Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
You thick clown, they were not cheap when people bought them and interest rates were penal. You are a greedy selfish arsehole.
Interest rates may be penal again if inflation hits and cannot be controlled by means other than interest rates.
Equally houses weren't cheap, banks just couldn't lend the insane multiples (4.5x joint income) they now can. Back in the 70s you had to wait your turn for the mortgage and it was 3x first income + 1x second if you were lucky.
Absolutely when I bought my first house (did I mention the 15% mortgage rate? ) I had to borrow 3.5 times salary and it was hard work to get that.
Because the rates are so low now, we indeed have the 'insane multiples' on offer now and this has been a huge factor in pushing up house prices.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
You thick clown, they were not cheap when people bought them and interest rates were penal. You are a greedy selfish arsehole.
Interest rates may be penal again if inflation hits and cannot be controlled by means other than interest rates.
Equally houses weren't cheap, banks just couldn't lend the insane multiples (4.5x joint income) they now can. Back in the 70s you had to wait your turn for the mortgage and it was 3x first income + 1x second if you were lucky.
That's all it needed to be as the prices weren't insane.
And housing construction kept up with housing demand. As opposed to then a generation of NIMBYs wanting to preserve their views rather than have other people also be able to have a home too.
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
I like that idea
Workers on low fixed incomes will not be affected , bring in higher tax rates for the richly paid workers
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
If this Government had at any time actually fixed the fiscal mess that Brown created we wouldn't be in our current circumstances.
The reality is that the Government since 2010 has merely pretend to fix the issues while in reality hoping people didn't notice how half baked their solutions were.
The government did fix the fiscal mess that Brown created which is why we have come into this recession without the structural deficit that Brown had.
It's also why I expect we will come out of this recession without the structural deficit Brown bequeathed the Tories.
Quite right too. Just look at the numbers in the year before each big crash - night and day difference. 2007: 2.9% 2019: 2.6%
Happily we have also avoided as big a shock to the economy after this time's structural deficit compared to the last on. A 2009 10.1% massive deficit compared to 2020's much smaller 14.9%. We will definitely be able to avoid another decade of austerity thanks to the average 2.4% structural deficit of the May and Johnson years.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
You thick clown, they were not cheap when people bought them and interest rates were penal. You are a greedy selfish arsehole.
Interest rates may be penal again if inflation hits and cannot be controlled by means other than interest rates.
Equally houses weren't cheap, banks just couldn't lend the insane multiples (4.5x joint income) they now can. Back in the 70s you had to wait your turn for the mortgage and it was 3x first income + 1x second if you were lucky.
Absolutely when I bought my first house (did I mention the 15% mortgage rate? ) I had to borrow 3.5 times salary and it was hard work to get that.
Because the rates are so low now, we indeed have the 'insane multiples' on offer now and this has been a huge factor in pushing up house prices.
Actually it's not.
Multiples went up before rates came down.
Multiples went up because construction was halted by NIMBYism and demand surged due to population growth. Plus a generation of landlords realised they could buy homes for cash as an investment to generate an income from rent. That doesn't depend upon interest rates.
If you drop supply but increase demand, it doesn't take genius to figure out what happens to prices next.
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
0/20/48/55 would be ideal tax rates for retirement incomes. Taxed at source so no escaping it either. My dad is going to have income of over £80k per year in retirement, he literally doesn't know what to do with it beyond giving it away to me and my sister and his grandkids.
Yes quite. But I thought you were against tax rises Max?
On working age people.
What next gulags for pensioners and all their assets confiscated so you can get a few extra weekends away.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
You thick clown, they were not cheap when people bought them and interest rates were penal. You are a greedy selfish arsehole.
Interest rates may be penal again if inflation hits and cannot be controlled by means other than interest rates.
Equally houses weren't cheap, banks just couldn't lend the insane multiples (4.5x joint income) they now can. Back in the 70s you had to wait your turn for the mortgage and it was 3x first income + 1x second if you were lucky.
Absolutely when I bought my first house (did I mention the 15% mortgage rate? ) I had to borrow 3.5 times salary and it was hard work to get that.
Because the rates are so low now, we indeed have the 'insane multiples' on offer now and this has been a huge factor in pushing up house prices.
The initial late 1990 / early 2000 price increases directly correlate with the changes in mortgage multiples from 3+1 to 3x joint loans.
After that demand / supply constraints become a far bigger issue...
Can you actually give vaccines to an African country in a cozy deal, or does it have to be through the scheme? Through the scheme you can’t choose the country’s it goes to, they assess who is ready to roll it out so it’s not wasted. Not just temperature but logistically ready.
So if the old colonial powers are now triple vaccinating and vaccinating those not even in danger, those in danger in Africa waiting for their first, it’s simply down to colonialism isn’t it - brilliantly summed up by Geldof saying, hold on a moment, there are too many unnecessary countries in Africa?
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
0/20/48/55 would be ideal tax rates for retirement incomes. Taxed at source so no escaping it either. My dad is going to have income of over £80k per year in retirement, he literally doesn't know what to do with it beyond giving it away to me and my sister and his grandkids.
Yes quite. But I thought you were against tax rises Max?
On working age people.
What next gulags for pensioners and all their assets confiscated so you can get a few extra weekends away.
Nope but the only fix is a wealth tax - we need to raise additional tax revenue and there is nowhere else available.
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
If this Government had at any time actually fixed the fiscal mess that Brown created we wouldn't be in our current circumstances.
The reality is that the Government since 2010 has merely pretend to fix the issues while in reality hoping people didn't notice how half baked their solutions were.
The government did fix the fiscal mess that Brown created which is why we have come into this recession without the structural deficit that Brown had.
It's also why I expect we will come out of this recession without the structural deficit Brown bequeathed the Tories.
