a lot about Boris Johnson's decision to reopen the schools for one day in January.
He also knows that Sunak put the kibosh on extra spending to help pupils.
All government’s make errors, especially in such trying times. If a PM doesn’t have the confidence to confront them and shake them off he’ll slowly but surely drown under the weight of them.
I'm sorry but if you're talking about the Tompkins tables you need to be reminded of this stunning bit of analysis from 2014.
Proof: booze brings top grades
A clear correlation has been found between the amount of money colleges spend on alcohol and the percentage of firsts they receive.
A genius Cambridge grad has found a link between the money colleges spend on booze and the number of firsts their students achieve.
Churchill grad Grayden Reece-Smith has made a chart that appears to show a relationship between the amount of wine supplied by colleges and academic performance.
Students have widely accepted that this chart is the best excuse for bad behaviour since telling your mum you only read Playboy for the articles.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
Team GB going to get knocked out in the rugby 7s to USA.
Switched on the TV yesterday evening (after watching S1E3 of The West Wing - fantastic) to see the skateboarding.
They were flying off their boards all over the place, it seemed that they'd have done better to go to the Southbank and pick up some people from there to compete.
Rarely, if ever, have I seen so called elite level athletes get so much wrong. I'm sure it's a credit to the phenomenal difficulty they are attempting, but it didn't seem right to see an Olympics event wherein people were literally falling over the whole time.
Are we really saying that a Prime Minister with a majority of 80 and well ahead on the polls even in mid term, cannot sack a complete joker from his Cabinet? Because otherwise said joker, who is no longer credible with the back benches to be a whip, would bring the government down?
If that’s really the case then this government hasn’t got long at all then, because it means there’s such filthy dirt on the PM that someone soon will weaponise it.
It's slightly more nuanced than that.
WIlliamson also knows a lot about Boris Johnson's decision to reopen the schools for one day in January.
He also knows that Sunak put the kibosh on extra spending to help pupils.
All government’s make errors, especially in such trying times. If a PM doesn’t have the confidence to confront them and shake them off he’ll slowly but surely drown under the weight of them.
His premiership is built on a house of cards (now there's an idea...).
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
The strongest correlation I have seen, suggests the Euros had the biggest effect - indoor groups watching the games on TV.
With regards vaccines, I have yet to meet anyone young who hasn’t had it, it’s so easy to do. I am genuinely quite disappointed so many seem to not be getting it.
I think one of the issues though is that for a long while the news coverage was that the young don’t get impacted by COVID and I am sure that has to be behind the slow take up. In addition, there’s an element of saying “sod off” to the system as well
Now, here's something interesting. This morning's Telegraph is alleging that over half of all Covid hospitalisations in England are of people who tested positive *after* they were admitted.
The details are hidden behind the paywall, but a cut 'n' paste job on the Sun website suggests that only 44% of the recent admissions to English hospitals recorded as being Covid patients had actually had a positive test result by the time they were wheeled in.
How many of the remaining 56% were admitted due to Covid symptoms, and how many were asymptomatic cases admitted for reasons entirely unrelated to the virus, is unknown. But there is at least the possibility that the number of people becoming sick enough with Covid to need hospital treatment is being significantly overstated in the Government statistics. More information required.
I did say this a couple of weeks ago, if you are admitted to Hospital with a broken leg and you test positive for Covid, even if you have no symptoms you are counted as a Covid patient.
People with asymptomatic Covid and a broken leg do not end up on a ventilator, so you can estimate the size of this effect by comparing the ratio of Covid patients in hospital to those receiving mechanical ventilation.
To compare two points in time with approx the same number of people on ventilation
Ratio of ventilator to in hospital 20th July 2021: 7.4 Ratio of ventilator to in hospital 18th October 2020: 10.9
To compare two points in time with approx the same number of people in hospital Ratio of ventilator to in hospital 20th July 2021: 7.4 Ratio of ventilator to in hospital 11th October 2020: 9.7
So currently we have more people on ventilation per head of Covid hospital population than back in Autumn however you slice it. Maybe ventilation is the new treatment protocol for breaking your leg.
I've been trying to come up with an explanation for these surprising figures.
The best that I can come up with is that the mostly vaccinated health staff will now be acting to inhibit transmission of Covid within the hospital, so you will have fewer non-Covid patients in hospital acquiring Covid from the staff, but it's not very satisfactory as an explanation.
The patients are younger so ventilation is more likely because (i) they are strong enough to take it and (ii) it has a good chance of working?
That's very plausible.
Not much sign of them mostly having broken legs rather than a respiratory illness anyway.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
That actually looks like £484 vs £1136 paid by the individual, depending on your views on what Employers NI corresponds to.
Employers NI is income tax, no real difference whatsoever. Employers account for it in their budgeting, if it wasn't there then they could afford higher wages.
Very true - all staff costs go into the budget.
However, you know fully well that you cannot compare the tax burden of a worker with a pensioner by adding their employer's costs onto the employee. Does the employee pay ENICs? No.
Yes they do. They pay for it in recuced wages as it comes out of their wage budget.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
That actually looks like £484 vs £1136 paid by the individual, depending on your views on what Employers NI corresponds to.
Employers NI is income tax, no real difference whatsoever. Employers account for it in their budgeting, if it wasn't there then they could afford higher wages.
Very true - all staff costs go into the budget.
However, you know fully well that you cannot compare the tax burden of a worker with a pensioner by adding their employer's costs onto the employee. Does the employee pay ENICs? No.
Yes they do. They pay for it in recuced wages as it comes out of their wage budget.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
Were Employer NI to be removed would wages automatically increase by 13.8% - appropriate allowance?
As we know that isn't the case that is the reason it will never happen.
Oh and believe me I know an awful lot about the difference between advertised wages and budgets, there are a fair number of tribunals covering that subject on their way.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
The strongest correlation I have seen, suggests the Euros had the biggest effect - indoor groups watching the games on TV.
One of the most stupid pandemics decisions was the one to have so few public fanzones for the euros. It would have been far better for people to have wandered to their local fanzone than cram round the tv in someone’s front room.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
For a start you cannot include employers NI because it doesn't come out of the employees 15k he earns. So thats 850 gone straight away. So what you are really saying is just make pensioners pay NI
Of course it comes from it. Where does it come from? Fairies? The ether?
If I have a budget of £15k to pay someone then I need to take NI into account or I lose money. So I have to reduce the salary to pay for the NI as it is coming from the same pot.
If you want another way to look at it: Pension £15k Tax £484 Take home pay £14,516
Total budget for wages £15000:
Wages £14253 Employers NI £747 Total wage budget £15000 Tax £335 Employers NI £562 Take home pay £13356
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
That actually looks like £484 vs £1136 paid by the individual, depending on your views on what Employers NI corresponds to.
Employers NI is income tax, no real difference whatsoever. Employers account for it in their budgeting, if it wasn't there then they could afford higher wages.
Very true - all staff costs go into the budget.
However, you know fully well that you cannot compare the tax burden of a worker with a pensioner by adding their employer's costs onto the employee. Does the employee pay ENICs? No.
Yes they do. They pay for it in recuced wages as it comes out of their wage budget.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
Were Employer NI to be removed would wages automatically increase by 13.8% - appropriate allowance?
As we know that isn't the case that is the reason it will never happen.
Oh and believe me I know an awful lot about the difference between advertised wages and budgets, there are a fair number of tribunals covering that subject on their way.
Yes they would ultimately.
Not immediately as it takes time for tax changes to filter through the economy, they don't happen overnight. Even VAT or duty changes don't immediately and fully filter through due to the fact prices are sticky and people like to have round numbers etc but ultimately the taxes have to be paid one way or the other.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
That actually looks like £484 vs £1136 paid by the individual, depending on your views on what Employers NI corresponds to.
Employers NI is income tax, no real difference whatsoever. Employers account for it in their budgeting, if it wasn't there then they could afford higher wages.
Very true - all staff costs go into the budget.
However, you know fully well that you cannot compare the tax burden of a worker with a pensioner by adding their employer's costs onto the employee. Does the employee pay ENICs? No.
Yes they do. They pay for it in recuced wages as it comes out of their wage budget.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
A better way to run the tax calcs, is to use the same total cost.
So you’re comparing the employee on £13k to the pensioner on £15k, because of the £2k employer NI that’s usually hidden.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
That actually looks like £484 vs £1136 paid by the individual, depending on your views on what Employers NI corresponds to.
Employers NI is income tax, no real difference whatsoever. Employers account for it in their budgeting, if it wasn't there then they could afford higher wages.
Very true - all staff costs go into the budget.
However, you know fully well that you cannot compare the tax burden of a worker with a pensioner by adding their employer's costs onto the employee. Does the employee pay ENICs? No.
Yes they do. They pay for it in recuced wages as it comes out of their wage budget.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
A better way to run the tax calcs, is to use the same total cost.
So you’re comparing the employee on £13k to the pensioner on £15k, because of the £2k employer NI that’s usually hidden.
Precisely! Saying the employee doesn't pay employers national insurance is as intellectually dishonest as claiming that a driver doesn't pay fuel duty, they just pay the price per litre at the pump.
Taxes affect prices. That applies as equally to wages as it does the price at the pump.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
The strongest correlation I have seen, suggests the Euros had the biggest effect - indoor groups watching the games on TV.
One of the most stupid pandemics decisions was the one to have so few public fanzones for the euros. It would have been far better for people to have wandered to their local fanzone than cram round the tv in someone’s front room.
