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2 Samuel 22:50 applies to the British Polling Council – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627

    Carnyx said:

    For those who don't want to refight the Spainsh Civil War, this is a great review of the new songs:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/02/abbas-new-songs-reviewed-a-perky-moving-return-to-pops-highest-peaks

    There is something peculiarly depressing about the SCW.
    Fernando?
    That's the Mexican war. It's a curious thing - the Swedish text of the song is a love song, but the English text, presumably partly for the US market, is about the partner of a Mexican preparing to fight the US.
    The Clash had a song on London Calling about the SCW "Spanish Bombs". One of their best.

    https://youtu.be/ofgO_sqkPFQ
  • JohnO said:

    My view of HYFUD's distinctive brand of Conservatism can be neatly summed up by (I think) Iain Macleod on Enoch Powell

    "I'm happy to be on the same train as him but I make sure to get off a few stations before it crashes at speed into the buffers".

    I'm not sure how seriously I take it (just based on his posts on here) without corroborating evidence offline.

    I think he's just enthusiastically partisan and stubborn and lets himself fall into traps as a result.
    The daft thing is they are traps he sets himself. No one sets out on here to prove someone is a fascist or an apologist for mass murderers. HYFUD happily volunteers that information all on his ownsome.
  • Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Latest @YouGov @thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 41 (-1); wrong 47 (+1). Fwork 25-26.8 (ch since 5-6.8). https://bit.ly/3zH2NUw

    It is interesting that despite supposedly being Done, it is so widely seen as a poor decision. Keeping Brexit as a campaigning tool in the next GE may not be a great move for the Tories.

    Quite how Starmer plays it is going to be interesting, but having a history against it may not be the killer blow that the Tories want.
    I think it's about 54:46 wrong/right "in hindsight" on a forced choice - so not a slam dunk - and we have to read it in conjunction with Brexit now only being 5th in the most important issues index, with only 19% mentioning it as an issue.

    So it could be that even most Remainers/floaters think "probably a mistake, but it's done now and let's move on".
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    edited September 2021
    I wonder if this is why we're not (yet) seeing cases surging in England:

    Seroprevalence data indicates that approximately 97.9% of blood donors aged 17 and over have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 from either infection or vaccination. Increases in seropositivity continue to be observed in those aged 17 to 29, following vaccination
    rollout.


    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1014748/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w35.pdf

    Quite simply, the virus has run out of road....
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So you’re one of the exclusionary tendency, too ?
    Unless you voted for Hague and Boris and May and Cameron you cannot call yourself a genuine Tory no.

    Just as unless you voted for Blair and Brown and Corbyn and still back Labour under Starmer you cannot call yourself genuine Labour either.

    If you do not fall in any of those categories you are really either a swing voter or a LD or Nationalist
    Weirdo.
    Given the vote in, for instance, the European elections in 2019, I would suspect a lot of people HYUFD thinks are true tories among his colleagues are in fact traitors.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366

    eek said:

    Andy_JS said:

    I didn't think it was possible to stay in a Swiss hotel for £87 unless it's something like a youth hostel...

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    I saw someone check this earlier today and the quoted price is actually right - hotels are just about the only thing in Switzerland where the prices aren't oh boy.
    That doesn't make sense though. If all their input costs (e.g. staffing, cost of food ingredients, local taxes, energy etc) are high as per rest of Swiss life then how can they only charge £87?
    See for yourself https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g198849-d18963958-Reviews-Villars_Mountain_Lodge-Villars_sur_Ollon_Canton_of_Vaud.html

    It's £104 for a night next week but I suspect demand has increased some what given the hotel is on the front page of the Mail's global website.
  • Carnyx said:

    For those who don't want to refight the Spainsh Civil War, this is a great review of the new songs:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/02/abbas-new-songs-reviewed-a-perky-moving-return-to-pops-highest-peaks

    There is something peculiarly depressing about the SCW.
    Fernando?
    That's the Mexican war. It's a curious thing - the Swedish text of the song is a love song, but the English text, presumably partly for the US market, is about the partner of a Mexican preparing to fight the US.
    Are you sure? I thought it was Spain.
    Definitely Mexico
    I stand corrected!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627

    HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    What a depressing post, particularly your Churchill quote.
    Churchill was often a nasty little shit.
    Indeed. Apart from 1940-44 he advocated some pretty noxious things.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889

    JohnO said:

    My view of HYFUD's distinctive brand of Conservatism can be neatly summed up by (I think) Iain Macleod on Enoch Powell

    "I'm happy to be on the same train as him but I make sure to get off a few stations before it crashes at speed into the buffers".

    I'm not sure how seriously I take it (just based on his posts on here) without corroborating evidence offline.

