It will be fascinating to see how quickly the Tory invulnerability is swept away - if we are seeing the start of it.
So far they have been able to lie and break the law and have been practically applauded for doing so by the Cult of Boris. Yes its marvellous that he lied to the Queen etc.
So this week's lies - that the tax increase is to pay for social care, and that its progressive - shouldn't have been any concern. Tory voters like being lied to. And yet suddenly it appears they don't.
One possible angle. We saw the zeal for Brexit. That was seen as doing something to someone else - the man, the powers that be, the EU, the bureaucrats. Easy to support something that supposedly only hits Other People.
But this tax hike hits everyone. And the people who felt hard done by when we were in the EU get hard done the hardest. And thats before working families get scalped by the UC cut. And to cap it all off, they can't even see what benefit there is - the NHS will be on its knees again this winter and keep getting worse according to Javid.
Like I said, this is the Tories apocalpseofuck.
Interestingly - the reason it's not included within National insurance was because Rishi wanted it to be obvious on every payslip.
Which means if Labour gets its messaging right on every payslip there is a deduction to allow the Southern pensioners to keep their home
I get the rationale. Its not a tax rise, its a "Social Care Levy". Same as the "Adult Social Care Levy" 2% on your council tax.
The problem is that people see straight through it. With council tax the complaint is why am I having to pay for something someone else needs (direct repeated horse's mouth quotes from the doorstep before anyone picks at it).
So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted.
BTW, southern pensioners DO NOT keep their home. The iniquity of social care was that people have to liquidate their kids inheritance to pay for their own care. They still need to pay £86k - which means selling their home. "Ah but not when they are alive" I heard some clown apologist say on here.
Yes, so after they die the house gets sold to pay for their care. No inheritance.
Its literally the apocalypseofuck. A massive tax rise. On the hardest working (which in punter land is "me"). To fix something that isn't fixed in 3 years. To patch the NHS before then so where the fuck is the Brexit money.
Rishi needs to get his brilliant spin machine on it. Boris produced the plan. Its his team not mine. I warned him not to. Or he goes down with the clown.
It is a tax rise. Of course it is - how can tackling social care not be a tax rise.
There seems to be some confusion as to the position of the home when someone permanently goes to a care home.
The house is either completely in or completely out of the assessment.
These are the main circumstances that prevent the home being brought into the finance assessment, under CURRENT rules:
- It is it's still occupied by spouse - it is still occupied by a relative (typically child) who is over 60 - it is still occupied by any relative who is disabled (of any age) - the first 12 weeks' care home costs are always disregarded
To repeat - these are the rules now.
The change - and it is a big change - that is coming Autumn 2023 is the £86k cap. This means that even when the property is brought into the assessment the maximum that can be taken of its value (in combination with other asset and income contributions to care) is £86k.
So where you say: "So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted" what do you mean? Money is clearly going to be needed to cover care home hosts when the £86k cap is reached. Are you suggesting that the Autumn 2023 date will not be adhered to? You must be or your comment makes no sense.
An excellent explanation and some need to learn the detail before commenting
I don't think we have the detail to read as yet. As Stocky says, the current rules are as he describes. Whether the new rules will be identical except for the £86K cap is not yet clear.
You've made the point a couple of times that Labour's line te help people not go into care is unrealistic. But this too partly comes down to money. If councils are financed well enough to provide really extensive home care, beyond what is currently offered, then people will be able to delay or even sometimes avoid the necessity. There are plenty of examples of people who felt that having someone pop in for 20 minutes twice a day for minimal care was, although appreciated, just not a safe lifestyle. Clearly care homes will still be needed, but it does make sense to spend more on enabling people not to need them until it's really essential.
It will be fascinating to see how quickly the Tory invulnerability is swept away - if we are seeing the start of it.
So far they have been able to lie and break the law and have been practically applauded for doing so by the Cult of Boris. Yes its marvellous that he lied to the Queen etc.
So this week's lies - that the tax increase is to pay for social care, and that its progressive - shouldn't have been any concern. Tory voters like being lied to. And yet suddenly it appears they don't.