The fiscal mess being a similar deficit to those run under the preceding Conservative governments, at least in the bust parts? It is time to throw away your 2010 Osborne briefing notes. They worked. He won. Now we can admit they were complete bollocks.
Not only is there the issue of massively higher multiples on house prices compared to earnings but there is also the current, long term, low inflation environment.
Sure interest rates were eye watering but inflation was also no picnic (indeed the high interest rates were often to battle inflation) which erodes the real terms value of the outstanding mortgage.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
Just a shame Pierce Brosnan sounds like nails on a blackboard when he attempts to "sing"
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
If this Government had at any time actually fixed the fiscal mess that Brown created we wouldn't be in our current circumstances.
The reality is that the Government since 2010 has merely pretend to fix the issues while in reality hoping people didn't notice how half baked their solutions were.
The government did fix the fiscal mess that Brown created which is why we have come into this recession without the structural deficit that Brown had.
It's also why I expect we will come out of this recession without the structural deficit Brown bequeathed the Tories.
Quite right too. Just look at the numbers in the year before each big crash - night and day difference. 2007: 2.9% 2019: 2.6%
Happily we have also avoided as big a shock to the economy after this time's structural deficit compared to the last on. A 2009 10.1% massive deficit compared to 2020's much smaller 14.9%. We will definitely be able to avoid another decade of austerity thanks to the average 2.4% structural deficit of the May and Johnson years.
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
But they supported the policies after that - the deficit spending you are so agitated about. This didn't stop in 2007, far from it. Cuts came from 2009 onwards, back in 2007 when Osbrown was speaking the bubble was inflated to crazy proportions, and George wanted to inflate it even harder to pay both for every pound of deficit spending and give people a tax cut.
He wanted spending to go up by less than the rate of growth, which is quite appropriate given the mess Brown had created.
There wasn't any growth though. Too late, the bell tolled and Browns mess he was already warning us about became apparent.
Osborne literally said in his speech to conference that year that he would match Labour's spending "pound for pound" and then toured the studios reassuring punters that the days of Tory cuts were over.
As that was the same spending that Labour were doing then you are saying that Darling's budget approach was "quite appropriate".
And yet no! There was a difference! We had a bubble economy. And Osbrown wanted a bigger bubble so that not only would he match spending pound for pound but then share in the proceeds of (further growth) with a tax rise on top.
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
If this Government had at any time actually fixed the fiscal mess that Brown created we wouldn't be in our current circumstances.
The reality is that the Government since 2010 has merely pretend to fix the issues while in reality hoping people didn't notice how half baked their solutions were.
The government did fix the fiscal mess that Brown created which is why we have come into this recession without the structural deficit that Brown had.
It's also why I expect we will come out of this recession without the structural deficit Brown bequeathed the Tories.
The fiscal mess being a similar deficit to those run under the preceding Conservative governments, at least in the bust parts? It is time to throw away your 2010 Osborne briefing notes. They worked. He won. Now we can admit they were complete bollocks.
2007 was pre-bust.
Why the heck should pre-bust deficits be "similar" to bust deficits previously?
It wasn't bollocks. What was bollocks was Brown thinking he had "abolished boom and bust" so he could run bust-level deficits before the bust hit.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
Sooner you are gone the better, don't hit your arse on the door on the way out. Not much of a brain drain , you are kidding yourself. Jog on and get the bags packed.
Ayrshire’s answer to Dorothy Parker opines once more.
Even though you recognise my talents , I wish you would stop stalking me, get a crush on someone else please. Not surprised you would support such an arsehole.
A lot of unpleasant comments about pensioners on here today. @MaxPB's father on an £80k pa pension is hardly typical of most pensioners.
Just raise income tax to pay for social care. Everyone who pays income tax pays it.
A brave government would merge tax and NI.
Spot on @Cyclefree. Good to see you posting - hope you are well.
And yet - my understanding is that the 65+ demographic is by some way the wealthiest, following the combined effects of being in the right place at the right time for being able to buy housing when it was cheap, free university education for those who had it, and having final salary pensions. Not all of that demographic, of course, but huge numbers are hugely moee wealthy than their younger counterparts will ever be. A tax on the poorer demographic to pay for the richer seems a tad unfair.
No odds to me personally, mind: I'm an only child with no cousins so things that are a benefit to the old and super-old are a benefit to me eventutally. But that doesn't seem any reason by itself to support this plan.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
Aggghhhh.
Well I seem to have united PB for once. Shame it is against me. Oh well.
I'll just go back to listening to some blues, rock and 60s music.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
LOL 'cheap houses'. I started out paying 15% interest on my first mortgage. I had to work * hard to get that house and then move up another much larger one which I had fully paid off by age 40.
I don't want to go down a generational divide but it strikes me that too many of the younger generation want to whinge rather than work for it.
👍
The chart below shows another issue. If you have a 15% mortgage but the house price is a low multiple of your salary then it is much easier to repay. Right now the average house price is over 8x the average salary. For most of the 20th Century it was below 5x.
I'm sure you did work hard to pay off your mortgage but I suspect the deposit required was much lower along with the total amount to repay (compared to average salary).
If interest rates do go up at some point then there will be a very large number of people who will no longer be able to afford their mortgage payments. For the last 15 years everyone has been used to very low interest rates. Personally, I have 17 years left on my mortgage but I am trying to overpay in order to be able to pay it off in about 7 years time when I am 50.
That's a very good point, full marks.
I too remember the high rates on my first mortgage but when Mrs C and I bought together we were soon able to start overpaying to get the capital down and the thing paid off early. And THEN interest rates collapsed. But I wasn't (and am not) complaining.
The deposits then as a % were much higher, it was inflation that allowed him to pay it off as wages increased but you only had the same mortgage debt and payments.