    I think he's just enthusiastically partisan and stubborn and lets himself fall into traps as a result.
    The daft thing is they are traps he sets himself. No one sets out on here to prove someone is a fascist or an apologist for mass murderers. HYFUD happily volunteers that information all on his ownsome.
    Since when does the fact I said I preferred Franco to the communists but would have preferred the communists to Hitler make me a Fascist?

    Indeed given Stalin killed far more than Franco ever did it does not make me an apologist for mass murder either given that was the choice in Spain in 1930
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366

    JohnO said:

    My view of HYFUD's distinctive brand of Conservatism can be neatly summed up by (I think) Iain Macleod on Enoch Powell

    "I'm happy to be on the same train as him but I make sure to get off a few stations before it crashes at speed into the buffers".

    I'm not sure how seriously I take it (just based on his posts on here) without corroborating evidence offline.

    I think he's just enthusiastically partisan and stubborn and lets himself fall into traps as a result.
    The daft thing is they are traps he sets himself. No one sets out on here to prove someone is a fascist or an apologist for mass murderers. HYFUD happily volunteers that information all on his ownsome.
    The daft thing is that he has outed himself enough on here for us to know he is a local councillor and party chairman with a desire to become an MP.

    And then he posts the stupidest conspiracy stories as if they are true without thinking.

    Even Williamson and Patel aren't that stupid...
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071

    HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    What a depressing post, particularly your Churchill quote.
    Churchill was often a nasty little shit.
    He'd also not pass the 'True Tory' test, so not sure why a true tory would rely on a quote of his for anything.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889
    kle4 said:

    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So you’re one of the exclusionary tendency, too ?
    Unless you voted for Hague and Boris and May and Cameron you cannot call yourself a genuine Tory no.

    Just as unless you voted for Blair and Brown and Corbyn and still back Labour under Starmer you cannot call yourself genuine Labour either.

    If you do not fall in any of those categories you are really either a swing voter or a LD or Nationalist
    Weirdo.
    Given the vote in, for instance, the European elections in 2019, I would suspect a lot of people HYUFD thinks are true tories among his colleagues are in fact traitors.
    Most of them still voted Tory at the 2019 general election, even if I voted Tory at both
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So you’re one of the exclusionary tendency, too ?
    Unless you voted for Hague and Boris and May and Cameron you cannot call yourself a genuine Tory no.

    Just as unless you voted for Blair and Brown and Corbyn and still back Labour under Starmer you cannot call yourself genuine Labour either.

    If you do not fall in any of those categories you are really either a swing voter or a LD or Nationalist
    Weirdo.
    Given the vote in, for instance, the European elections in 2019, I would suspect a lot of people HYUFD thinks are true tories among his colleagues are in fact traitors.
    Most of them still voted Tory at the 2019 general election, even if I voted Tory at both
    So why is it ok for them to not vote Tory but not for others to not vote Tory on some other occasion and still be Tories? I doubt the party makes a distinction in its rulebook as to when you are allowed to vote for someone else.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Latest @YouGov @thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 41 (-1); wrong 47 (+1). Fwork 25-26.8 (ch since 5-6.8). https://bit.ly/3zH2NUw

    It is interesting that despite supposedly being Done, it is so widely seen as a poor decision. Keeping Brexit as a campaigning tool in the next GE may not be a great move for the Tories.

    Quite how Starmer plays it is going to be interesting, but having a history against it may not be the killer blow that the Tories want.
    I think it's about 54:46 wrong/right "in hindsight" on a forced choice - so not a slam dunk - and we have to read it in conjunction with Brexit now only being 5th in the most important issues index, with only 19% mentioning it as an issue.

    So it could be that even most Remainers/floaters think "probably a mistake, but it's done now and let's move on".
    I don't expect any major party apart from the SNP to campaign to Rejoin in 2024. There may be plenty though ready to take revenge on the architects of Brexit. Certainly I won't be voting Tory again in a GE.

  • Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Latest @YouGov @thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 41 (-1); wrong 47 (+1). Fwork 25-26.8 (ch since 5-6.8). https://bit.ly/3zH2NUw

    It is interesting that despite supposedly being Done, it is so widely seen as a poor decision. Keeping Brexit as a campaigning tool in the next GE may not be a great move for the Tories.

    Quite how Starmer plays it is going to be interesting, but having a history against it may not be the killer blow that the Tories want.
    I think it's about 54:46 wrong/right "in hindsight" on a forced choice - so not a slam dunk - and we have to read it in conjunction with Brexit now only being 5th in the most important issues index, with only 19% mentioning it as an issue.

    So it could be that even most Remainers/floaters think "probably a mistake, but it's done now and let's move on".
    I don't expect any major party apart from the SNP to campaign to Rejoin in 2024. There may be plenty though ready to take revenge on the architects of Brexit. Certainly I won't be voting Tory again in a GE.