One possible angle. We saw the zeal for Brexit. That was seen as doing something to someone else - the man, the powers that be, the EU, the bureaucrats. Easy to support something that supposedly only hits Other People.
But this tax hike hits everyone. And the people who felt hard done by when we were in the EU get hard done the hardest. And thats before working families get scalped by the UC cut. And to cap it all off, they can't even see what benefit there is - the NHS will be on its knees again this winter and keep getting worse according to Javid.
Like I said, this is the Tories apocalpseofuck.
Interestingly - the reason it's not included within National insurance was because Rishi wanted it to be obvious on every payslip.
Which means if Labour gets its messaging right on every payslip there is a deduction to allow the Southern pensioners to keep their home
I get the rationale. Its not a tax rise, its a "Social Care Levy". Same as the "Adult Social Care Levy" 2% on your council tax.
The problem is that people see straight through it. With council tax the complaint is why am I having to pay for something someone else needs (direct repeated horse's mouth quotes from the doorstep before anyone picks at it).
So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted.
BTW, southern pensioners DO NOT keep their home. The iniquity of social care was that people have to liquidate their kids inheritance to pay for their own care. They still need to pay £86k - which means selling their home. "Ah but not when they are alive" I heard some clown apologist say on here.
Yes, so after they die the house gets sold to pay for their care. No inheritance.
Its literally the apocalypseofuck. A massive tax rise. On the hardest working (which in punter land is "me"). To fix something that isn't fixed in 3 years. To patch the NHS before then so where the fuck is the Brexit money.
Rishi needs to get his brilliant spin machine on it. Boris produced the plan. Its his team not mine. I warned him not to. Or he goes down with the clown.
It is a tax rise. Of course it is - how can tackling social care not be a tax rise.
There seems to be some confusion as to the position of the home when someone permanently goes to a care home.
The house is either completely in or completely out of the assessment.
These are the main circumstances that prevent the home being brought into the finance assessment, under CURRENT rules:
- It is it's still occupied by spouse - it is still occupied by a relative (typically child) who is over 60 - it is still occupied by any relative who is disabled (of any age) - the first 12 weeks' care home costs are always disregarded
To repeat - these are the rules now.
The change - and it is a big change - that is coming Autumn 2023 is the £86k cap. This means that even when the property is brought into the assessment the maximum that can be taken of its value (in combination with other asset and income contributions to care) is £86k.
So where you say: "So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted" what do you mean? Money is clearly going to be needed to cover care home hosts when the £86k cap is reached. Are you suggesting that the Autumn 2023 date will not be adhered to? You must be or your comment makes no sense.
Thanks for posting the details of the current arrangements - detail always helps debate.
My point is simple. The money is not going to social care, it is going to the NHS. Remember that the NHS has apparently already had "more than" the £18.2bn promised Brexit boost which has sunk without trace into a system described as on its knees. So £12bn more won't be seen to deliver - this is the "waste" I mention. People will be paying more taxes explicitly for an NHS where waiting lists still get longer and services get worse according to Javid.
And then we have social care. This tax rise delivers zero money for social care. No Health Secretary is going to cut the NHS budget by £12bn to transfer the money to social care - especially when the timings are either in the run-in to the election or at the start of the new term post-election. Either way, the money isn't going to be there.
Unless of course they borrow it. Thing is the government made a big play for needing to put up taxes because they can't borrow it. Yet if as claimed they have already injected "more than" the £18.2bn promised on the bus, that money was borrowed. As the true EU figure was £10.4bn and we're paying £7bn of that to the EU this year, that only leaves £3.4bn.
So if they have paid the brexit bonus to the NHS its borrowed money. So they lied when they said they can't borrow money to pay for the NHS crisis. Or they haven't paid the brexit bonus and that is the lie, and now that a tax rise is paying for the NHS there is no bonus at all.
Any way you cut it, they're lying to our faces. Repeatedly. To do the things they pledged not to do. To pay for the NHS to get worse, no fix for social care and no end to houses being flogged to pay for care.