I missed @HYUFD temporary ban last night but would say that he must contribute considerably to the betting nature of this forum with his encyclopaedia style knowledge of opinion polls, though of course his application of them does tend to have a degree of licence
I disagree with him over his attitude to indyref 2 and the fact that he is the arbiter of just who is a conservative
I would also just say that I get things wrong on occasions and when I do an apology is quite cathartic
A lot of unpleasant comments about pensioners on here today. @MaxPB's father on an £80k pa pension is hardly typical of most pensioners.
Just raise income tax to pay for social care. Everyone who pays income tax pays it.
A brave government would merge tax and NI.
Spot on @Cyclefree. Good to see you posting - hope you are well.
And yet - my understanding is that the 65+ demographic is by some way the wealthiest, following the combined effects of being in the right place at the right time for being able to buy housing when it was cheap, free university education for those who had it, and having final salary pensions. Not all of that demographic, of course, but huge numbers are hugely moee wealthy than their younger counterparts will ever be. A tax on the poorer demographic to pay for the richer seems a tad unfair.
No odds to me personally, mind: I'm an only child with no cousins so things that are a benefit to the old and super-old are a benefit to me eventutally. But that doesn't seem any reason by itself to support this plan.
Some pensioners are wealthy. Not all are. If taxes are raised, whether on wealth or income, then they should be applied equally to all. The young are having a hard time of it. I don't need to be told that. I am having to work to support myself and my young, them above all. But the income tax rates they pay are far less than what was paid in the past. Mortgage rates are very very much lower. So the idea that older generations had some sort of nirvana is nonsense. There are winners and losers in every generation. Not all pensioners are on final salary pensions. Not all have savings. Many still work because they need to. Not all have high value homes.
Whatever tax is levied - whether on income or wealth or most likely both - needs to be applied to all. If people over pension age work then they should pay tax like anyone else working. Social care is something which everyone will benefit from, including the young, who will grow old one day.
I don't know what this new policy will be. It sounds from reports to be remarkably similar to Mrs May's policy. I seem to recall that many of those who were up in arms then were those who stood to inherit houses and thought that others without such inheritances to look forward to should pay more tax to preserve the inheritances of rich kids. Even some Labour supporters on here became very exercised by this. So the rich young are just as capable of being selfish and self-interested as the rich old.
National insurance will be increased in order to fund social care reforms, it has been reported. Net support for this, by age group:
18-24 year olds: +14 25-49 year olds: +11 50-64 year olds: +40 65+ year olds: +71
All Britons: +32
Interesting that strongly support or somewhat support are supported by
42% 18-24
44% 25-49
63% 50-65
82% 65+
It should be noted that the nearer the populace get to a possible inheritance the higher the percentage, but even 18-24 are at 42%
I am not at all sure posters are reflecting just how this measure does seem to be popular across the electorate
It's on questions like that were "leading" background statements are required to get a true answer.
Pensioners do not pay National Insurance. National insurance will be increased in order to fund social care reforms, it has been reported.
would generate a far more accurate result that would more accurately reflect people's opinions in a couple of weeks time as the first point is repeated repeatedly until everyone has seen it.
This is the problem with all social care reforms, the idea looks great until a few days of reflection occurs at which point the idea turns into the horse dung people expected it to be.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of artprecisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
I like that idea
Workers on low fixed incomes will not be affected , bring in higher tax rates for the richly paid workers
But not pensioners of course!
I pay lots and lots of taxes , and whilst I would prefer to pay less like everyone else , I would never want it to be at the expense of others and especially people on low incomes. I have paid for my meagre state pension over 50 years and for some spoilt rich privileged arsehole like @MaxPB to be whining about robbing pensioners so he can boast about more weekends away , luxury trips etc is vomit inducing. I hope he gets his just desserts when he arrives at Old Nick.
Actually, the most hilarious aspect to his recent behaviour was that ever since OGH and TSE "volunteered" him a Democrat Donkey avatar in the run-up to November's US election, he couldn't be arsed to change it!
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
Just a shame Pierce Brosnan sounds like nails on a blackboard when he attempts to "sing"
Yes he was pretty dire to be polite, but kudos for even trying , though I suspect the fat fee compensated.
I missed @HYUFD temporary ban last night but would say that he must contribute considerably to the betting nature of this forum with his encyclopaedia style knowledge of opinion polls, though of course his application of them does tend to have a degree of licence
I disagree with him over his attitude to indyref 2 and the fact that he is the arbiter of just who is a conservative
I would also just say that I get things wrong on occasions and when I do an apology is quite cathartic
I hope he will be posting again in due course
If he does post again I hope he will validate his posts rather than posting and then trying to defend utterly insane conspiracy theories.
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
0/20/48/55 would be ideal tax rates for retirement incomes. Taxed at source so no escaping it either. My dad is going to have income of over £80k per year in retirement, he literally doesn't know what to do with it beyond giving it away to me and my sister and his grandkids.
Yes quite. But I thought you were against tax rises Max?
On working age people.
What next gulags for pensioners and all their assets confiscated so you can get a few extra weekends away.
Good morning Malc.
Max will be an old geezer one day...
Yes and will be whining about why he pays taxes for workers , despite being loaded and getting shedloads from his Dad he is still not a happy person. Greed and avarice are not a nice trait.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
0/20/48/55 would be ideal tax rates for retirement incomes. Taxed at source so no escaping it either. My dad is going to have income of over £80k per year in retirement, he literally doesn't know what to do with it beyond giving it away to me and my sister and his grandkids.
Yes quite. But I thought you were against tax rises Max?
On working age people.
What next gulags for pensioners and all their assets confiscated so you can get a few extra weekends away.
Good morning Malc.
Max will be an old geezer one day...