    Plaid may campaign to rejoin
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,058
    HYUFD said:

    .

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    I have a strong suspicion that Pinochet may have been your favourite leader. A bit tougher than Franco.
    Pinochet did of course at least help the UK in the Falklands War, as Baroness Thatcher acknowledged
    You are crossing the line from loyal Conservative to fascist apologist with consumate ease this evening. Your views may not go down well with some people you hope will vote for you in future elections.

    Some of these views are best kept to yourself, better still research fascist brutality in Spain, Chile and Argentina, and as a practicing Christian have a thought for those who were tortured and killed because of their political leanings. You would not be best pleased if British people disappeared without trace because they were Johnson supporting Conservatives would you?
    I did not say I was a Francoist , I said he was not all bad, given the choice between Franco and the communists in the 1930s many conservatives of the time preferred Franco.

    Of course the main centre right party in Spain, the Popular Party, the Tories sister party even has its origins in the People's Alliance founded by the reformist Francoist minister Manuel Fraga
    Yeah, and I guess Hitler wasn't all bad, since given the choice between Hitler and the communists in the 1930s many conservatives of the time preferred Hitler.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889
    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    What a depressing post, particularly your Churchill quote.
    Churchill was often a nasty little shit.
    He'd also not pass the 'True Tory' test, so not sure why a true tory would rely on a quote of his for anything.
    Churchill never lectured other Tories who always backed the party about 'embarrassing' the party unlike BigG
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    HYUFD said:

    JohnO said:

    My view of HYFUD's distinctive brand of Conservatism can be neatly summed up by (I think) Iain Macleod on Enoch Powell

    "I'm happy to be on the same train as him but I make sure to get off a few stations before it crashes at speed into the buffers".

    I'm not sure how seriously I take it (just based on his posts on here) without corroborating evidence offline.

    I think he's just enthusiastically partisan and stubborn and lets himself fall into traps as a result.
    The daft thing is they are traps he sets himself. No one sets out on here to prove someone is a fascist or an apologist for mass murderers. HYFUD happily volunteers that information all on his ownsome.
    Since when does the fact I said I preferred Franco to the communists but would have preferred the communists to Hitler make me a Fascist?
    It doesn't, but you don't have to choose between them either.
  • HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So you’re one of the exclusionary tendency, too ?
    Unless you voted for Hague and Boris and May and Cameron you cannot call yourself a genuine Tory no.

    Just as unless you voted for Blair and Brown and Corbyn and still back Labour under Starmer you cannot call yourself genuine Labour either.

    If you do not fall in any of those categories you are really either a swing voter or a LD or Nationalist
    Weirdo.
    Given the vote in, for instance, the European elections in 2019, I would suspect a lot of people HYUFD thinks are true tories among his colleagues are in fact traitors.
    Most of them still voted Tory at the 2019 general election, even if I voted Tory at both
    So it is OK for them but not me in 97 and 01

    You are so full of contradictions you confuse yourself
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    What a depressing post, particularly your Churchill quote.
    Churchill was often a nasty little shit.
    He'd also not pass the 'True Tory' test, so not sure why a true tory would rely on a quote of his for anything.
    Churchill never lectured other Tories who always backed the party about 'embarrassing' the party unlike BigG
    Well, I don't quite get it, but thank you for explaining it at least.
  • HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    What a depressing post, particularly your Churchill quote.
    Churchill was often a nasty little shit.
    He'd also not pass the 'True Tory' test, so not sure why a true tory would rely on a quote of his for anything.
    Churchill never lectured other Tories who always backed the party about 'embarrassing' the party unlike BigG
    But you do embarrass the party
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    As a committed non-committed person, I do love a good intra-party squabble.

    Any chance some LDs could start up a bunfight between Daveyites and Moranites? Labour, Tories and even the SNP occasionally oblige.
  • Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...


    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Latest @YouGov @thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 41 (-1); wrong 47 (+1). Fwork 25-26.8 (ch since 5-6.8). https://bit.ly/3zH2NUw

    It is interesting that despite supposedly being Done, it is so widely seen as a poor decision. Keeping Brexit as a campaigning tool in the next GE may not be a great move for the Tories.

    Quite how Starmer plays it is going to be interesting, but having a history against it may not be the killer blow that the Tories want.
    I think it's about 54:46 wrong/right "in hindsight" on a forced choice - so not a slam dunk - and we have to read it in conjunction with Brexit now only being 5th in the most important issues index, with only 19% mentioning it as an issue.

    So it could be that even most Remainers/floaters think "probably a mistake, but it's done now and let's move on".
    I don't expect any major party apart from the SNP to campaign to Rejoin in 2024. There may be plenty though ready to take revenge on the architects of Brexit. Certainly I won't be voting Tory again in a GE.