According to Google, Hamilton has an estimated net worth of $825m.
Serena Williams is on, apparently $210m.
I find that hard to believe with all the endorsements she must have had.
Hamilton will be being paid a lot more though. At about $55 million a year, that’s probably 4-5 times what a tennis player could earn in prize money even if they won every tournament. Plus he will be having all his coaching, nutritionists, physio etc provided by McLaren and Serena will have to pay for her own.
I'm not surprised hes wealthier, but how low her wealth is despite such a long career.
Lots of people don't like Serena Williams, she's nowhere near as popular and marketable as Lewis. His sponsorship deals will be an order of magnitude larger than hers because of that. Comparing like for like I'd expect that Roger Federer will have similar career and sponsorship earnings to Lewis.
You would expect wrongly. Estimated worth $450 million so around half of what Hamilton has.
Have you given any thought to the reliability of the sources for that information? It must be an easy ride, submitting history essays to you. I wouldn't bet 5p on it being the right OOM.
*Shrugs*
All estimates of wealth are just that - estimates. Unless you have access to their private accounts (which I'm assuming you don't).
But Lewis Hamilton's current annual earnings including endorsements are around 60% of Federer's entire career prize money (source - Forbes). He also gets for free from his employers many things Federer will have to pay for himself. Federer's largest commercial endorsement is with Uniqlo, which has so far paid him $60 million of a $300 million ten year contract.
So although people may be surprised, it's not crazily far out or implausible that Hamilton has double the wealth of even tennis' greatest players.
I think what it really does show is just how much money is sloshing around in F1.
Sorry. On reflection that was snarky.
But I wouldn't hang a dog on what the internet thinks someone is worth.
Well, I'm glad to hear it. Dogs are lovely animals and don't deserve capital punishment (unless they're Akitas).
But at the same time, there are very good reasons why Federer has probably accumulated less wealth than Hamilton. I don't find the figure quoted implausible or especially surprising, and incidentally, that is generally how an historian critiques sources for reliability.
What's a Shi Tzuh?
One with no elephants.
With these sums of money over these time periods, better/worse investment strategies could easily iron out a 2:1 advantage in the inputs. But I am boring myself now, and that's irrelevant as a proxy for whatever we are using money as a proxy for.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Err, what?
I said last week that she had no chance, and I’m now saying she has a much better chance having won the tournament.
Do you even understand what the English words 'no chance' mean? If you write no chance you don't suddenly get the right to revise the words into 'by no chance I really meant not a lot of chance.' Your kind of langauge is dangerous in betting circles.
I said at the time that you'd written something silly.
The context to my comment was that she had no chance *unless she wins the tournament*.
How not to admit you were wrong. Now you're adding words that you didn't put.
We all make mistakes. The secret to success is to admit them, if not to others at least to yourself. To attempt to re-write what you said belittles yourself. Take some time out and reflect.
So, I wonder who will land the big sponsorship deal with Emma? Someone is going to pay her an enormous amount of money for the modern face of a global superstar.
Emma Raducanu can have more than one sponsor, and from inside and outside the tennis world. Look at the logos plastered all over Lewis Hamilton when he wins the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And she can appear in adverts separately from sponsorship. Since she is fluent in Mandarin as well as English, the huge Chinese market is also open to her.
I expect that she also may well change perceptions of the British-Romanian community. Even Nigel Farage seems to be changing his mind over having Romanians as neighbours.
I note she came here aged 2, which would have been 2005 or so. Did her father come on his Romanian passport under FOM, with his Chinese spouse?
Seems a tad unlikely given Romania didn't join the EU until 2007.
What DO her parents do? All Wikipedia says is that they 'work in finance'. They seem to have a bob or two, anyway.
Probably work in the City if they live in Kent. Easy commute.
I expect they arrived in 2005 via skilled migration route requiring a tier 2 visa.
Quite. But all we have is conjecture.
The family lives in Bromley Common which is a fairly non-descript bit of 3 bed semi suburbia, unlike the massive houses a little further down the way in Locksbottom where the Thatchers used to live.