Yes and will be whining about why he pays taxes for workers , despite being loaded and getting shedloads from his Dad he is still not a happy person. Greed and avarice are not a nice trait.
I do find that those who are built on family money are the worst in grasping for more...
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I watched an ABBA doc/drama on Ch5 the other week - still can’t get my head around Agnetha dating her weird stalker. She must have been in a very low place mentally after the deaths of her parents
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
Agreed, not all will pay. The cohort who consistently vote Tory wont have to pay. The cohort who are richer (on average of course) than both their grandparents were and their grandchildren will become wont have to pay.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Yep - it needs to be paid for but given the purpose - it really cannot come from another tax on income.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
If this Government had at any time actually fixed the fiscal mess that Brown created we wouldn't be in our current circumstances.
The reality is that the Government since 2010 has merely pretend to fix the issues while in reality hoping people didn't notice how half baked their solutions were.
The government did fix the fiscal mess that Brown created which is why we have come into this recession without the structural deficit that Brown had.
It's also why I expect we will come out of this recession without the structural deficit Brown bequeathed the Tories.
Quite right too. Just look at the numbers in the year before each big crash - night and day difference. 2007: 2.9% 2019: 2.6%
Happily we have also avoided as big a shock to the economy after this time's structural deficit compared to the last on. A 2009 10.1% massive deficit compared to 2020's much smaller 14.9%. We will definitely be able to avoid another decade of austerity thanks to the average 2.4% structural deficit of the May and Johnson years.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of artprecisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
It is surprising (or maybe not...) how bad (and samey) the bulk of music in a musical is. One or two good songs maybe, but the rest just dirge.
At least with the musicals based around actual popular songs, you get good (to some definiton of good) music even if the plot is ludicrous.
Further off topic, Rocketman is excellent and even Bohemian Rhapsody good fun, although it takes copious liberties with history.
Torsten Bell @TorstenBell · 1h You could make a National Insurance rise better - ie more like an Income Tax one. We'll set out how on Monday. Or you could just increase Income Tax instead...
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of artprecisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
Yeaaaah. And don't get me started on Andrew Lloyd Webber's stuff (shudders). And the bits where they talk in time to music in musicals. I mean, why? Crap stories and crap songs. Should have a good story, no songs, or just good songs.
I will admit there are exceptions. I'm tempted to mention them but that could be another can of worms and I also don't mind the odd song in a film (Butch Cassidy, Breakfast at Tiffany's, ..)
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
Sounds far more sensible , however they will pick the option they think loses them the least amount of votes rather than the best solution for the problem.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of artprecisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
Yeaaaah. And don't get me started on Andrew Lloyd Webber's stuff (shudders). And the bits where they talk in time to music in musicals. I mean, why? Crap stories and crap songs. Should have a good story, no songs, or just good songs.
I will admit there are exceptions. I'm tempted to mention them but that could be another can of worms and I also don't mind the odd song in a film (Butch Cassidy, Breakfast at Tiffany's, ..)
What about Phantom of the Opera and Don't Cry for me Argentina. I will give you that there are many many crap ones out there for sure though.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
Sounds far more sensible , however they will pick the option they think loses them the least amount of votes rather than the best solution for the problem.
Unfortunately I agree with you and disagree with them. 👎
Whilst I certainly echo the sentiment, and confident he will be back posting soon, it must be very uncomfortable for the site owners when someone libels one of the richest people in the world. Its a reminder we all need to be careful when slinging mud, I will try to be more precise and cautious on certain subjects like govt corruption for example.
Whilst I certainly echo the sentiment, and confident he will be back posting soon, it must be very uncomfortable for the site owners when someone libels one of the richest people in the world. Its a reminder we all need to be careful when slinging mud, I will try to be more precise and cautious on certain subjects like govt corruption for example.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of art precisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
Apologies, but this is, IMO, utter nonsense. ABBA's stuff is musically quite complex for popular music. Sure, the lyrics are fairly banal, but they also have a certain genius at times.
I'm not sure there's any such thing as people who don't like music, but I'm quite happy to switch between Bach's solo violin pieces and ABBA's greatest hits on occasion.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of artprecisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
Yeaaaah. And don't get me started on Andrew Lloyd Webber's stuff (shudders). And the bits where they talk in time to music in musicals. I mean, why? Crap stories and crap songs. Should have a good story, no songs, or just good songs.
I will admit there are exceptions. I'm tempted to mention them but that could be another can of worms and I also don't mind the odd song in a film (Butch Cassidy, Breakfast at Tiffany's, ..)
What about Phantom of the Opera and Don't Cry for me Argentina. I will give you that there are many many crap ones out there for sure though.
I'll give you those songs and some more to be honest, but as someone else said anything decent in a musical is usually surrounded by crap. The rest of the music is usually rubbish (there are exceptions) and plots dire and the acting (by the nature of the subject matter) awful.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
Sounds far more sensible , however they will pick the option they think loses them the least amount of votes rather than the best solution for the problem.
I half suspect that it's impossible to change income tax nowadays because of the way it's down in Scotland.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of artprecisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
Yeaaaah. And don't get me started on Andrew Lloyd Webber's stuff (shudders). And the bits where they talk in time to music in musicals. I mean, why? Crap stories and crap songs. Should have a good story, no songs, or just good songs.
I will admit there are exceptions. I'm tempted to mention them but that could be another can of worms and I also don't mind the odd song in a film (Butch Cassidy, Breakfast at Tiffany's, ..)
What about Phantom of the Opera and Don't Cry for me Argentina. I will give you that there are many many crap ones out there for sure though.
I'll give you those songs and some more to be honest, but as someone else said anything decent in a musical is usually surrounded by crap. The rest of the music is usually rubbish (there are exceptions) and plots dire and the acting (by the nature of the subject matter) awful.