    Plaid may campaign to rejoin
    Yes, and SF.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,058
    Foxy said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Latest @YouGov @thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 41 (-1); wrong 47 (+1). Fwork 25-26.8 (ch since 5-6.8). https://bit.ly/3zH2NUw

    It is interesting that despite supposedly being Done, it is so widely seen as a poor decision. Keeping Brexit as a campaigning tool in the next GE may not be a great move for the Tories.

    Quite how Starmer plays it is going to be interesting, but having a history against it may not be the killer blow that the Tories want.
    The "Right" vote share is pretty much the same as the Tory vote share. But because of the split Left vote (which is basically the "Wrong" side), I think the wrong side needs go to lower before it can help Starmer.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    eek said:

    JohnO said:

    My view of HYFUD's distinctive brand of Conservatism can be neatly summed up by (I think) Iain Macleod on Enoch Powell

    "I'm happy to be on the same train as him but I make sure to get off a few stations before it crashes at speed into the buffers".

    I'm not sure how seriously I take it (just based on his posts on here) without corroborating evidence offline.

    I think he's just enthusiastically partisan and stubborn and lets himself fall into traps as a result.
    The daft thing is they are traps he sets himself. No one sets out on here to prove someone is a fascist or an apologist for mass murderers. HYFUD happily volunteers that information all on his ownsome.
    The daft thing is that he has outed himself enough on here for us to know he is a local councillor and party chairman with a desire to become an MP.

    And then he posts the stupidest conspiracy stories as if they are true without thinking.

    Even Williamson and Patel aren't that stupid...
    What are their usernames?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    I see on the Electoral Commission website there's been an application for a new party for the, wait for it, "Cross-Party Party"

    I hope it is approved, as that name is great.
  • I see that the Epping Examiner has another headline lined up:

    "Local Tory councillor says 'I'm not a Nazi sympathiser, I only support Fascism'"

  • kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    If it is based on NI then pensioners will be exempt surely
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    Alistair said:

    eek said:

    JohnO said:

    My view of HYFUD's distinctive brand of Conservatism can be neatly summed up by (I think) Iain Macleod on Enoch Powell

    "I'm happy to be on the same train as him but I make sure to get off a few stations before it crashes at speed into the buffers".

    I'm not sure how seriously I take it (just based on his posts on here) without corroborating evidence offline.

    I think he's just enthusiastically partisan and stubborn and lets himself fall into traps as a result.
    The daft thing is they are traps he sets himself. No one sets out on here to prove someone is a fascist or an apologist for mass murderers. HYFUD happily volunteers that information all on his ownsome.
    The daft thing is that he has outed himself enough on here for us to know he is a local councillor and party chairman with a desire to become an MP.

    And then he posts the stupidest conspiracy stories as if they are true without thinking.

    Even Williamson and Patel aren't that stupid...
    What are their usernames?
    It's time I came clean. I am Priti Patel.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627
    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061

    Carnyx said:

    For those who don't want to refight the Spainsh Civil War, this is a great review of the new songs:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/02/abbas-new-songs-reviewed-a-perky-moving-return-to-pops-highest-peaks

    There is something peculiarly depressing about the SCW.
    Fernando?
    That's the Mexican war. It's a curious thing - the Swedish text of the song is a love song, but the English text, presumably partly for the US market, is about the partner of a Mexican preparing to fight the US.
    Are you sure? I thought it was Spain.
    Definitely Mexico
    I stand corrected!
    Do you still recall the frightful night we crossed the Rio Grande…

  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    What a depressing post, particularly your Churchill quote.
    Churchill was often a nasty little shit.
    He'd also not pass the 'True Tory' test, so not sure why a true tory would rely on a quote of his for anything.
    Churchill never lectured other Tories who always backed the party about 'embarrassing' the party unlike BigG
    Fuck me sideways with a loofah, have you no idea whatever about anything in Churchill's history which might have a bearing on that? No idea at all?
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    edited September 2021

    I wonder if this is why we're not (yet) seeing cases surging in England:

    Seroprevalence data indicates that approximately 97.9% of blood donors aged 17 and over have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 from either infection or vaccination. Increases in seropositivity continue to be observed in those aged 17 to 29, following vaccination
    rollout.


    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1014748/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w35.pdf

    Quite simply, the virus has run out of road....