Morning. I wondered if there has been any thinking on the 'reform party' rise, 5% in a recent poll. Looks like a continuation of the Brexit party. Thanks to the NI apocolypsef**k (as someone described it on here, accurately); they now have 2 unique policies of being low tax, against Covid Passports, and there is some low key anti woke stuff going on according to their website, a bit of a bonus. This does look, to me, like rather fertile political ground - maybe a new home for @Casino_Royale; and other disillusioned tories.
It was interesting this morning that Jon Ashworth for Labour refused to commit to abolishing the NI tax rise and covid passports in England, unlike Scotland, have been abandoned
It really needs the lib dems to provide their response and detail how they would deal with the NHS and social care crisis
I am genuinely interested
Ashworth in opposition doesn't need to commit to anything...yet.
Johnson does things he thinks we will like when his back is to the wall. Good old Boris.
The LDs in opposition don't need to commit to anything...yet.
Morning. I wondered if there has been any thinking on the 'reform party' rise, 5% in a recent poll. Looks like a continuation of the Brexit party. Thanks to the NI apocolypsef**k (as someone described it on here, accurately); they now have 2 unique policies of being low tax, against Covid Passports, and there is some low key anti woke stuff going on according to their website, a bit of a bonus. This does look, to me, like rather fertile political ground - maybe a new home for @Casino_Royale; and other disillusioned tories.
Not enough to win seats, but enough to cause the Conservatives significant difficulties.
Part of Johnson's genius was to absorb the party to his right. They were chumps to fall for it, but they did. Fighting on two fronts is always harder.
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
An ability to control people with a backdoor ID card is not one I want the government to have.
Let the antivaxxers who get sick die. We don't need zero covid and we don't need zero deaths.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Err, what?
I said last week that she had no chance, and I’m now saying she has a much better chance having won the tournament.
Do you even understand what the English words 'no chance' mean? If you write no chance you don't suddenly get the right to revise the words into 'by no chance I really meant not a lot of chance.' Your kind of langauge is dangerous in betting circles.
I said at the time that you'd written something silly.
The context to my comment was that she had no chance *unless she wins the tournament*.
How not to admit you were wrong. Now you're adding words that you didn't put.
We all make mistakes. The secret to success is to admit them, if not to others at least to yourself. To attempt to re-write what you said belittles yourself. Take some time out and reflect.
So, I wonder who will land the big sponsorship deal with Emma? Someone is going to pay her an enormous amount of money for the modern face of a global superstar.
Emma Raducanu can have more than one sponsor, and from inside and outside the tennis world. Look at the logos plastered all over Lewis Hamilton when he wins the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And she can appear in adverts separately from sponsorship. Since she is fluent in Mandarin as well as English, the huge Chinese market is also open to her.
I expect that she also may well change perceptions of the British-Romanian community. Even Nigel Farage seems to be changing his mind over having Romanians as neighbours.
I note she came here aged 2, which would have been 2005 or so. Did her father come on his Romanian passport under FOM, with his Chinese spouse?
Why is this even being discussed? As you say, she came here at the age of two and obviously qualifies to represent Britain or she wouldn't be allowed to represent Britain.
We should just be celebrating her remarkable achievement.
Foxy from time to time gets a bit strange over these things e.g. posting link to a dubious tweet about badically all the England footballers "wouldn't play for England if not for immigration"....
Gosh, I wasn't directing that at the good doctor. I just get a whiff of the Rusedski's about this from a couple of posters and got a little wound up yesterday when my father-in-law was spouting the "she's not really British" guff.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Raducanu! Just one of the greatest sporting achievements of all time - I’m struggling to think of ones that match it. Clough winning two European Cups, with Forest perhaps.
I’d also like to defend Sandpit, who has very different political views to me. But his contributions to the site are always polite and thoughtful. As it happens I think I was one of he first, if not the first, to suggest that Raducanu could be in the running for SPOTY (Sat 4 Sept), and Sandpit responded to disagree, but he gave perfectly valid reasons for why he thought I was wrong. And I would have been, had it not been for the absolutely incredible quality of tennis she has produced in the last week. The suggestion that there might have been a racial dimension to his views is ridiculous as well as offensive.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Sandpit is married to a Ukrainian and lives in Dubai. You can stop wondering because it isn’t that.