Yes, they should have used every Jumbotron in the country, and relaxed licensing laws so that every village green and showground had a party - OUTSIDE.
Instead, people crammed into bars or, even worse, into homes.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
For a start you cannot include employers NI because it doesn't come out of the employees 15k he earns. So thats 850 gone straight away. So what you are really saying is just make pensioners pay NI
Of course it comes from it. Where does it come from? Fairies? The ether?
If I have a budget of £15k to pay someone then I need to take NI into account or I lose money. So I have to reduce the salary to pay for the NI as it is coming from the same pot.
If you want another way to look at it: Pension £15k Tax £484 Take home pay £14,516
Total budget for wages £15000:
Wages £14253 Employers NI £747 Total wage budget £15000 Tax £335 Employers NI £562 Take home pay £13356
Staying out of this one, having said "it depends" earlier
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
That actually looks like £484 vs £1136 paid by the individual, depending on your views on what Employers NI corresponds to.
Employers NI is income tax, no real difference whatsoever. Employers account for it in their budgeting, if it wasn't there then they could afford higher wages.
Very true - all staff costs go into the budget.
However, you know fully well that you cannot compare the tax burden of a worker with a pensioner by adding their employer's costs onto the employee. Does the employee pay ENICs? No.
Yes they do. They pay for it in recuced wages as it comes out of their wage budget.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
It does not have to be dishonesty. It may just be that they haven't been involved in setting the total wage budget. I know plenty of people with hiring budgets who are given a "headline salary" budget to work with; they don't see the workings that factored ENI and "cost of working" (heat/light/space/equipment) into the overall number. So they might simply not realise that has happened.
On the non-tax side of employee costs, when we closed our London office, everyone got a 2k pay rise (because they didn't have to buy a season ticket any more). Staff hadn't really figured out that the office was costing *them* money directly. Obviously, we didn't claw it back so it was their share of the saving we made by closing the office.
It's all a lot more complicated than most people realise.
The lad who won in the swimming overnight had covid twice....wait until Prof Peston finds out....all part of the conspiracy.
Yes I thought that.
And people wonder why the young, fit, healthy and immortal* aren't queuing up to get jabbed. They believe it is the oldies trying to look after themselves. Which it sort of is.
*as far as they are concerned, and as pointed out earlier on PB apols can't remember the poster.
I'm pretty sure if you are 18-20+ and going to uni this autumn and not jabbed then you will get covid delta version. It is so transmissible it will make last year's freshers surge look like a warm up act.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
That actually looks like £484 vs £1136 paid by the individual, depending on your views on what Employers NI corresponds to.
Employers NI is income tax, no real difference whatsoever. Employers account for it in their budgeting, if it wasn't there then they could afford higher wages.
Very true - all staff costs go into the budget.
However, you know fully well that you cannot compare the tax burden of a worker with a pensioner by adding their employer's costs onto the employee. Does the employee pay ENICs? No.
Yes they do. They pay for it in recuced wages as it comes out of their wage budget.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
Were Employer NI to be removed would wages automatically increase by 13.8% - appropriate allowance?
As we know that isn't the case that is the reason it will never happen.
Oh and believe me I know an awful lot about the difference between advertised wages and budgets, there are a fair number of tribunals covering that subject on their way.
Yes they would ultimately.
Not immediately as it takes time for tax changes to filter through the economy, they don't happen overnight. Even VAT or duty changes don't immediately and fully filter through due to the fact prices are sticky and people like to have round numbers etc but ultimately the taxes have to be paid one way or the other.
Ultimately isn't good enough when you are talking about people's wages - unless you legislate to make the change immediate - some people would be seeing an instant 13.8% pay cut.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
That actually looks like £484 vs £1136 paid by the individual, depending on your views on what Employers NI corresponds to.
Employers NI is income tax, no real difference whatsoever. Employers account for it in their budgeting, if it wasn't there then they could afford higher wages.
Very true - all staff costs go into the budget.
However, you know fully well that you cannot compare the tax burden of a worker with a pensioner by adding their employer's costs onto the employee. Does the employee pay ENICs? No.
Yes they do. They pay for it in recuced wages as it comes out of their wage budget.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
It does not have to be dishonesty. It may just be that they haven't been involved in setting the total wage budget. I know plenty of people with hiring budgets who are given a "headline salary" budget to work with; they don't see the workings that factored ENI and "cost of working" (heat/light/space/equipment) into the overall number. So they might simply not realise that has happened.
On the non-tax side of employee costs, when we closed our London office, everyone got a 2k pay rise (because they didn't have to buy a season ticket any more). Staff hadn't really figured out that the office was costing *them* money directly. Obviously, we didn't claw it back so it was their share of the saving we made by closing the office.
It's all a lot more complicated than most people realise.
You're right sorry it could be ignorance instead of dishonesty.
But absolutely if taxes change then the headline salary budget will change pretty much automatically.
It certainly does get complicated but everything needs calculating including taxes. No tax can be written off as irrelevant just because it is applied before the headline figure - the headline figure changes depending upon the tax rate.
You can see the headline from the link. What the UK actually said, from the last para:
UK government spokesperson said the proposal still fell short. “The EU’s proposal was a welcome start but it would be complex to operate, onerous and would not deal at all with those medicines, such as new cancer drugs, which under current arrangements must be licensed by the European Medicines Agency in Northern Ireland,” he said.
On that they are right - EuCo are not dealing with their own self-imposed roadblocks and misperceptions, many of which can be dealt with without rewriting the Treaty. That is one place to start.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
For a start you cannot include employers NI because it doesn't come out of the employees 15k he earns. So thats 850 gone straight away. So what you are really saying is just make pensioners pay NI
Of course it comes from it. Where does it come from? Fairies? The ether?
If I have a budget of £15k to pay someone then I need to take NI into account or I lose money. So I have to reduce the salary to pay for the NI as it is coming from the same pot.
If you want another way to look at it: Pension £15k Tax £484 Take home pay £14,516
Total budget for wages £15000:
Wages £14253 Employers NI £747 Total wage budget £15000 Tax £335 Employers NI £562 Take home pay £13356
Because we were comparing someone earning 15k to a pensioner also on 15k. The employer ni is invisible to the employes his paypacket says he earns 15k and his tax deductions are 1136 from that. Your way would leave the pensioner 850 poorer a year than the one who has a headline wage of 15k
Team GB going to get knocked out in the rugby 7s to USA.
Switched on the TV yesterday evening (after watching S1E3 of The West Wing - fantastic) to see the skateboarding.
They were flying off their boards all over the place, it seemed that they'd have done better to go to the Southbank and pick up some people from there to compete.
Rarely, if ever, have I seen so called elite level athletes get so much wrong. I'm sure it's a credit to the phenomenal difficulty they are attempting, but it didn't seem right to see an Olympics event wherein people were literally falling over the whole time.
More watchable though, can't deny. Like the Winter Olympics.
“I think this idea of my right not to be offended, my right to have a safe space, is one that’s crept up in the last five years,” he said. If you mention John Stuart Mill’s arguments on free speech to “a bright 19-year-old in Oxford, they look at you a bit blankly. When you say, ‘Isn’t the best response to speech, more speech?’ it’s a new idea to them.”
Rusbridger understands the urge many young people may have to belong and feel safe in their identity. The question is what that urge requires: to belong, do you need to ostracise others who think differently? At Oxford, Rusbridger has debated with students “whose first instinctive position is, ‘But we want this to be a safe space, I feel threatened. Your job is to protect me.’”
His response is well-worn: there are no safe spaces in the world. You are supposedly the brightest of your generation – if you can’t defeat those you disagree with in an argument, who can? “It’s a bad thing,” he explained, “if the right not to feel offended overshadows the call of reason.”
There is much misunderstanding of "Safe Spaces", some of it deliberate and certainly amongst students and faculty.
The point of SS is not to suppress free speech but rather to enable it, by establishing ground rules to allow those historically marginalised to speak and explore ideas freely. This is especially important with widened access to university etc.
I think of it more similar to good chairing of a committee. The issue is mostly in small group teaching where the facilitator enables everyone to explore the topic, and give their perspective, rather than have the seminar dominated by a few loudmouths. SS is neutral in terms of politics and cultural narrative, just a clear structure of acceptable behaviour to allow free discussion.
Of course there is the critical issue of power dynamics as to who gets to set and enforce the rules, as well established by Foucault and others.
I think Rusbridger has something there.
But the idea that this is "the last 5 years" is ludicrous imo.
In the UK the laws about "harasssment, alarm or distress" go back to Public Order Act 1994 ie John Major's time:
The offence is created by section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986, which was inserted by section 154 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994:
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he: (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress. (2) An offence under this section may be committed in a public or a private place, except that no offence is committed where the words or behaviour are used, or the writing, sign or other visible representation is displayed, by a person inside a dwelling and the person who is harassed, alarmed or distressed is also inside that or another dwelling.
It has been broadened and new things introduced since, especially under New Labour, and weaponised by various campaign groups, and by changes to the law by changes in threshold tests and broadening of scope, redefinition of "course of action" around offences such as stalking, rhetoric around how "words" are 'violence; and similar. Particularly Theresa May also did similar.
Also of course the Malicious Communications Act 1988, and how it has been used. The broadening scope of use of poorly written legislation is key.
One perhaps little-noticed canary-in-the-coal-mine which has become increasingly regular has been harassment / arrest of street preachers by the police.