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/datasets/coronaviruscovid19antibodydatafortheuk

    As of 13th August the ONS had antibody prevalence at
    England: 94.1%
    Wales: 92%
    Scotland: 93.6%
    Northern Ireland: 90.4%

    Give it was only a 0.5% difference half a month ago between England and Scotland it doesn't seem like England is in a massively superior state to Scotland in that regard to explain away the lack of surge. And why not a mass surge in Wales if it's all about anti-body prevalence.
  • kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    If it is based on NI then pensioners will be exempt surely
    "all three departments [involved in the decision] stress the package is yet to be signed off"

    :lol:

    Nothing to see here folks...
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366
    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    What a depressing post, particularly your Churchill quote.
    Churchill was often a nasty little shit.
    He'd also not pass the 'True Tory' test, so not sure why a true tory would rely on a quote of his for anything.
    Churchill never lectured other Tories who always backed the party about 'embarrassing' the party unlike BigG
    Wasn't Churchill a Liberal for 20 years - from 1904 to 1924 including as a Liberal MP from 1904 to 1922.
  • Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
  • kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    If it is based on NI then pensioners will be exempt surely
    Yes it will be.

    It needs to be on income tax rather than NI so all taxpayers including pensioners pay their fair share. 2% on income tax at all levels 👍
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,399
    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    An oven ready plan. But they spent two more years tinkering with the marinade.
  • kle4 said:

    I see on the Electoral Commission website there's been an application for a new party for the, wait for it, "Cross-Party Party"

    I hope it is approved, as that name is great.

    Well. We already have "Cross-Benchers" in the House of Unelected Has-Beens Lords.
  • kle4 said:

    I see on the Electoral Commission website there's been an application for a new party for the, wait for it, "Cross-Party Party"

    I hope it is approved, as that name is great.

    Cross? No, I'm bloody livid.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    Excellent, free alternative healthcare provision to the young.
  • Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    For those who don't want to refight the Spainsh Civil War, this is a great review of the new songs:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/02/abbas-new-songs-reviewed-a-perky-moving-return-to-pops-highest-peaks

    There is something peculiarly depressing about the SCW.
    Fernando?
    That's the Mexican war. It's a curious thing - the Swedish text of the song is a love song, but the English text, presumably partly for the US market, is about the partner of a Mexican preparing to fight the US.
    Are you sure? I thought it was Spain.
    Definitely Mexico
    I stand corrected!
    Do you still recall the frightful night we crossed the Rio Grande…

    I thought that was Duran Duran :lol:
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    What a depressing post, particularly your Churchill quote.
    Churchill was often a nasty little shit.
    He'd also not pass the 'True Tory' test, so not sure why a true tory would rely on a quote of his for anything.
    Churchill never lectured other Tories who always backed the party about 'embarrassing' the party unlike BigG
    Wasn't Churchill a Liberal for 20 years - from 1904 to 1924 including as a Liberal MP from 1904 to 1922.
    A momentary lapse in judgement of course.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,399

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    I expect it won't.
  • dixiedean said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    I expect it won't.
    It should be to be fair
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,009
    edited September 2021

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...


    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    So Nut Nut is actually his live-in carer.

    Does he make her wear a uniform?
  • Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,627
    dixiedean said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    I expect it won't.
    Nope. The Tory answer to every financial issue now is "send the bill to my grandchildren"
  • kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    If it is based on NI then pensioners will be exempt surely
    Yes it will be.

    It needs to be on income tax rather than NI so all taxpayers including pensioners pay their fair share. 2% on income tax at all levels 👍
    The economics guy in Observer said at weekend that he had heard it would income and not NI tax. More progressive.

    But, I suspect the polling gnomes of No 10 are drawn by the way Gordon Brown managed a 1p on NI for NHS and it turned out to be a popular decision.
  • eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    It is, though an interesting question is whether furlough payments undermined the reason for treating the self-employed differently.
  • eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    Who have got away with low taxation for years!

    Pay your way love 👍
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,574
    eek said:

    eek said:

    Andy_JS said:

    I didn't think it was possible to stay in a Swiss hotel for £87 unless it's something like a youth hostel...

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    I saw someone check this earlier today and the quoted price is actually right - hotels are just about the only thing in Switzerland where the prices aren't oh boy.
    That doesn't make sense though. If all their input costs (e.g. staffing, cost of food ingredients, local taxes, energy etc) are high as per rest of Swiss life then how can they only charge £87?
    See for yourself https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g198849-d18963958-Reviews-Villars_Mountain_Lodge-Villars_sur_Ollon_Canton_of_Vaud.html

    It's £104 for a night next week but I suspect demand has increased some what given the hotel is on the front page of the Mail's global website.
    Expensive european countries often have decent hotel prices. I have stayed in basic three-star hotel in, for example, Oslo and Copenhagen at prices which seem low compared with the cost of meals out in those places.

    Word of warning: sometimes a twin room in northern europe is a king bed with two sets of single bedding, as I learned one awkward night.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,865
    edited September 2021
    @HYUFD can look after himself but night after night of this baiting can get a bit tedious imo, and the doxxing does not help.