I don't agree at all.
I could quite happily listen to the music from G&S operettas, Phantom, Les Mis, Wicked and others.
The plots of the successful ones tend to be pretty good too. Especially since many of them tend to be written based on the plots of books anyway.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
2% hike in income tax isn't moderate. It's almost Corbynite.
I'm absolutely disgusted with the Tory leadership. I campaigned hard in 2019 and believed the no tax rise manifesto promise. Fiscal drag is the order of the day.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of art precisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
Apologies, but this is, IMO, utter nonsense. ABBA's stuff is musically quite complex for popular music. Sure, the lyrics are fairly banal, but they also have a certain genius at times.
I'm not sure there's any such thing as people who don't like music, but I'm quite happy to switch between Bach's solo violin pieces and ABBA's greatest hits on occasion.
"The day before you came" is probably my favourite Abba track and contains quite a lot of that darkness; it is a vivid image of the banality and boredom of so much of life, certainly a life without love.
I watched an ABBA doc/drama on Ch5 the other week - still can’t get my head around Agnetha dating her weird stalker. She must have been in a very low place mentally after the deaths of her parents
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
2% hike in income tax isn't moderate. It's almost Corbynite.
I'm absolutely disgusted with the Tory leadership. I campaigned hard in 2019 and believed the no tax rise manifesto promise. Fiscal drag is the order of the day.
Rishi has already tried fiscal drag. No increases to personal allowance or higher rate threshold until 2026. Will drag lots of people into the higher rate threshold by then especially if inflation accelerates.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
2% hike in income tax isn't moderate. It's almost Corbynite.
I'm absolutely disgusted with the Tory leadership. I campaigned hard in 2019 and believed the no tax rise manifesto promise. Fiscal drag is the order of the day.
Combine NI and income tax. That way everyone pays it.
I watched an ABBA doc/drama on Ch5 the other week - still can’t get my head around Agnetha dating her weird stalker. She must have been in a very low place mentally after the deaths of her parents
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
2% hike in income tax isn't moderate. It's almost Corbynite.
I'm absolutely disgusted with the Tory leadership. I campaigned hard in 2019 and believed the no tax rise manifesto promise. Fiscal drag is the order of the day.
In fairness it was not contemplated in 2019 that the government would spend more than £400bn on helping the economy cope with an 18 month pandemic which has devastated tax revenues as well. Politicians are all too keen to argue that circumstances have changed when breaking a promise but I struggle to think of a government that has a better base for such an argument than this one.
Tories should stand for sound money, careful management of the country's accounts and limitations on the role of the state. In some circumstances that requires more spending and thus, responsibly, more taxes, than others. This is such a time. I am more worried about having stable and sustainable public finances than current tax rates.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
2% hike in income tax isn't moderate. It's almost Corbynite.
I'm absolutely disgusted with the Tory leadership. I campaigned hard in 2019 and believed the no tax rise manifesto promise. Fiscal drag is the order of the day.
Combine NI and income tax. That way everyone pays it.
Alternatively have lower taxes.
People work more because they get to keep more of their money, the state gets some of that extra work, people spend the extra money that they earn which grows the economy.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
2% hike in income tax isn't moderate. It's almost Corbynite.
I'm absolutely disgusted with the Tory leadership. I campaigned hard in 2019 and believed the no tax rise manifesto promise. Fiscal drag is the order of the day.
Combine NI and income tax. That way everyone pays it.
Alternatively have lower taxes.
People work more because they get to keep more of their money, the state gets some of that extra work, people spend the extra money that they earn which grows the economy.
A novel argument, it will never catch on. Not with this bunch of idiots in charge.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of artprecisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
Yeaaaah. And don't get me started on Andrew Lloyd Webber's stuff (shudders). And the bits where they talk in time to music in musicals. I mean, why? Crap stories and crap songs. Should have a good story, no songs, or just good songs.
I will admit there are exceptions. I'm tempted to mention them but that could be another can of worms and I also don't mind the odd song in a film (Butch Cassidy, Breakfast at Tiffany's, ..)
What about Phantom of the Opera and Don't Cry for me Argentina. I will give you that there are many many crap ones out there for sure though.
I'll give you those songs and some more to be honest, but as someone else said anything decent in a musical is usually surrounded by crap. The rest of the music is usually rubbish (there are exceptions) and plots dire and the acting (by the nature of the subject matter) awful.
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
It's a myth that income tax rates are 0/20/40/45 for most people.
Once you include NI the current tax rates are (roughly):
For employed earners under 65: 0/32/42/47 For self-employed under 65: 0/29/42/47 For unearned income, or for those over 65: 0/20/40/45
Don’t forget the 60% rate with the withdrawal of personal allowance over £100k, and the 65% universal credit withdrawal at the other end of the scale.
'The UK government’s vast security operation to manage the immediate aftermath of the death of the Queen include official social media blackouts and a ban on retweets.
The secret documents, codenamed Operation London Bridge and seen by Politico, reveal the scale of the plans for the funeral and government anxieties about whether the UK has the resources to execute them.
The social media strategy plays a prominent role, including plans to change the royal family’s website to a black holding page with a short statement confirming the Queen’s death, while the gov.uk website and all governmental social media pages will display a black banner. Non-urgent content will not be published and retweets will be banned unless cleared by the government’s head of communications. [...]
The plans for Operation London Bridge and Operation Spring Tide, which sets out how Charles will accede to the throne, contain granular detail such as the potential for public anger if Downing Street cannot lower its flags to half-mast within 10 minutes of the announcement since there is no “flag officer”.
The documents also showed concerns from the Foreign Office over how to arrange entry for significant numbers of tourists, from the Home Office on how to handle potential terror alerts, and from the Department for Transport on overcrowding in the capital.'