Also of course a portrayal of different opinions as 'hate-speech', as used by Mermaids, for example, to set the police on journalists.
What Rusbridger does not admit is that he provided an insufficiently critical platform for media noise in support of such moves at the Guardian. But even a small reverse ferret is a crumb.
And much of that has fed through into police culture. Plus a nasty little tendency amongst elected local politicians to try and use such offences to close down critics, which has been a thing I was personally seeing 15 years ago (which was when I became aware of it).
Good points. The 1994 CJA was also the bill that banned dancing in fields, even if the farmer was okay with it, if there were any “repetitive beats” involved.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
That actually looks like £484 vs £1136 paid by the individual, depending on your views on what Employers NI corresponds to.
Employers NI is income tax, no real difference whatsoever. Employers account for it in their budgeting, if it wasn't there then they could afford higher wages.
Very true - all staff costs go into the budget.
However, you know fully well that you cannot compare the tax burden of a worker with a pensioner by adding their employer's costs onto the employee. Does the employee pay ENICs? No.
Yes they do. They pay for it in recuced wages as it comes out of their wage budget.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
Were Employer NI to be removed would wages automatically increase by 13.8% - appropriate allowance?
As we know that isn't the case that is the reason it will never happen.
Oh and believe me I know an awful lot about the difference between advertised wages and budgets, there are a fair number of tribunals covering that subject on their way.
Yes they would ultimately.
Not immediately as it takes time for tax changes to filter through the economy, they don't happen overnight. Even VAT or duty changes don't immediately and fully filter through due to the fact prices are sticky and people like to have round numbers etc but ultimately the taxes have to be paid one way or the other.
Ultimately isn't good enough when you are talking about people's wages - unless you legislate to make the change immediate - some people would be seeing an instant 13.8% pay cut.
That's what happens whenever taxes change, you can use that argument for any tax at all.
As I've long said I would propose merging all income related taxes and benefits into a single, clear rate. To do so would inevitably result in disruption to the market so it should be phased in and it's complicated, just like Universal Credit was but on steroids. But that doesn't change it from being the right thing to do.
(a) when you are young you are invincible, and will never die (b) too much messaging in the pandemic about mostly mild, and protecting the vulnerable (c) a genuine appreciation of the risks for a 20 year old.
If we are honest, the main reason most of us want 18-25 year olds to have the vaccine is to help suppress the virus, not out of concern for their health. Tbh same argument for 12-18 too.
Well, I am personally acquainted with several 18-25 year olds (not in the @Leon sense) and a few 12-17 and I'd rather like them but to get the virus for their own health. And also for population immunity. They go hand in hand.
Maybe this is what happened in Government.
"We need to give everyone the virus."
"Are you sure Prime Minister?"
"Of course I'm bloody sure. I'm the Prime Minister. And I've got to get back to my model buses, I don't have time for this."
"Are you sure you didn't mean vaccine?"
PM stops dead in his tracks and thinks. Decides to double down.
"Of course not, you moron.V I R U S. Virus."
I’ve been reading a fascinating book about medieval law in Spain (bear with me…)
They have a great concept of “I obey, but I do not implement” allowing folks on the ground to overrule the Crown’s orders without disobeying them
Interesting. Unless now there was fairly general practice of 'hearing, not explicitly disobeying, but not actually implementing, and waiting for powers to forget and move on to the next wheeze' very little of use would get done in many areas of work, voluntary activity and life generally. Medieval Spain obviously was ahead of the game of modern life.
In fairness M&S do a cake in a jar (a Colin) that my daughter is very fond of so why not?
It's like the chef has "heard" of deconstructed food, but never actually encountered it in real life, and this is his/her attempt, just going by reports
It reminds me of those poor medieval scribes who had to draw giraffes, going only by sketchy descriptions, without ever seeing a photo, let alone a giraffe in the flesh. They weren't very good giraffes
The salt is unforgivable, however. If you're going to do fancy, then surely you know to do sea salt in a grinder. You can get them from Argos for about £1.50
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
That actually looks like £484 vs £1136 paid by the individual, depending on your views on what Employers NI corresponds to.
Employers NI is income tax, no real difference whatsoever. Employers account for it in their budgeting, if it wasn't there then they could afford higher wages.
Very true - all staff costs go into the budget.
However, you know fully well that you cannot compare the tax burden of a worker with a pensioner by adding their employer's costs onto the employee. Does the employee pay ENICs? No.
Yes they do. They pay for it in recuced wages as it comes out of their wage budget.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
It does not have to be dishonesty. It may just be that they haven't been involved in setting the total wage budget. I know plenty of people with hiring budgets who are given a "headline salary" budget to work with; they don't see the workings that factored ENI and "cost of working" (heat/light/space/equipment) into the overall number. So they might simply not realise that has happened.
On the non-tax side of employee costs, when we closed our London office, everyone got a 2k pay rise (because they didn't have to buy a season ticket any more). Staff hadn't really figured out that the office was costing *them* money directly. Obviously, we didn't claw it back so it was their share of the saving we made by closing the office.
It's all a lot more complicated than most people realise.
You're right sorry it could be ignorance instead of dishonesty.
But absolutely if taxes change then the headline salary budget will change pretty much automatically.
It certainly does get complicated but everything needs calculating including taxes. No tax can be written off as irrelevant just because it is applied before the headline figure - the headline figure changes depending upon the tax rate.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
For a start you cannot include employers NI because it doesn't come out of the employees 15k he earns. So thats 850 gone straight away. So what you are really saying is just make pensioners pay NI
Of course it comes from it. Where does it come from? Fairies? The ether?
If I have a budget of £15k to pay someone then I need to take NI into account or I lose money. So I have to reduce the salary to pay for the NI as it is coming from the same pot.
If you want another way to look at it: Pension £15k Tax £484 Take home pay £14,516
Total budget for wages £15000:
Wages £14253 Employers NI £747 Total wage budget £15000 Tax £335 Employers NI £562 Take home pay £13356
Because we were comparing someone earning 15k to a pensioner also on 15k. The employer ni is invisible to the employes his paypacket says he earns 15k and his tax deductions are 1136 from that. Your way would leave the pensioner 850 poorer a year than the one who has a headline wage of 15k
The employee taking £15k from their employer is not on a £15k salary. Just they have a headline salary of £14253
A headline salary of £15k costs £15850 not £15000 so whichever way you slice it Employers NI is a direct cost on employees. Your pretensions of invisibility only convince the ignorant.
One problem is that once someone takes any money from a private pension pot, they lose tax concessions on any future contributions if they return to work (£4k limit). Perhaps this is intended to stop the self-employed washing their salaries through the pension scheme but in practice it must limit the appeal of a return to work.
Is that right? I thought that if you took £X out of a pot, you got 25% tax free and paid your current marginal rate on the rest, and could do that repeatedly. Not the case?
Yes you've touched any of your pension pot - the rules for putting more money into it are very, very strict.
Perhaps we're talking about different things. I worked for X till I was 65, took 25% out of the work pension from X when I left, paying the rest into an annuity. Then I got another job with Y, and the pot there is duly building up, with no apparent problem. I've never had a private pension. Have I broken a rule?
This is where we need @AlastairMeeks – formerly PB's, and probably London's, top pensions lawyer – but my understanding is that building a new pot is fine but you cannot have as much tax relief on your contributions, except you might be all right thanks to the annuity, or not all right because of the lump sum. Dunno really. You might want to talk to an actual financial adviser (or just ring the pension company).
It's a bit complex, but essentially you have two potential annual allowances (the amount that you can pay into pension schemes tax free). There's a standard one of £40k and a money purchase annual allowance (MPAA) of £4k.
The MPAA is triggered if you use *any* your defined contribution benefits in certain ways (can be summarised as anything other than taking the tax free lump sum and buying an annuity). It's not triggered by taking DB benefits. The lower MPAA limit then applies to any contributions that you make to defined contribution schemes. You can continue to contribute to defined benefit schemes as usual (if you're lucky enough to be an active member in one).
This doesn't stop you from contributing to defined contribution schemes, but it does mean that only very small contributions get tax relief. You would pay income tax as normal on any contributions that exceeded the MPAA. This applies across all schemes that you're in.
So, taking your example, it doesn't sound like the pension from X would trigger the MPAA and so you can continue building your pot with Y under the normal rules on tax relief. Whether the pension is private or an occupational scheme doesn't affect this, it's just about DB v DC and how you take the benefits from the scheme(s).
The lad who won in the swimming overnight had covid twice....wait until Prof Peston finds out....all part of the conspiracy.
Yes I thought that.
And people wonder why the young, fit, healthy and immortal* aren't queuing up to get jabbed. They believe it is the oldies trying to look after themselves. Which it sort of is.
*as far as they are concerned, and as pointed out earlier on PB apols can't remember the poster.
I'm pretty sure if you are 18-20+ and going to uni this autumn and not jabbed then you will get covid delta version. It is so transmissible it will make last year's freshers surge look like a warm up act.
I know a couple of unvaxed young people (both around 25) down with Delta Covid. Both seem to be shrugging it off very easily, one reports it as being "like a sniffle"
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
For a start you cannot include employers NI because it doesn't come out of the employees 15k he earns. So thats 850 gone straight away. So what you are really saying is just make pensioners pay NI
Of course it comes from it. Where does it come from? Fairies? The ether?
If I have a budget of £15k to pay someone then I need to take NI into account or I lose money. So I have to reduce the salary to pay for the NI as it is coming from the same pot.