    ETA not a response to the Gates question!
  • Foxy said:

    dixiedean said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    I expect it won't.
    Nope. The Tory answer to every financial issue now is "send the bill to my grandchildren"
    Rather 'send the bill to your grandchildren'..
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129
    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    "Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world"

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    External Link please to back up the allegation as the only thing I can see is that their foundation has subsidised the first 100 million shots produced there so they are sold for $3 each.
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html
    Yeah, that fails the credibly source hurdle by about 200 million miles. No link. Just a line on a webpage that no-one's heard of.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,061
    South Korea developing ballistic missile as powerful as tactical nuclear weapon
    https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=314923
  • rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    "Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world"

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    External Link please to back up the allegation as the only thing I can see is that their foundation has subsidised the first 100 million shots produced there so they are sold for $3 each.
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html
    Yeah, that fails the credibly source hurdle by about 200 million miles. No link. Just a line on a webpage that no-one's heard of.
    And which itself claims to be fictional.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,479
    Alistair said:

    eek said:

    JohnO said:

    My view of HYFUD's distinctive brand of Conservatism can be neatly summed up by (I think) Iain Macleod on Enoch Powell

    "I'm happy to be on the same train as him but I make sure to get off a few stations before it crashes at speed into the buffers".

    I'm not sure how seriously I take it (just based on his posts on here) without corroborating evidence offline.

    I think he's just enthusiastically partisan and stubborn and lets himself fall into traps as a result.
    The daft thing is they are traps he sets himself. No one sets out on here to prove someone is a fascist or an apologist for mass murderers. HYFUD happily volunteers that information all on his ownsome.
    The daft thing is that he has outed himself enough on here for us to know he is a local councillor and party chairman with a desire to become an MP.

    And then he posts the stupidest conspiracy stories as if they are true without thinking.

    Even Williamson and Patel aren't that stupid...
    What are their usernames?
    Contrarian and Dura Ace
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    It is, though an interesting question is whether furlough payments undermined the reason for treating the self-employed differently.
    What furlough payments - the self employed got grants that were administrated very differently from the PAYE furlough scheme.

    Those people who used limited companies didn't even get that.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,479

    I see that the Epping Examiner has another headline lined up:

    "Local Tory councillor says 'I'm not a Nazi sympathiser, I only support Fascism'"

    “If we tolerate this, then our children will be next,” says local mum.
  • eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    Who have got away with low taxation for years!

    Pay your way love 👍
    I have no issues with paying the proper NI. I do have an issue with the current IR35 rules which allow a client to decide you should be under PAYE and insist that you pay both the Employers and Employees contributions (and holiday and sick pay etc which by nature of your status you can never actually claim) with them paying nothing.
  • Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...


    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    So Nut Nut is actually his live-in carer.

    Does he make her wear a uniform?
    eww
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    "Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world"

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    External Link please to back up the allegation as the only thing I can see is that their foundation has subsidised the first 100 million shots produced there so they are sold for $3 each.
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html
    Yeah, that fails the credibly source hurdle by about 200 million miles. No link. Just a line on a webpage that no-one's heard of.
    And which itself claims to be fictional.
    And has crazy in its url.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,653

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    Who have got away with low taxation for years!

    Pay your way love 👍
    I have no issues with paying the proper NI. I do have an issue with the current IR35 rules which allow a client to decide you should be under PAYE and insist that you pay both the Employers and Employees contributions (and holiday and sick pay etc which by nature of your status you can never actually claim) with them paying nothing.
    Don't sign the contract with them then. It's your choice.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    Who have got away with low taxation for years!

    Pay your way love 👍
    I have no issues with paying the proper NI. I do have an issue with the current IR35 rules which allow a client to decide you should be under PAYE and insist that you pay both the Employers and Employees contributions (and holiday and sick pay etc which by nature of your status you can never actually claim) with them paying nothing.
    That sadly isn't going to change. If anything I believe the small company exemption will be going in April 2023 rather than April 2024 as according to HMT the new rules are working well.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    Who have got away with low taxation for years!

    Pay your way love 👍
    I have no issues with paying the proper NI. I do have an issue with the current IR35 rules which allow a client to decide you should be under PAYE and insist that you pay both the Employers and Employees contributions (and holiday and sick pay etc which by nature of your status you can never actually claim) with them paying nothing.
    Don't sign the contract with them then. It's your choice.
    I suspect that in Richard's world / industry he may have little choice. In mine the only companies still insisting on inside contracts are finding that a 20-25% premium is required to get someone to consider an inside role and that is if its 100% remote.

    I suspect Banks are going to be in for a shock when they start insisting on contractors going into an office.
  • eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    Who have got away with low taxation for years!