More here (which confirms the social media accounts involved are government ones)
'The Department for Transport has raised concerns that the number of people who may want to travel to London could cause major problems for the transport network, and lead to overcrowding in the capital.
In a striking assessment of the scenes that could unfold, one memo warns of a worst-case scenario in which London literally becomes “full” for the first time ever as potentially hundreds of thousands of people try to make their way there — with accommodation, roads, public transport, food, policing, healthcare and basic services stretched to breaking point. Concerns have also been raised about a shortage of stewards for crowd control purposes.'
It’ll be Death of Stalin redux, dozens of sobbing royalists crushed to death as they try to get a glimpse of the catafalque. Various horrible people manoeuvring for power and being summarily executed would be nice.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of artprecisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
Yeaaaah. And don't get me started on Andrew Lloyd Webber's stuff (shudders). And the bits where they talk in time to music in musicals. I mean, why? Crap stories and crap songs. Should have a good story, no songs, or just good songs.
I will admit there are exceptions. I'm tempted to mention them but that could be another can of worms and I also don't mind the odd song in a film (Butch Cassidy, Breakfast at Tiffany's, ..)
What about Phantom of the Opera and Don't Cry for me Argentina. I will give you that there are many many crap ones out there for sure though.
I'll give you those songs and some more to be honest, but as someone else said anything decent in a musical is usually surrounded by crap. The rest of the music is usually rubbish (there are exceptions) and plots dire and the acting (by the nature of the subject matter) awful.
I don't agree at all.
I could quite happily listen to the music from G&S operettas, Phantom, Les Mis, Wicked and others.
The plots of the successful ones tend to be pretty good too. Especially since many of them tend to be written based on the plots of books anyway.
As I said I am in a minority of 1, although having @Cookie now join me we have doubled our representation here. Tomorrow the world.
I get pissed off by how many people manage to dodge paying tax by getting their income paid to a ltd co (despite working for one employer) and who are now buggering off to Portugal and Cyprus to cash it all out tax free.
I get pissed off by how many people manage to dodge paying tax by getting their income paid to a ltd co (despite working for one employer) and who are now buggering off to Portugal and Cyprus to cash it all out tax free.
That's way harder than they will expect it to be unless they stay there for 6+ years.
I get pissed off by how many people manage to dodge paying tax by getting their income paid to a ltd co (despite working for one employer) and who are now buggering off to Portugal and Cyprus to cash it all out tax free.
That's way harder than they will expect it to be unless they stay there for 6+ years.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of art precisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
Apologies, but this is, IMO, utter nonsense. ABBA's stuff is musically quite complex for popular music. Sure, the lyrics are fairly banal, but they also have a certain genius at times.
I'm not sure there's any such thing as people who don't like music, but I'm quite happy to switch between Bach's solo violin pieces and ABBA's greatest hits on occasion.
I love music but the God awful ear worms of ABBA combined with the stupidity of their lyrics can make me feel like I don't. Eurotrash rubbish.
'The UK government’s vast security operation to manage the immediate aftermath of the death of the Queen include official social media blackouts and a ban on retweets.
The secret documents, codenamed Operation London Bridge and seen by Politico, reveal the scale of the plans for the funeral and government anxieties about whether the UK has the resources to execute them.
The social media strategy plays a prominent role, including plans to change the royal family’s website to a black holding page with a short statement confirming the Queen’s death, while the gov.uk website and all governmental social media pages will display a black banner. Non-urgent content will not be published and retweets will be banned unless cleared by the government’s head of communications. [...]
The plans for Operation London Bridge and Operation Spring Tide, which sets out how Charles will accede to the throne, contain granular detail such as the potential for public anger if Downing Street cannot lower its flags to half-mast within 10 minutes of the announcement since there is no “flag officer”.
The documents also showed concerns from the Foreign Office over how to arrange entry for significant numbers of tourists, from the Home Office on how to handle potential terror alerts, and from the Department for Transport on overcrowding in the capital.'
More here (which confirms the social media accounts involved are government ones)
'The Department for Transport has raised concerns that the number of people who may want to travel to London could cause major problems for the transport network, and lead to overcrowding in the capital.
In a striking assessment of the scenes that could unfold, one memo warns of a worst-case scenario in which London literally becomes “full” for the first time ever as potentially hundreds of thousands of people try to make their way there — with accommodation, roads, public transport, food, policing, healthcare and basic services stretched to breaking point. Concerns have also been raised about a shortage of stewards for crowd control purposes.'
It’ll be Death of Stalin redux, dozens of sobbing royalists crushed to death as they try to get a glimpse of the catafalque. Various horrible people manoeuvring for power and being summarily executed would be nice.
Couldn't see whether anything was being done about shutting down radio and TV. When George VI died all broadcasts stopped, except for solemn music.mEven Radio Luxembourg cut back IIRC. It was very boring! Think I've posted before about how the Head called us all into the Assembly Hall, told us, then said that as it was a sad occasion, we would not be going home; we were to go back to our classrooms. IIRC the actual funeral wasn't a day off either. Oddly, I've no memory of that.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
2% hike in income tax isn't moderate. It's almost Corbynite.
I'm absolutely disgusted with the Tory leadership. I campaigned hard in 2019 and believed the no tax rise manifesto promise. Fiscal drag is the order of the day.
Combine NI and income tax. That way everyone pays it.
Alternatively have lower taxes.
People work more because they get to keep more of their money, the state gets some of that extra work, people spend the extra money that they earn which grows the economy.
A novel argument, it will never catch on. Not with this bunch of idiots in charge.
You are making the grave error of thinking the conservatives have any principles.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
You have no soul , I rewatched it again the other night and it was just a happy film with lots of great music.