If you want another way to look at it: Pension £15k Tax £484 Take home pay £14,516
Total budget for wages £15000:
Wages £14253 Employers NI £747 Total wage budget £15000 Tax £335 Employers NI £562 Take home pay £13356
There’s actually another big deduction in your second list that doesn’t apply to pensioners: EE and ER pension contributions.
That adds a quarter to my salary costs while depressing my take home pay by about an additional 15% - and that’s a public sector pension!
You can see the headline from the link. What the UK actually said, from the last para:
UK government spokesperson said the proposal still fell short. “The EU’s proposal was a welcome start but it would be complex to operate, onerous and would not deal at all with those medicines, such as new cancer drugs, which under current arrangements must be licensed by the European Medicines Agency in Northern Ireland,” he said.
On that they are right - EuCo are not dealing with their own self-imposed roadblocks and misperceptions, many of which can be dealt with without rewriting the Treaty. That is one place to start.
Updating:
UK government spokesperson said the two sides instead needed “comprehensive and durable solutions”. David Frost, the minister responsible for Brexit issues, has said that without a major change to the legal text of the protocol, the government will consider triggering article 16 of the EU-UK agreement to suspend parts of the deal.
but also
UK government spokesperson said the proposal still fell short. “The EU’s proposal was a welcome start but it would be complex to operate, onerous and would not deal at all with those medicines, such as new cancer drugs, which under current arrangements must be licensed by the European Medicines Agency in Northern Ireland,” he said.
On that they are right - EuCo are not dealing with their own self-imposed roadblocks and misperceptions, many of which can be dealt with without rewriting the Treaty. That is one place to start imo - with the smaller issues and keep chipping away away from the public grandstanding.
Perhaps that is actually happening, but EuCo have a public vanity on the same scale as a Chinese Government.
Are we really saying that a Prime Minister with a majority of 80 and well ahead on the polls even in mid term, cannot sack a complete joker from his Cabinet? Because otherwise said joker, who is no longer credible with the back benches to be a whip, would bring the government down?
If that’s really the case then this government hasn’t got long at all then, because it means there’s such filthy dirt on the PM that someone soon will weaponise it.
Johnson could sack Williamson with complete 'impunity'. Unless he's frightened by a nip from Cronus the spider. There are already two former Chief Whips on the backbenches (Mark Harper and Julian Smith) who are still robust politically but hardly constitute a threat. Williamson would be virtually friendless.
The lad who won in the swimming overnight had covid twice....wait until Prof Peston finds out....all part of the conspiracy.
Yes I thought that.
And people wonder why the young, fit, healthy and immortal* aren't queuing up to get jabbed. They believe it is the oldies trying to look after themselves. Which it sort of is.
*as far as they are concerned, and as pointed out earlier on PB apols can't remember the poster.
I'm pretty sure if you are 18-20+ and going to uni this autumn and not jabbed then you will get covid delta version. It is so transmissible it will make last year's freshers surge look like a warm up act.
I'm sure. I'm also sure a lot of such people will think "so what?"
(a) when you are young you are invincible, and will never die (b) too much messaging in the pandemic about mostly mild, and protecting the vulnerable (c) a genuine appreciation of the risks for a 20 year old.
If we are honest, the main reason most of us want 18-25 year olds to have the vaccine is to help suppress the virus, not out of concern for their health. Tbh same argument for 12-18 too.
Well, I am personally acquainted with several 18-25 year olds (not in the @Leon sense) and a few 12-17 and I'd rather like them but to get the virus for their own health. And also for population immunity. They go hand in hand.
Maybe this is what happened in Government.
"We need to give everyone the virus."
"Are you sure Prime Minister?"
"Of course I'm bloody sure. I'm the Prime Minister. And I've got to get back to my model buses, I don't have time for this."
"Are you sure you didn't mean vaccine?"
PM stops dead in his tracks and thinks. Decides to double down.
"Of course not, you moron.V I R U S. Virus."
I’ve been reading a fascinating book about medieval law in Spain (bear with me…)
They have a great concept of “I obey, but I do not implement” allowing folks on the ground to overrule the Crown’s orders without disobeying them
Interesting. Unless now there was fairly general practice of 'hearing, not explicitly disobeying, but not actually implementing, and waiting for powers to forget and move on to the next wheeze' very little of use would get done in many areas of work, voluntary activity and life generally. Medieval Spain obviously was ahead of the game of modern life.
The concept of discretion is long standing in UK law. In enforcement, protection, judgement, sentencing and early release.
I we simply enforced all the laws all the times.....
Are we really saying that a Prime Minister with a majority of 80 and well ahead on the polls even in mid term, cannot sack a complete joker from his Cabinet? Because otherwise said joker, who is no longer credible with the back benches to be a whip, would bring the government down?
If that’s really the case then this government hasn’t got long at all then, because it means there’s such filthy dirt on the PM that someone soon will weaponise it.
Johnson could sack Williamson with complete 'impunity'. Unless he's frightened by a nip from Cronus the spider. There are already two former Chief Whips on the backbenches (Mark Harper and Julian Smith) who are still robust politically but hardly constitute a threat. Williamson would be virtually friendless.
Unless Gavin Williamson has something really deadly on Johnson. Hard to think what could be worse than the Arcuri scandal though, and he’s survived that.
You can see the headline from the link. What the UK actually said, from the last para:
UK government spokesperson said the proposal still fell short. “The EU’s proposal was a welcome start but it would be complex to operate, onerous and would not deal at all with those medicines, such as new cancer drugs, which under current arrangements must be licensed by the European Medicines Agency in Northern Ireland,” he said.
On that they are right - EuCo are not dealing with their own self-imposed roadblocks and misperceptions, many of which can be dealt with without rewriting the Treaty. That is one place to start.
Updating:
UK government spokesperson said the two sides instead needed “comprehensive and durable solutions”. David Frost, the minister responsible for Brexit issues, has said that without a major change to the legal text of the protocol, the government will consider triggering article 16 of the EU-UK agreement to suspend parts of the deal.
but also
UK government spokesperson said the proposal still fell short. “The EU’s proposal was a welcome start but it would be complex to operate, onerous and would not deal at all with those medicines, such as new cancer drugs, which under current arrangements must be licensed by the European Medicines Agency in Northern Ireland,” he said.
On that they are right - EuCo are not dealing with their own self-imposed roadblocks and misperceptions, many of which can be dealt with without rewriting the Treaty. That is one place to start imo - with the smaller issues and keep chipping away away from the public grandstanding.
Perhaps that is actually happening, but EuCo have a public vanity on the same scale as a Chinese Government.
I know he isn’t popular around these parts, but Dan Hannan got it right the other day:
For six months, Britain has been bending over backwards to make the system work, while the EU gives every impression of relishing our discomfort. Talks between the two sides have been a dialogue of the deaf, Britain offering practical ideas to minimise disruption while the EU seeks to make that disruption as public and salutary as possible.
…
No one seriously imagines that this is really about sausages sneaking into Co Donegal. Cross-border trade in Ireland amounts to less than 0.5 per cent of the EU’s total trade, yet Brussels conducts around 20 per cent of all the checks on goods entering its territory on it. No, this is about squeezing the UK.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
In fairness M&S do a cake in a jar (a Colin) that my daughter is very fond of so why not?
It's like the chef has "heard" of deconstructed food, but never actually encountered it in real life, and this is his/her attempt, just going by reports
It reminds me of those poor medieval scribes who had to draw giraffes, going only by sketchy descriptions, without ever seeing a photo, let alone a giraffe in the flesh. They weren't very good giraffes
The salt is unforgivable, however. If you're going to do fancy, then surely you know to do sea salt in a grinder. You can get them from Argos for about £1.50
The glass jar makes we wonder about the idea of sous vide cooking a pie.... hmmmm interesting.....
You can see the headline from the link. What the UK actually said, from the last para:
UK government spokesperson said the proposal still fell short. “The EU’s proposal was a welcome start but it would be complex to operate, onerous and would not deal at all with those medicines, such as new cancer drugs, which under current arrangements must be licensed by the European Medicines Agency in Northern Ireland,” he said.
On that they are right - EuCo are not dealing with their own self-imposed roadblocks and misperceptions, many of which can be dealt with without rewriting the Treaty. That is one place to start.
Updating:
UK government spokesperson said the two sides instead needed “comprehensive and durable solutions”. David Frost, the minister responsible for Brexit issues, has said that without a major change to the legal text of the protocol, the government will consider triggering article 16 of the EU-UK agreement to suspend parts of the deal.
but also
UK government spokesperson said the proposal still fell short. “The EU’s proposal was a welcome start but it would be complex to operate, onerous and would not deal at all with those medicines, such as new cancer drugs, which under current arrangements must be licensed by the European Medicines Agency in Northern Ireland,” he said.
On that they are right - EuCo are not dealing with their own self-imposed roadblocks and misperceptions, many of which can be dealt with without rewriting the Treaty. That is one place to start imo - with the smaller issues and keep chipping away away from the public grandstanding.
Perhaps that is actually happening, but EuCo have a public vanity on the same scale as a Chinese Government.
I know he isn’t popular around these parts, but Dan Hannan got it right the other day:
For six months, Britain has been bending over backwards to make the system work, while the EU gives every impression of relishing our discomfort. Talks between the two sides have been a dialogue of the deaf, Britain offering practical ideas to minimise disruption while the EU seeks to make that disruption as public and salutary as possible.