    Pay your way love 👍
    I have no issues with paying the proper NI. I do have an issue with the current IR35 rules which allow a client to decide you should be under PAYE and insist that you pay both the Employers and Employees contributions (and holiday and sick pay etc which by nature of your status you can never actually claim) with them paying nothing.
    Don't sign the contract with them then. It's your choice.
    The trouble is they are all doing it. If I want to continue working then I have to accept it.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,653
    eek said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    It is, though an interesting question is whether furlough payments undermined the reason for treating the self-employed differently.
    What furlough payments - the self employed got grants that were administrated very differently from the PAYE furlough scheme.

    Those people who used limited companies to avoid paying tax didn't even get that.
    Added the bit you missed out.
  • We need to get on with it now. Booster jabs asap. Or we are up to 1,000 deaths a day by Oct. Sort it out Sajid.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    Democrat turnout is often a problem in mid-terms . Without Trump to help energize Dems there were real concerns about 2022 however the latest attack on women’s rights by the GOP and the fear of other states enacting similar legislation means the GOP have gifted the Dems a wedge issue .

    The disgraceful Texas law effectively bans abortion and the GOP Taliban continue to sink further into the sewer .
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129
    Nigelb said:

    South Korea developing ballistic missile as powerful as tactical nuclear weapon
    https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=314923

    Doesn't ballistic refer to the method of getting the payload to the target, not to the payload itself? So, does that even make sense?
  • eek said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    It is, though an interesting question is whether furlough payments undermined the reason for treating the self-employed differently.
    What furlough payments - the self employed got grants that were administrated very differently from the PAYE furlough scheme.

    Those people who used limited companies to avoid paying tax didn't even get that.
    Added the bit you missed out.
    You have a very limited and warped view of contracting. Whilst there were clearly those who used limited companies for tax avoidance there were also very large numbers who formed limited companies because the clients refused to accept anyone who was not. No contractor working in the oil industry would be able to work without being a limited company or working for a larger limited company because (I assume) the clients were so frightened of being hit for tax if it turned out the self employed contractor hadn't paid it. I haven't seen a contract in 20 years that allowed someone to work who was not a limited company.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129
    theProle said:
    Oh that's no problem - they won't be allowed out the house. People on the street without smartphones are liable to be arrested and imprisoned.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    It is, though an interesting question is whether furlough payments undermined the reason for treating the self-employed differently.
    What furlough payments - the self employed got grants that were administrated very differently from the PAYE furlough scheme.

    Those people who used limited companies to avoid paying tax didn't even get that.
    Added the bit you missed out.
    Not really - I take a very low salary (so that the company can afford to pay everyone else were we to have a bad period) and pull dividends from the profits when times are better.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,653
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    South Korea developing ballistic missile as powerful as tactical nuclear weapon
    https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=314923

    Doesn't ballistic refer to the method of getting the payload to the target, not to the payload itself? So, does that even make sense?
    Yep. It's surely the B in ICBM.
  • NI needs to be extended to all income, irrespective of the individual's age or the source of the income, or rolled into income tax.

    I say that as someone who would pay a lot more through such a change.

    I don't mind paying NI on my pension (occupational or state when it arrives), but there needs to be something removed in lieu of the State pension contribution as after 35 years contributions you can't get anymore.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    So how does Boris plan differ from May’s Dementia Tax? The 60K cap rather than 100K? What does that mean in practice when 60K needs to be found for care from your means tested assets before the tax rise, 2p says Javid, steps in and helps?
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Telegraph saying Johnson has finally decided on social care...
    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1433532744542285827

    Good. But as the headline is about a tax rise for 25m, and that it involves breaking a manifesto pledge with 'No 10 and Treasury divided', I'll believe it when I see it.

    If he does have a workable plan, then it is the exact type of thing tax rises, even manifesto breaking ones, are for.
    NI, so paid by the workers and not by the retired. The Tory Gerontocracy leeches off the young again.
    I expect NI will be extended to all pensioners in work
    Happy to see NI charged on all earnings no age limit. And for NI on self employed to be same as for PAYE. But we need to meet social care bill out of NI for maximum fairness.
    I take it you aren't self employed as that is a significant tax increase for the self employed.
    It is, though an interesting question is whether furlough payments undermined the reason for treating the self-employed differently.
    What furlough payments - the self employed got grants that were administrated very differently from the PAYE furlough scheme.

    Those people who used limited companies to avoid paying tax didn't even get that.
    Added the bit you missed out.
    You have a very limited and warped view of contracting. Whilst there were clearly those who used limited companies for tax avoidance there were also very large numbers who formed limited companies because the clients refused to accept anyone who was not. No contractor working in the oil industry would be able to work without being a limited company or working for a larger limited company because (I assume) the clients were so frightened of being hit for tax if it turned out the self employed contractor hadn't paid it. I haven't seen a contract in 20 years that allowed someone to work who was not a limited company.
    Also Agencies cannot use self employed people. That was the original reason why limited companies started to be used back in the 1970s and at the time it wasn't for tax saving purposes (from comments I've seen in the past tax rates were worse.)
  • NI needs to be extended to all income, irrespective of the individual's age or the source of the income, or rolled into income tax.