I'm with kjh here.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of art precisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
Apologies, but this is, IMO, utter nonsense. ABBA's stuff is musically quite complex for popular music. Sure, the lyrics are fairly banal, but they also have a certain genius at times.
I'm not sure there's any such thing as people who don't like music, but I'm quite happy to switch between Bach's solo violin pieces and ABBA's greatest hits on occasion.
I love music but the God awful ear worms of ABBA combined with the stupidity of their lyrics can make me feel like I don't. Eurotrash rubbish.
The idea that given all the expenses of Covid, the NHS and social care, let alone anything else, we can avoid raising taxes on working people, as @MaxPB seems to want, is for the birds.
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
Should we be raising taxes only on working age people?
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
I did put forward the typically centre moderate view of 2% on income tax on here last night (I think). So workers and pensioners both contribute.
2% hike in income tax isn't moderate. It's almost Corbynite.
I'm absolutely disgusted with the Tory leadership. I campaigned hard in 2019 and believed the no tax rise manifesto promise. Fiscal drag is the order of the day.
In fairness it was not contemplated in 2019 that the government would spend more than £400bn on helping the economy cope with an 18 month pandemic which has devastated tax revenues as well. Politicians are all too keen to argue that circumstances have changed when breaking a promise but I struggle to think of a government that has a better base for such an argument than this one.
Tories should stand for sound money, careful management of the country's accounts and limitations on the role of the state. In some circumstances that requires more spending and thus, responsibly, more taxes, than others. This is such a time. I am more worried about having stable and sustainable public finances than current tax rates.
Now is not the time to put taxes up on working people. I don't care about my personal situation, an extra £1.6k per year in tax between myself and my wife is unfortunate but it doesn't really make a big difference to us. There will be millions of middle income people across the country that will find that kind of income cut very, very difficult to take.
Using my dad as an example again, his net income in retirement is about £60.5k. A working age person with an equivalent gross has a net income of £55k. In what world does it make sense that my dad, with no responsibilities, no kids, no mortgage and no real costs pays £5.5k less in tax than a working age person who will have a mortgage/rent, kids, possible nursery fees, school expenses, commuting costs etc...
The whole system is needs rethinking. Why is anyone in the higher rate tax bracket getting 100% of the state pension? In what world does that make sense?!
Comments
Because the rates are so low now, we indeed have the 'insane multiples' on offer now and this has been a huge factor in pushing up house prices.
And housing construction kept up with housing demand. As opposed to then a generation of NIMBYs wanting to preserve their views rather than have other people also be able to have a home too.
As a pensioner I support the £20 UC uplift, abolition of the triple lock, and taxing pensioners as part of the social care cost
It can be achieved by extending NI to all pensioners who are in work, or as @Cyclefree says an increase on tax rates
2007: 2.9%
2019: 2.6%
Happily we have also avoided as big a shock to the economy after this time's structural deficit compared to the last on. A 2009 10.1% massive deficit compared to 2020's much smaller 14.9%. We will definitely be able to avoid another decade of austerity thanks to the average 2.4% structural deficit of the May and Johnson years.
Multiples went up before rates came down.
Multiples went up because construction was halted by NIMBYism and demand surged due to population growth. Plus a generation of landlords realised they could buy homes for cash as an investment to generate an income from rent. That doesn't depend upon interest rates.
If you drop supply but increase demand, it doesn't take genius to figure out what happens to prices next.
Max will be an old geezer one day...
After that demand / supply constraints become a far bigger issue...
So if the old colonial powers are now triple vaccinating and vaccinating those not even in danger, those in danger in Africa waiting for their first, it’s simply down to colonialism isn’t it - brilliantly summed up by Geldof saying, hold on a moment, there are too many unnecessary countries in Africa?
Sure interest rates were eye watering but inflation was also no picnic (indeed the high interest rates were often to battle inflation) which erodes the real terms value of the outstanding mortgage.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/september2019
6.How much is the general government deficit?
In the financial year ending (FYE) March 2019, the UK general government deficit was £38.7 billion, equivalent to 1.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) (Table 2 and Figure 2); this is the lowest since the FYE March 2002, when it was 0.4%. This represents a decrease of £17.3 billion compared with the FYE March 2018.
Brown had the FYE March 2002 figures and he pissed it away leading to the 2007 mess.
The Tories got us into a position where in 2019, despite Brown's toxic legacy, the figures were the best since 2002.
As that was the same spending that Labour were doing then you are saying that Darling's budget approach was "quite appropriate".
And yet no! There was a difference! We had a bubble economy. And Osbrown wanted a bigger bubble so that not only would he match spending pound for pound but then share in the proceeds of (further growth) with a tax rise on top.
YouGov
@YouGov
National insurance will be increased in order to fund social care reforms, it has been reported. Net support for this, by age group:
18-24 year olds: +14
25-49 year olds: +11
50-64 year olds: +40
65+ year olds: +71
All Britons: +32
Interesting that strongly support or somewhat support are supported by
42% 18-24
44% 25-49
63% 50-65
82% 65+
It should be noted that the nearer the populace get to a possible inheritance the higher the percentage, but even 18-24 are at 42%
I am not at all sure posters are reflecting just how this measure does seem to be popular across the electorate
Why the heck should pre-bust deficits be "similar" to bust deficits previously?
It wasn't bollocks. What was bollocks was Brown thinking he had "abolished boom and bust" so he could run bust-level deficits before the bust hit.
I wonder how many of the 18-49 year olds realise pensioners don't pay NI. So this is a tax on the working-age only?
Those of us who do shouldn't stop saying this is wrong just because its popular, or because a party we normally support is proposing it, should we?
Let me make my position 100% clear: If the Tories do this, the Tories are in the wrong.
https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2021/09/01/who-is-the-wealthiest-generation/
Well I seem to have united PB for once. Shame it is against me. Oh well.