…
No one seriously imagines that this is really about sausages sneaking into Co Donegal. Cross-border trade in Ireland amounts to less than 0.5 per cent of the EU’s total trade, yet Brussels conducts around 20 per cent of all the checks on goods entering its territory on it. No, this is about squeezing the UK.
Are we really saying that a Prime Minister with a majority of 80 and well ahead on the polls even in mid term, cannot sack a complete joker from his Cabinet? Because otherwise said joker, who is no longer credible with the back benches to be a whip, would bring the government down?
If that’s really the case then this government hasn’t got long at all then, because it means there’s such filthy dirt on the PM that someone soon will weaponise it.
Johnson could sack Williamson with complete 'impunity'. Unless he's frightened by a nip from Cronus the spider. There are already two former Chief Whips on the backbenches (Mark Harper and Julian Smith) who are still robust politically but hardly constitute a threat. Williamson would be virtually friendless.
Unless Gavin Williamson has something really deadly on Johnson. Hard to think what could be worse than the Arcuri scandal though, and he’s survived that.
Yes, exactly but whether Johnson actually does the dirty deed and fires him is still a bigly moot question.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
For a start you cannot include employers NI because it doesn't come out of the employees 15k he earns. So thats 850 gone straight away. So what you are really saying is just make pensioners pay NI
Of course it comes from it. Where does it come from? Fairies? The ether?
If I have a budget of £15k to pay someone then I need to take NI into account or I lose money. So I have to reduce the salary to pay for the NI as it is coming from the same pot.
If you want another way to look at it: Pension £15k Tax £484 Take home pay £14,516
Total budget for wages £15000:
Wages £14253 Employers NI £747 Total wage budget £15000 Tax £335 Employers NI £562 Take home pay £13356
There’s actually another big deduction in your second list that doesn’t apply to pensioners: EE and ER pension contributions.
That adds a quarter to my salary costs while depressing my take home pay by about an additional 15% - and that’s a public sector pension!
ER pension costs only need to be 3% anything else is a bonus (and can be on base salary alone as well).
Respect must be earned and Frost and Johnson are standing which will earn begrudging respect.
Nobody respects a doormat.
More or less than they respect someone who reneges on their own treaty which they negotiated and signed and which they called "A great deal" and "Oven ready" because they didn't understand it?
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Well, that's a view. I'd argue that if he had treated the economy between 1997 and 2008 properly, instead of as a way to get power, we'd have been in a much better place to withstand any turmoil occurring abroad. Instead he drove us into it at full speed, contributing to, rather than mitigating, the GFC.
But he still became PM, so it worked out okay for him, I suppose.
(I actually see parallels between Brown and Johnson; which is strange as they are morally very different people.)
In fairness M&S do a cake in a jar (a Colin) that my daughter is very fond of so why not?
It's like the chef has "heard" of deconstructed food, but never actually encountered it in real life, and this is his/her attempt, just going by reports
It reminds me of those poor medieval scribes who had to draw giraffes, going only by sketchy descriptions, without ever seeing a photo, let alone a giraffe in the flesh. They weren't very good giraffes
The salt is unforgivable, however. If you're going to do fancy, then surely you know to do sea salt in a grinder. You can get them from Argos for about £1.50
It doesn't strike me particularly as a place that wants "to do fancy".
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Brown's mistake was to ignore the obvious problems with the banks. The problem was that the banks were generating a river of tax money, which was politically cheap to spend. So he (and his advisors) fell into the trap of not wanting to see the problems in what was generating short term joy joy....
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Brown's mistake was to ignore the obvious problems with the banks. The problem was that the banks were generating a river of tax money, which was politically cheap to spend. So he (and his advisors) fell into the trap of not wanting to see the problems in what was generating short term joy joy....
His second mistake was saying he would ‘borrow only to invest over the economic cycle’ having redefined investment as ‘anything I want to spend money on at the time.’
Fascinating to hear Philip insist he is right and everyone else is not just wrong but "dishonest" (or "liars" to use his other favourite term) or "ignorant."
The employee taking £15k from their employer is not on a £15k salary. Just they have a headline salary of £14253
A headline salary of £15k costs £15850 not £15000 so whichever way you slice it Employers NI is a direct cost on employees. Your pretensions of invisibility only convince the ignorant.
This is laughable. "The employee TAKING £15k". As in what they get paid. That is £15k. Not £14,253. That it costs the employer a whole host of other cash is not the employee taking that from the employer. Why stop at ENIC? You may as well add all other benefits on. How about their share of indirect costs as well?
I am doing company P&L right now. I have a whole load of staffing costs, but as my spreadsheet our accountant and HMRC are "dishonest" and "ignorant" for some reason the costs of employment aren't actually paid to the employee.
The Wizard of Wazza. The World Expert of Everything talking total bollocks. Call that "dishonest" or "ignorant" as you see fit.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Brown's mistake was to ignore the obvious problems with the banks. The problem was that the banks were generating a river of tax money, which was politically cheap to spend. So he (and his advisors) fell into the trap of not wanting to see the problems in what was generating short term joy joy....
His second mistake was saying he would ‘borrow only to invest over the economic cycle’ having redefined investment as ‘anything I want to spend money on at the time.’
Which reminds me I need to invest more in Chablis Permier Cru*
*Grand Cru is surprisingly often less good than the Premier Cru....
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Brown's mistake was to ignore the obvious problems with the banks. The problem was that the banks were generating a river of tax money, which was politically cheap to spend. So he (and his advisors) fell into the trap of not wanting to see the problems in what was generating short term joy joy....
His second mistake was saying he would ‘borrow only to invest over the economic cycle’ having redefined investment as ‘anything I want to spend money on at the time.’
Yes and the cycle is as long as I say it is so that the day when I have to meet this test never actually arrives...
For a man of obvious personal integrity and decency his behaviour as Chancellor was truly remarkable. Dishonest really doesn't start to do it justice.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Brown's mistake was to ignore the obvious problems with the banks. The problem was that the banks were generating a river of tax money, which was politically cheap to spend. So he (and his advisors) fell into the trap of not wanting to see the problems in what was generating short term joy joy....
His second mistake was saying he would ‘borrow only to invest over the economic cycle’ having redefined investment as ‘anything I want to spend money on at the time.’
And having then claimed to have abolished the economic cycle, which was only because of the borrowed money pumped in to the economy from 2004-2007.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Brown's mistake was to ignore the obvious problems with the banks. The problem was that the banks were generating a river of tax money, which was politically cheap to spend. So he (and his advisors) fell into the trap of not wanting to see the problems in what was generating short term joy joy....
His second mistake was saying he would ‘borrow only to invest over the economic cycle’ having redefined investment as ‘anything I want to spend money on at the time.’
Yes and the cycle is as long as I say it is so that the day when I have to meet this test never actually arrives...
For a man of obvious personal integrity and decency his behaviour as Chancellor was truly remarkable. Dishonest really doesn't start to do it justice.
I think he did/does have a Cummings style ability to convince himself that the world was as he said it was because he said so.
Respect must be earned and Frost and Johnson are standing which will earn begrudging respect.
Nobody respects a doormat.
More or less than someone who reneges on their own treaty which they negotiated and signed and which they called "A great deal" and "Oven ready" because they didn't understand it?
Or do they just consider such a person a fool?
Absolutely they'll have more begrudging respect for Frost and Johnson than they had for May and Robbins.
Or the "respect" shown to Cameron with his failed renegotiation with the EU. Or the "respect" shown to Brown who slunk off on his own to sign the Lisbon treaty. Or the "respect" shown to Blair who gave away half of the UK's rebate for CAP reform that never materialised. Or the "respect" shown to Major who had promises reforms wouldn't apply to the UK, then that was completely disregarded once Maastricht was passed (hat tip: a favourite example of Mr Tyndall's of this parish).
The only leaders in my life that the EU/EEC leaders have begrudgingly respected were Thatcher and Johnson.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Well, that's a view. I'd argue that if he had treated the economy between 1997 and 2008 properly, instead of as a way to get power, we'd have been in a much better place to withstand any turmoil occurring abroad. Instead he drove us into it at full speed, contributing to, rather than mitigating, the GFC.
But he still became PM, so it worked out okay for him, I suppose.
(I actually see parallels between Brown and Johnson; which is strange as they are morally very different people.)
Mine is indeed a view, and oddly enough it is the view shared by almost all reputable commentators, including the US Government.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Brown's mistake was to ignore the obvious problems with the banks. The problem was that the banks were generating a river of tax money, which was politically cheap to spend. So he (and his advisors) fell into the trap of not wanting to see the problems in what was generating short term joy joy....
His second mistake was saying he would ‘borrow only to invest over the economic cycle’ having redefined investment as ‘anything I want to spend money on at the time.’
And having then claimed to have abolished the economic cycle, which was only because of the borrowed money pumped in to the economy from 2004-2007.
Yes. That was another flaw in the logic. But truthfully, it was much less dangerous than building a structural deficit at the height of the boom while pretending the public finances were in good shape. It’s a legacy that really has bedevilled Labour ever since, and it hasn’t been good for the Tories either.
Very modest salary. I get paid slightly more than that per diem for being an ad hoc AD (prosecutor in the High Court).
Wow, £400/day for 1-2 days a month. That’s very non-exec.
Who is the person actually doing the work there?