    I say that as someone who would pay a lot more through such a change.

    Agree 100% with this.

    My caveat - which is not actually in any way opposed to what you are saying - is that we need to make sure the employers are paying their due as well. As I mentioned before the current mish mash of rules allows them pass all the costs to the worker for no cost to themselves. The same goes for low pay. Why should the taxpayer be carrying the cost of employers not being willing to pay a decent basic wage? Our current system encourages low pay by using the taxpayer to supplement people's income.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,653
    Translates to "Frustrated ministers seek to lay the blame at someone else's door"

    I thought it was supposed to be 'advisers advise, ministers decide'?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    South Korea developing ballistic missile as powerful as tactical nuclear weapon
    https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=314923

    Doesn't ballistic refer to the method of getting the payload to the target, not to the payload itself? So, does that even make sense?
    Yep. It's surely the B in ICBM.
    And IRBM. And even shorter ranged ones like the V-2 and Scud-A.
  • rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    "Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world"

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    External Link please to back up the allegation as the only thing I can see is that their foundation has subsidised the first 100 million shots produced there so they are sold for $3 each.
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html
    Yeah, that fails the credibly source hurdle by about 200 million miles. No link. Just a line on a webpage that no-one's heard of.
    I know you feel that in some libertarian sort of way that anyone should be able to post anything here, but I really feel that posting stuff at this level of implausibility should be grounds for a suspension , at the least
    It seeds crazy lies into what is seen as a much more credible source (someone somewhere will quote hyufd/pb as a 'reliable source' on this) and derails sensible discussion to an unreasonable extent. /rant
  • Meanwhile, following on from the baked rice discussions of last couple of days, I made this:

    https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/baked-fragrant-rice/

    Pretty scrumptious.

  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,653

    NI needs to be extended to all income, irrespective of the individual's age or the source of the income, or rolled into income tax.

    I say that as someone who would pay a lot more through such a change.

    Agree 100% with this.

    My caveat - which is not actually in any way opposed to what you are saying - is that we need to make sure the employers are paying their due as well. As I mentioned before the current mish mash of rules allows them pass all the costs to the worker for no cost to themselves. The same goes for low pay. Why should the taxpayer be carrying the cost of employers not being willing to pay a decent basic wage? Our current system encourages low pay by using the taxpayer to supplement people's income.
    Agreed.

    And I take your point about limited companies being insisted on by clients.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,479

    We need to get on with it now. Booster jabs asap. Or we are up to 1,000 deaths a day by Oct. Sort it out Sajid.
    Do you ever tire of making hyperbolic predictions? Your track record is beyond shit, worse even than Pagel’s.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,366
    edited September 2021

    NI needs to be extended to all income, irrespective of the individual's age or the source of the income, or rolled into income tax.

    I say that as someone who would pay a lot more through such a change.

    Agree 100% with this.

    My caveat - which is not actually in any way opposed to what you are saying - is that we need to make sure the employers are paying their due as well. As I mentioned before the current mish mash of rules allows them pass all the costs to the worker for no cost to themselves. The same goes for low pay. Why should the taxpayer be carrying the cost of employers not being willing to pay a decent basic wage? Our current system encourages low pay by using the taxpayer to supplement people's income.
    Not quite true. if we are talking about inside IR35 contracts the assignment fee paid to the umbrella / agency includes all costs (employer NI, holiday pay) but the assignment fee isn't your money it's only yours after the employment costs have been deducted.

    Alongside that agency regulations mean that after 12 weeks you cannot be paid less than a permanent employee / worker performing the same task.

    So the mistake you are making is that the figure you see being advertised is all your money and for an inside IR35 contract that simply isn't the case.

    I was having a conversation about exactly this earlier today and the point I made then (and will make again now) is that the biggest issue with this entire issue is that agencies and companies are allowed to advertise contracts with inside IR35 assignment / umbrella rates without being required to produce Key Information documents explicitly showing how they calculated the advertised rate and what needs to be deducted from it.

    I've now got a meeting request from the TUC where that suggestion is likely to become their policy as it's an easier fix than they current fix (which is banning umbrella firms outright).
  • We need to get on with it now. Booster jabs asap. Or we are up to 1,000 deaths a day by Oct. Sort it out Sajid.
    Do you ever tire of making hyperbolic predictions? Your track record is beyond shit, worse even than Pagel’s.
    Hope I'm wrong. But it's rising everywhere. Time to take extra care 👿
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,653
    Good England performance tonight. No apparent hangover from the Euro 2020 final.
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