I'll just go back to listening to some blues, rock and 60s music.
At least it was the night watchman going out, but 53-4 is not good. 🏏
I disagree with him over his attitude to indyref 2 and the fact that he is the arbiter of just who is a conservative
I would also just say that I get things wrong on occasions and when I do an apology is quite cathartic
I hope he will be posting again in due course
Whatever tax is levied - whether on income or wealth or most likely both - needs to be applied to all. If people over pension age work then they should pay tax like anyone else working. Social care is something which everyone will benefit from, including the young, who will grow old one day.
I don't know what this new policy will be. It sounds from reports to be remarkably similar to Mrs May's policy. I seem to recall that many of those who were up in arms then were those who stood to inherit houses and thought that others without such inheritances to look forward to should pay more tax to preserve the inheritances of rich kids. Even some Labour supporters on here became very exercised by this. So the rich young are just as capable of being selfish and self-interested as the rich old.
Pensioners do not pay National Insurance. National insurance will be increased in order to fund social care reforms, it has been reported.
would generate a far more accurate result that would more accurately reflect people's opinions in a couple of weeks time as the first point is repeated repeatedly until everyone has seen it.
This is the problem with all social care reforms, the idea looks great until a few days of reflection occurs at which point the idea turns into the horse dung people expected it to be.
Abba's songs are quite remarkably crafted. And yet they grate. I can just about stomach the disco ones (voulez vouz, etc.), though they are not my cup of tea and make me very glad I wasn't young and Swedish in the 70s. There is a darkness to them (I don't know whether this is intentional - probably it is: they are, after all, very good songwriters). But the easy listening end of the spectrum - Fernando etc - music for people who don't like music.
And as for Mamma Mia - musical theatre is the lowest form of art. Lower than mime. (Musical theatre is the lowest form of artprecisley because it is stuffed with this sort of music-for-people-who-don't-like-music: see also anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).
I hope he gets his just desserts when he arrives at Old Nick.
https://medium.com/history-on-wheels/the-curse-of-the-ford-falcon-36cda9a8f97f
Good music, well-crafted, and an interesting story. But their music never really grabbed me.
Oddly, what introduced me to their music was Erasure's Aba-esque EP, which a friend had. It's hard to believe that was nearly 30 years ago now ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-d4J3YUQmU
https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/paralympic-games/en/results/all-sports/medal-standings.htm
Taxes will have to rise and all will have to pay. That's all there is to it. All these demands for special exclusions is just self-interested nonsense.
https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1433717360926601229
"1% on NI" is a 2% tax rise on the employed, and a 0% tax rise on pensioners.
1%, 2% or whatever on income tax is a tax paid by all.
https://twitter.com/Adamstoon1/status/1433735864471990285
At least with the musicals based around actual popular songs, you get good (to some definiton of good) music even if the plot is ludicrous.
Further off topic, Rocketman is excellent and even Bohemian Rhapsody good fun, although it takes copious liberties with history.
@TorstenBell
·
1h
You could make a National Insurance rise better - ie more like an Income Tax one. We'll set out how on Monday. Or you could just increase Income Tax instead...
I will admit there are exceptions. I'm tempted to mention them but that could be another can of worms and I also don't mind the odd song in a film (Butch Cassidy, Breakfast at Tiffany's, ..)
ABBA's stuff is musically quite complex for popular music. Sure, the lyrics are fairly banal, but they also have a certain genius at times.
I'm not sure there's any such thing as people who don't like music, but I'm quite happy to switch between Bach's solo violin pieces and ABBA's greatest hits on occasion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di18hTFTwIw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNmO233OztQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyNYQALwP38
All hail the Army of Lovers!
England in trouble.
I could quite happily listen to the music from G&S operettas, Phantom, Les Mis, Wicked and others.
The plots of the successful ones tend to be pretty good too. Especially since many of them tend to be written based on the plots of books anyway.
https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1433727992405110819?s=21
I'm absolutely disgusted with the Tory leadership. I campaigned hard in 2019 and believed the no tax rise manifesto promise. Fiscal drag is the order of the day.
But that will only raise so much...
Tories should stand for sound money, careful management of the country's accounts and limitations on the role of the state. In some circumstances that requires more spending and thus, responsibly, more taxes, than others. This is such a time. I am more worried about having stable and sustainable public finances than current tax rates.
People work more because they get to keep more of their money, the state gets some of that extra work, people spend the extra money that they earn which grows the economy.
The average age of a adult social care worker (i.e. someone who does the caring) for Durham County Council is 56.
Social care is going to be an even bigger problem than I thought it would be.
Pope looking very scratchy.
It was very boring!
Think I've posted before about how the Head called us all into the Assembly Hall, told us, then said that as it was a sad occasion, we would not be going home; we were to go back to our classrooms.
IIRC the actual funeral wasn't a day off either. Oddly, I've no memory of that.
You are right it is going to be expensive, especially if we are determined to do it properly and without much immigration.
I know a fair few people who've gone into working social care after they've finished working in their prior career.
Unless those 56 year olds joined at 16/18 or so and have aged to 56 then that stat can be less revealing than it appears at first glance.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/sep/08/40-years-abba-dancing-queen-people-just-surrender-to-it
Using my dad as an example again, his net income in retirement is about £60.5k. A working age person with an equivalent gross has a net income of £55k. In what world does it make sense that my dad, with no responsibilities, no kids, no mortgage and no real costs pays £5.5k less in tax than a working age person who will have a mortgage/rent, kids, possible nursery fees, school expenses, commuting costs etc...
The whole system is needs rethinking. Why is anyone in the higher rate tax bracket getting 100% of the state pension? In what world does that make sense?!