Presumably there will be a host of civil servants who process the complaints etc and the days of the Commissioner will be for hearings etc arising from that? It's certainly not hands on.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Yep. Brown headed up a government that was tired. They had a poor comms operation vs the Tories who were pin sharp. Brown got the blame for the under-regulation of the banks, yet the Tories had been hounding him for over-regulating the banks. Brown got the blame for an economic bubble which burst, yet the Tories wanted to inflate in higher to enable them to match spending "pound for pound" and "share in the proceeds of [even higher] growth"
How did they get away with it? Liam "There's no money left" Byrne. One unfunny attempt at a joke and the narrative was the Tories to rewrite which they did with devastating effect.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Well, that's a view. I'd argue that if he had treated the economy between 1997 and 2008 properly, instead of as a way to get power, we'd have been in a much better place to withstand any turmoil occurring abroad. Instead he drove us into it at full speed, contributing to, rather than mitigating, the GFC.
But he still became PM, so it worked out okay for him, I suppose.
(I actually see parallels between Brown and Johnson; which is strange as they are morally very different people.)
Mine is indeed a view, and oddly enough it is the view shared by almost all reputable commentators, including the US Government.
It's amazing how 'reputable commentators' equals 'people who agree with me'
Do you agree or disagree that the crash hurt Britain more because of the policies Brown had implemented for ten years?
Respect must be earned and Frost and Johnson are standing which will earn begrudging respect.
Nobody respects a doormat.
More or less than someone who reneges on their own treaty which they negotiated and signed and which they called "A great deal" and "Oven ready" because they didn't understand it?
Or do they just consider such a person a fool?
Absolutely they'll have more begrudging respect for Frost and Johnson than they had for May and Robbins.
Or the "respect" shown to Cameron with his failed renegotiation with the EU. Or the "respect" shown to Brown who slunk off on his own to sign the Lisbon treaty. Or the "respect" shown to Blair who gave away half of the UK's rebate for CAP reform that never materialised. Or the "respect" shown to Major who had promises reforms wouldn't apply to the UK, then that was completely disregarded once Maastricht was passed (hat tip: a favourite example of Mr Tyndall's of this parish).
The only leaders in my life that the EU/EEC leaders have begrudgingly respected were Thatcher and Johnson.
IIRC Blair was literally insulted to his face for having the temerity to believe that, just because a review of the CAP had been promised in return for rebate relegation, that he would get a review of the CAP.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Brown's mistake was to ignore the obvious problems with the banks. The problem was that the banks were generating a river of tax money, which was politically cheap to spend. So he (and his advisors) fell into the trap of not wanting to see the problems in what was generating short term joy joy....
His second mistake was saying he would ‘borrow only to invest over the economic cycle’ having redefined investment as ‘anything I want to spend money on at the time.’
To the limited extent that was true, it was irrelevant.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Brown's mistake was to ignore the obvious problems with the banks. The problem was that the banks were generating a river of tax money, which was politically cheap to spend. So he (and his advisors) fell into the trap of not wanting to see the problems in what was generating short term joy joy....
His second mistake was saying he would ‘borrow only to invest over the economic cycle’ having redefined investment as ‘anything I want to spend money on at the time.’
To the limited extent that was true, it was irrelevant.
The mis-use of PPP is still with us in the form of ridiculously bad contracts for public services.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Gordon Brown didn't steer Britain around the global financial crisis, he helped create it.
London is a key hub for the financial sector globally and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is responsible for regulating it to ensure it doesn't fail. Britain is a world leader in finance and has to take some responsibility for it as a result.
Brown reformed the regulations to removed the BoE's oversight of the financial sector, leading ultimately within a decade to the failure of Northern Rock and RBS.
Plus of course Brown poured fuel on his own fire of failure by overspending before the crisis, treating the financial sector as a golden egg while still maxing out the national credit card, leaving us with a catastrophic budget deficit to close afterwards.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Yep. Brown headed up a government that was tired. They had a poor comms operation vs the Tories who were pin sharp. Brown got the blame for the under-regulation of the banks, yet the Tories had been hounding him for over-regulating the banks. Brown got the blame for an economic bubble which burst, yet the Tories wanted to inflate in higher to enable them to match spending "pound for pound" and "share in the proceeds of [even higher] growth"
How did they get away with it? Liam "There's no money left" Byrne. One unfunny attempt at a joke and the narrative was the Tories to rewrite which they did with devastating effect.
Well, it was true. What it really boils down to is that Brown's premiership was doomed from the start, due to Brown's own actions as Chancellor in taxing the hell out of everything to pay for Blair's programme, meaning when the crisis hit, Brown ran out of money much faster than he should have done.
Fascinating to hear Philip insist he is right and everyone else is not just wrong but "dishonest" (or "liars" to use his other favourite term) or "ignorant."
The employee taking £15k from their employer is not on a £15k salary. Just they have a headline salary of £14253
A headline salary of £15k costs £15850 not £15000 so whichever way you slice it Employers NI is a direct cost on employees. Your pretensions of invisibility only convince the ignorant.
This is laughable. "The employee TAKING £15k". As in what they get paid. That is £15k. Not £14,253. That it costs the employer a whole host of other cash is not the employee taking that from the employer. Why stop at ENIC? You may as well add all other benefits on. How about their share of indirect costs as well?
I am doing company P&L right now. I have a whole load of staffing costs, but as my spreadsheet our accountant and HMRC are "dishonest" and "ignorant" for some reason the costs of employment aren't actually paid to the employee.
The Wizard of Wazza. The World Expert of Everything talking total bollocks. Call that "dishonest" or "ignorant" as you see fit.
I don't think that is fair. The difference between these other costs and ENI is that these other costs are incurred in the operation of the business. The ENI is simply a tax on employment which does not benefit the enterprise at all unlike the costs of an office, computer, phone etc. Where I think Philip is overstating it is assuming that the cost of ENI would otherwise go to the employee as opposed to, say, profits.
Taxes on employment seem to me a very bad thing but they have proved irresistible to governments of all colours because it is a hidden tax that does not appear on the wage slip. Brown's pension grab was similar in that the consequences were hidden for several years. Generally speaking governments should look to simplify taxes, be honest about what they need to raise and raise that money by as broad a tax base as possible paying as little as required.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Brown's mistake was to ignore the obvious problems with the banks. The problem was that the banks were generating a river of tax money, which was politically cheap to spend. So he (and his advisors) fell into the trap of not wanting to see the problems in what was generating short term joy joy....
His second mistake was saying he would ‘borrow only to invest over the economic cycle’ having redefined investment as ‘anything I want to spend money on at the time.’
To the limited extent that was true, it was irrelevant.
It was anything but irrelevant. The key to understanding politics in the whole of the last twelve years is understanding that.
In a sense though, even worse were his huge unfunded spending commitments in local government (e.g. on teacher salaries) which have left the toxic threefold legacies of soaring council tax, bankrupt local authorities and enforced unitarisation.
Now, here's something interesting. This morning's Telegraph is alleging that over half of all Covid hospitalisations in England are of people who tested positive *after* they were admitted.
The details are hidden behind the paywall, but a cut 'n' paste job on the Sun website suggests that only 44% of the recent admissions to English hospitals recorded as being Covid patients had actually had a positive test result by the time they were wheeled in.
How many of the remaining 56% were admitted due to Covid symptoms, and how many were asymptomatic cases admitted for reasons entirely unrelated to the virus, is unknown. But there is at least the possibility that the number of people becoming sick enough with Covid to need hospital treatment is being significantly overstated in the Government statistics. More information required.
I did say this a couple of weeks ago, if you are admitted to Hospital with a broken leg and you test positive for Covid, even if you have no symptoms you are counted as a Covid patient.
People with asymptomatic Covid and a broken leg do not end up on a ventilator, so you can estimate the size of this effect by comparing the ratio of Covid patients in hospital to those receiving mechanical ventilation.
There's also the fact that a further 40% or so of patients are diagnosed within 48 hours of arriving in hospital, so we know they caught it outside of hospital. This mitigates strongly against the possibility of any significant proportion having caught it in hospital.
That the ratio of those on ventilators is, if anything, higher than before, means it's leaning very strongly towards most of those who are diagnosed after arrival simply having gone straight to hospital when having difficulty breathing or other significant covid symptoms rather than deciding to go for a PCR test somewhere else first. Got to admit, if I or a loved one was having difficulty breathing, we'd go straight to the hospital rather than going "Hmm, where is there a covid testing station?"
But, yeah, the Telegraph. "How can we try to imply that covid doesn't exist/is very minor/has gone away/is just FALSE POSITIVES!/delete as appropriate"
Respect must be earned and Frost and Johnson are standing which will earn begrudging respect.
Nobody respects a doormat.
More or less than someone who reneges on their own treaty which they negotiated and signed and which they called "A great deal" and "Oven ready" because they didn't understand it?
Or do they just consider such a person a fool?
Absolutely they'll have more begrudging respect for Frost and Johnson than they had for May and Robbins.
Or the "respect" shown to Cameron with his failed renegotiation with the EU. Or the "respect" shown to Brown who slunk off on his own to sign the Lisbon treaty. Or the "respect" shown to Blair who gave away half of the UK's rebate for CAP reform that never materialised. Or the "respect" shown to Major who had promises reforms wouldn't apply to the UK, then that was completely disregarded once Maastricht was passed (hat tip: a favourite example of Mr Tyndall's of this parish).
The only leaders in my life that the EU/EEC leaders have begrudgingly respected were Thatcher and Johnson.
Rubbish. Gentleman John got optouts from euro membership and the Social Chapter - the key pillars of Maastricht.
They should just get it over with and tax the state pension. People already raking in the money from their final salary pensions don't need the extra pittance from the government.
It is taxed already. If you have no other income your personal allowance covers it so you don't pay tax, but it's counted in together with whatever else you're getting.
I was more thinking with a taper.
If someone has a 6k income from private pension plus the circa 9k from state pension how much more income tax are you propsosing they pay than someone earning 15k?
The worker on default tax codes according to a tax calculator pays Income Tax £484 National Insurance £652 Employers NI £850 Total tax: £1986
The pensioner pays £484
That actually looks like £484 vs £1136 paid by the individual, depending on your views on what Employers NI corresponds to.
Employers NI is income tax, no real difference whatsoever. Employers account for it in their budgeting, if it wasn't there then they could afford higher wages.
Very true - all staff costs go into the budget.
However, you know fully well that you cannot compare the tax burden of a worker with a pensioner by adding their employer's costs onto the employee. Does the employee pay ENICs? No.
Yes they do. They pay for it in recuced wages as it comes out of their wage budget.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
Were Employer NI to be removed would wages automatically increase by 13.8% - appropriate allowance?
As we know that isn't the case that is the reason it will never happen.
Oh and believe me I know an awful lot about the difference between advertised wages and budgets, there are a fair number of tribunals covering that subject on their way.
Yes they would ultimately.
Not immediately as it takes time for tax changes to filter through the economy, they don't happen overnight. Even VAT or duty changes don't immediately and fully filter through due to the fact prices are sticky and people like to have round numbers etc but ultimately the taxes have to be paid one way or the other.
Ultimately isn't good enough when you are talking about people's wages - unless you legislate to make the change immediate - some people would be seeing an instant 13.8% pay cut.
That's what happens whenever taxes change, you can use that argument for any tax at all.
As I've long said I would propose merging all income related taxes and benefits into a single, clear rate. To do so would inevitably result in disruption to the market so it should be phased in and it's complicated, just like Universal Credit was but on steroids. But that doesn't change it from being the right thing to do.
Agree, but the problem with merging the tax and benefits system is that taxes are generally assessed on individuals but benefits are assessed on households. That is a tough circle to square.
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Well, that's a view. I'd argue that if he had treated the economy between 1997 and 2008 properly, instead of as a way to get power, we'd have been in a much better place to withstand any turmoil occurring abroad. Instead he drove us into it at full speed, contributing to, rather than mitigating, the GFC.
But he still became PM, so it worked out okay for him, I suppose.
(I actually see parallels between Brown and Johnson; which is strange as they are morally very different people.)
Mine is indeed a view, and oddly enough it is the view shared by almost all reputable commentators, including the US Government.
It's amazing how 'reputable commentators' equals 'people who agree with me'
Do you agree or disagree that the crash hurt Britain more because of the policies Brown had implemented for ten years?
Disagree. There, that was easy.
Here is 600 pages of official US inquiry into the global financial crisis. Think of it as a latterday Warren Commission, the canonical truth, settled and accepted for all time (with the page that says "it was all bloody Gordon Brown's fault" mysteriously redacted, even though the American government would have a lot to gain from blaming someone else). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-FCIC/pdf/GPO-FCIC.pdf
The self-isolation U-turn seems like ancient history now, in view of the sudden and unexpected drop in the infection rate. It seems that the most reckless prime minister in recent history is also the luckiest.
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
"the most reckless prime minister in recent history"
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
Gordon Brown's "treatment of the economy" did not lead to the crash, which was caused by the global financial crisis. To believe otherwise, you'd need to credit Brown with successfully steering Britain around the GFC only to fall into a quite separate hole at the same time. Which oddly enough did happen a few years earlier, hence the hubris about abolishing boom and bust.
Yep. Brown headed up a government that was tired. They had a poor comms operation vs the Tories who were pin sharp. Brown got the blame for the under-regulation of the banks, yet the Tories had been hounding him for over-regulating the banks. Brown got the blame for an economic bubble which burst, yet the Tories wanted to inflate in higher to enable them to match spending "pound for pound" and "share in the proceeds of [even higher] growth"
How did they get away with it? Liam "There's no money left" Byrne. One unfunny attempt at a joke and the narrative was the Tories to rewrite which they did with devastating effect.
Well, it was true. What it really boils down to is that Brown's premiership was doomed from the start, due to Brown's own actions as Chancellor in taxing the hell out of everything to pay for Blair's programme, meaning when the crisis hit, Brown ran out of money much faster than he should have done.
Whilst I certainly adhere to that view the amount of money a Chancellor can find in an emergency is truly remarkable. We saw that in 2008 with the capital injections into banks but even that has been dwarfed by the £400bn spent on dealing with Covid to date. The truth is that the envelope was much bigger and more flexible than we thought. This is bad news for fiscal hawks. Every time they moan about the deficit going forwards people will point to the staggering sums that Rishi was able to spend and print without obvious adverse effects.
Fascinating to hear Philip insist he is right and everyone else is not just wrong but "dishonest" (or "liars" to use his other favourite term) or "ignorant."
The employee taking £15k from their employer is not on a £15k salary. Just they have a headline salary of £14253
A headline salary of £15k costs £15850 not £15000 so whichever way you slice it Employers NI is a direct cost on employees. Your pretensions of invisibility only convince the ignorant.
This is laughable. "The employee TAKING £15k". As in what they get paid. That is £15k. Not £14,253. That it costs the employer a whole host of other cash is not the employee taking that from the employer. Why stop at ENIC? You may as well add all other benefits on. How about their share of indirect costs as well?
I am doing company P&L right now. I have a whole load of staffing costs, but as my spreadsheet our accountant and HMRC are "dishonest" and "ignorant" for some reason the costs of employment aren't actually paid to the employee.
The Wizard of Wazza. The World Expert of Everything talking total bollocks. Call that "dishonest" or "ignorant" as you see fit.
I never said the money was going to the employee and you are completely wrong. Assuming they are a PAYE employee then what they get paid is not £15k under any scenario, since under PAYE the taxes go direct to HMRC and the employee gets the take home pay.
Are your employees getting paid PAYE and still receiving the Income Tax paid to them instead of to HMRC? Or receiving Employees NI paid to them instead of HMRC?
Actually what I bet your accountants or whoever is doing the payroll are doing is making one payment to the employee of their take home pay and making one payment to HMRC of their P32 payment which will include the income tax, employee NIC and employer NIC all bundled together. Because they're three sides of the same coin, even if one side is kept invisible.
Employer NIC goes in the same labour budget pot and unless its different to my experience literally goes to HMRC in the same payment as employee NIC and income tax because they're the same frigging thing. They're just behind the scenes - and yes if you were too ignorant or dishonest to realise that all the PAYE taxes all go to HMRC, in the same bank transfer even in my experience, rather than to the employee then maybe you should try to learn how these things operate yourself before calling others with experience in this field a "Wizard".
It’s quite amazing that, sticking a live mic in front of someone who’s just achieved their lifetime ambition, and who hasn’t necessarily had a professional sportsman’s level of media training, we don’t get that response a lot more often!
Comments
Can we revoke their citizenship?
I reckon the problem for the government now is that the most plausible of the post hoc explanations is that it's related to schools breaking up. If the infection rate is driven by schools to that extent, it poses the question of what will happen when schools go back and we get towards the Autumn, and whether the decision not in general to vaccinate under-18s is wise.
The approval rating of the Government is down again. And ratings of BoJo are now amongst the lowest they’ve ever been.
So whilst he does seem to recover, he also seems to fall lower each time. The public are getting fed up
They were flying off their boards all over the place, it seemed that they'd have done better to go to the Southbank and pick up some people from there to compete.
Rarely, if ever, have I seen so called elite level athletes get so much wrong. I'm sure it's a credit to the phenomenal difficulty they are attempting, but it didn't seem right to see an Olympics event wherein people were literally falling over the whole time.
He daren't take any of them out.
I think one of the issues though is that for a long while the news coverage was that the young don’t get impacted by COVID and I am sure that has to be behind the slow take up. In addition, there’s an element of saying “sod off” to the system as well
Not much sign of them mostly having broken legs rather than a respiratory illness anyway.
To claim otherwise is dishonesty, pure and simple.
As we know that isn't the case that is the reason it will never happen.
Oh and believe me I know an awful lot about the difference between advertised wages and budgets, there are a fair number of tribunals covering that subject on their way.
Nah, Tony Blair was much more reckless wrt the Iraq invasion. That was an utterly unforced error. Johnson's had to deal with something utterly novel in political terms: there have been pandemics before, but we now have many more tools to try to tackle them, albeit some of those tools are rather immature and novel. I'd also say Brown's treatment of the economy that led to the crash was reckless and unforced.
I really don't envy anyone having to make decisions in this pandemic. There're too many people on all sides shouting that their way is better: even when those ways vary and oppose each other. The decisions also have to take into account other factors, such as education and the economy.
IMV throughout the epidemic there have been no 'good' answers: only ones in varying positions on the 'bad' scale.
If I have a budget of £15k to pay someone then I need to take NI into account or I lose money. So I have to reduce the salary to pay for the NI as it is coming from the same pot.
If you want another way to look at it:
Pension £15k
Tax £484
Take home pay £14,516
Total budget for wages £15000:
Wages £14253
Employers NI £747
Total wage budget £15000
Tax £335
Employers NI £562
Take home pay £13356
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/26/uk-rejects-eus-northern-ireland-moves-saying-brexit-deal-must-be-renegotiated?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/26/1030043/gain-of-function-research-coronavirus-ralph-baric-vaccines/
Paywalled, but can be read using reader view.
Not immediately as it takes time for tax changes to filter through the economy, they don't happen overnight. Even VAT or duty changes don't immediately and fully filter through due to the fact prices are sticky and people like to have round numbers etc but ultimately the taxes have to be paid one way or the other.
So you’re comparing the employee on £13k to the pensioner on £15k, because of the £2k employer NI that’s usually hidden.
Taxes affect prices. That applies as equally to wages as it does the price at the pump.
Instead, people crammed into bars or, even worse, into homes.
On the non-tax side of employee costs, when we closed our London office, everyone got a 2k pay rise (because they didn't have to buy a season ticket any more). Staff hadn't really figured out that the office was costing *them* money directly. Obviously, we didn't claw it back so it was their share of the saving we made by closing the office.
It's all a lot more complicated than most people realise.
Nobody respects a doormat.
For anyone interested.
But absolutely if taxes change then the headline salary budget will change pretty much automatically.
It certainly does get complicated but everything needs calculating including taxes. No tax can be written off as irrelevant just because it is applied before the headline figure - the headline figure changes depending upon the tax rate.
UK government spokesperson said the proposal still fell short. “The EU’s proposal was a welcome start but it would be complex to operate, onerous and would not deal at all with those medicines, such as new cancer drugs, which under current arrangements must be licensed by the European Medicines Agency in Northern Ireland,” he said.
On that they are right - EuCo are not dealing with their own self-imposed roadblocks and misperceptions, many of which can be dealt with without rewriting the Treaty. That is one place to start.
As I've long said I would propose merging all income related taxes and benefits into a single, clear rate. To do so would inevitably result in disruption to the market so it should be phased in and it's complicated, just like Universal Credit was but on steroids. But that doesn't change it from being the right thing to do.
It reminds me of those poor medieval scribes who had to draw giraffes, going only by sketchy descriptions, without ever seeing a photo, let alone a giraffe in the flesh. They weren't very good giraffes
The salt is unforgivable, however. If you're going to do fancy, then surely you know to do sea salt in a grinder. You can get them from Argos for about £1.50
A headline salary of £15k costs £15850 not £15000 so whichever way you slice it Employers NI is a direct cost on employees. Your pretensions of invisibility only convince the ignorant.
The MPAA is triggered if you use *any* your defined contribution benefits in certain ways (can be summarised as anything other than taking the tax free lump sum and buying an annuity). It's not triggered by taking DB benefits. The lower MPAA limit then applies to any contributions that you make to defined contribution schemes. You can continue to contribute to defined benefit schemes as usual (if you're lucky enough to be an active member in one).
This doesn't stop you from contributing to defined contribution schemes, but it does mean that only very small contributions get tax relief. You would pay income tax as normal on any contributions that exceeded the MPAA. This applies across all schemes that you're in.
So, taking your example, it doesn't sound like the pension from X would trigger the MPAA and so you can continue building your pot with Y under the normal rules on tax relief. Whether the pension is private or an occupational scheme doesn't affect this, it's just about DB v DC and how you take the benefits from the scheme(s).
They will all get it
That adds a quarter to my salary costs while depressing my take home pay by about an additional 15% - and that’s a public sector pension!
UK government spokesperson said the two sides instead needed “comprehensive and durable solutions”. David Frost, the minister responsible for Brexit issues, has said that without a major change to the legal text of the protocol, the government will consider triggering article 16 of the EU-UK agreement to suspend parts of the deal.
but also
UK government spokesperson said the proposal still fell short. “The EU’s proposal was a welcome start but it would be complex to operate, onerous and would not deal at all with those medicines, such as new cancer drugs, which under current arrangements must be licensed by the European Medicines Agency in Northern Ireland,” he said.
On that they are right - EuCo are not dealing with their own self-imposed roadblocks and misperceptions, many of which can be dealt with without rewriting the Treaty. That is one place to start imo - with the smaller issues and keep chipping away away from the public grandstanding.
Perhaps that is actually happening, but EuCo have a public vanity on the same scale as a Chinese Government.
I we simply enforced all the laws all the times.....
For six months, Britain has been bending over backwards to make the system work, while the EU gives every impression of relishing our discomfort. Talks between the two sides have been a dialogue of the deaf, Britain offering practical ideas to minimise disruption while the EU seeks to make that disruption as public and salutary as possible.
…
No one seriously imagines that this is really about sausages sneaking into Co Donegal. Cross-border trade in Ireland amounts to less than 0.5 per cent of the EU’s total trade, yet Brussels conducts around 20 per cent of all the checks on goods entering its territory on it. No, this is about squeezing the UK.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/25/do-not-try-modify-northern-ireland-protocol-just-scrap-cleanly/
The glass jar makes we wonder about the idea of sous vide cooking a pie.... hmmmm interesting.....
Or do they just consider such a person a fool?
But he still became PM, so it worked out okay for him, I suppose.
(I actually see parallels between Brown and Johnson; which is strange as they are morally very different people.)
I am doing company P&L right now. I have a whole load of staffing costs, but as my spreadsheet our accountant and HMRC are "dishonest" and "ignorant" for some reason the costs of employment aren't actually paid to the employee.
The Wizard of Wazza. The World Expert of Everything talking total bollocks. Call that "dishonest" or "ignorant" as you see fit.
*Grand Cru is surprisingly often less good than the Premier Cru....
https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1419763212443164676
(although sadly it's photo-shopped)
Who is the person actually doing the work there?
For a man of obvious personal integrity and decency his behaviour as Chancellor was truly remarkable. Dishonest really doesn't start to do it justice.
Didn’t end well for either of them...
Lets remember what "respect" the EU27 showed for Boris's predecessor when she kept rolling over for them: https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1042807755160133637
Or the "respect" shown to Cameron with his failed renegotiation with the EU.
Or the "respect" shown to Brown who slunk off on his own to sign the Lisbon treaty.
Or the "respect" shown to Blair who gave away half of the UK's rebate for CAP reform that never materialised.
Or the "respect" shown to Major who had promises reforms wouldn't apply to the UK, then that was completely disregarded once Maastricht was passed (hat tip: a favourite example of Mr Tyndall's of this parish).
The only leaders in my life that the EU/EEC leaders have begrudgingly respected were Thatcher and Johnson.
How did they get away with it? Liam "There's no money left" Byrne. One unfunny attempt at a joke and the narrative was the Tories to rewrite which they did with devastating effect.
Do you agree or disagree that the crash hurt Britain more because of the policies Brown had implemented for ten years?
London is a key hub for the financial sector globally and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is responsible for regulating it to ensure it doesn't fail. Britain is a world leader in finance and has to take some responsibility for it as a result.
Brown reformed the regulations to removed the BoE's oversight of the financial sector, leading ultimately within a decade to the failure of Northern Rock and RBS.
Plus of course Brown poured fuel on his own fire of failure by overspending before the crisis, treating the financial sector as a golden egg while still maxing out the national credit card, leaving us with a catastrophic budget deficit to close afterwards.
Taxes on employment seem to me a very bad thing but they have proved irresistible to governments of all colours because it is a hidden tax that does not appear on the wage slip. Brown's pension grab was similar in that the consequences were hidden for several years. Generally speaking governments should look to simplify taxes, be honest about what they need to raise and raise that money by as broad a tax base as possible paying as little as required.
In a sense though, even worse were his huge unfunded spending commitments in local government (e.g. on teacher salaries) which have left the toxic threefold legacies of soaring council tax, bankrupt local authorities and enforced unitarisation.
That the ratio of those on ventilators is, if anything, higher than before, means it's leaning very strongly towards most of those who are diagnosed after arrival simply having gone straight to hospital when having difficulty breathing or other significant covid symptoms rather than deciding to go for a PCR test somewhere else first. Got to admit, if I or a loved one was having difficulty breathing, we'd go straight to the hospital rather than going "Hmm, where is there a covid testing station?"
But, yeah, the Telegraph. "How can we try to imply that covid doesn't exist/is very minor/has gone away/is just FALSE POSITIVES!/delete as appropriate"
“What would you like to say to your mum and your sister?”
“Fuck yeah oh shit..."
https://twitter.com/jstorycarter/status/1419842463745724416
Here is 600 pages of official US inquiry into the global financial crisis. Think of it as a latterday Warren Commission, the canonical truth, settled and accepted for all time (with the page that says "it was all bloody Gordon Brown's fault" mysteriously redacted, even though the American government would have a lot to gain from blaming someone else).
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-FCIC/pdf/GPO-FCIC.pdf
Are your employees getting paid PAYE and still receiving the Income Tax paid to them instead of to HMRC? Or receiving Employees NI paid to them instead of HMRC?
Actually what I bet your accountants or whoever is doing the payroll are doing is making one payment to the employee of their take home pay and making one payment to HMRC of their P32 payment which will include the income tax, employee NIC and employer NIC all bundled together. Because they're three sides of the same coin, even if one side is kept invisible.
Employer NIC goes in the same labour budget pot and unless its different to my experience literally goes to HMRC in the same payment as employee NIC and income tax because they're the same frigging thing. They're just behind the scenes - and yes if you were too ignorant or dishonest to realise that all the PAYE taxes all go to HMRC, in the same bank transfer even in my experience, rather than to the employee then maybe you should try to learn how these things operate yourself before calling others with experience in this field a "Wizard".