As an economic migrant himself he seems very willing to deny that opportunity to others.
That’s out of order.
Is it? Migration is either good or bad. Personally enjoying the benefits of migration and the ability to live elsewhere whilst insisting that others do not is hypocrisy. I'm not pointing the finger at Sandpit here but its a vibe that was all too common in English expats in Spain who lived there, spoke minimal Spanish and integrated as little as possible. Loud beach care conversations about "bloody migrants" back home who come in to sponge and don't speak the language.
Migration is not either good or bad. You seem to be saying that if something is good then more of it would be better. I can’t actually think of a single thing (with the possible exception of money) for which that stays true past a certain point.
Hang on. My point is pretty simple. You can't be an economic migrant and complain about others being economic migrants.
Being an economic migrant is either good - and others should be allowed to do what you have done - or it is bad and you shouldn't have been allowed to become one.
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
We're close or past the herd immunity threshold in England. Our armoury is antibodies, t-cells and b-cells. No more need for NPIs.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Err, what?
I said last week that she had no chance, and I’m now saying she has a much better chance having won the tournament.
Do you even understand what the English words 'no chance' mean? If you write no chance you don't suddenly get the right to revise the words into 'by no chance I really meant not a lot of chance.' Your kind of langauge is dangerous in betting circles.
I said at the time that you'd written something silly.
The context to my comment was that she had no chance *unless she wins the tournament*.
How not to admit you were wrong. Now you're adding words that you didn't put.
We all make mistakes. The secret to success is to admit them, if not to others at least to yourself. To attempt to re-write what you said belittles yourself. Take some time out and reflect.
So, I wonder who will land the big sponsorship deal with Emma? Someone is going to pay her an enormous amount of money for the modern face of a global superstar.
Emma Raducanu can have more than one sponsor, and from inside and outside the tennis world. Look at the logos plastered all over Lewis Hamilton when he wins the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And she can appear in adverts separately from sponsorship. Since she is fluent in Mandarin as well as English, the huge Chinese market is also open to her.
I expect that she also may well change perceptions of the British-Romanian community. Even Nigel Farage seems to be changing his mind over having Romanians as neighbours.
I note she came here aged 2, which would have been 2005 or so. Did her father come on his Romanian passport under FOM, with his Chinese spouse?
Why is this even being discussed? As you say, she came here at the age of two and obviously qualifies to represent Britain or she wouldn't be allowed to represent Britain.
We should just be celebrating her remarkable achievement.
We're discussing it because a country which has chunks of the population celebrating romanian migrants going home is also celebrating a romanian migrant winning the tennis.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
She was sinply wearing this years Nike collection.....which came in choice of red with blue, or blue with red....she wasn't a big enough player to demand her own range. If you look her trainers, wristbands etc, were also the same collection. She wears what she was given.
Hence why she also worn exactly the same outfit for every single match, was as big time players have a range of outfits they circle through.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Err, what?
I said last week that she had no chance, and I’m now saying she has a much better chance having won the tournament.
Do you even understand what the English words 'no chance' mean? If you write no chance you don't suddenly get the right to revise the words into 'by no chance I really meant not a lot of chance.' Your kind of langauge is dangerous in betting circles.
I said at the time that you'd written something silly.
The context to my comment was that she had no chance *unless she wins the tournament*.
How not to admit you were wrong. Now you're adding words that you didn't put.
We all make mistakes. The secret to success is to admit them, if not to others at least to yourself. To attempt to re-write what you said belittles yourself. Take some time out and reflect.
So, I wonder who will land the big sponsorship deal with Emma? Someone is going to pay her an enormous amount of money for the modern face of a global superstar.
Emma Raducanu can have more than one sponsor, and from inside and outside the tennis world. Look at the logos plastered all over Lewis Hamilton when he wins the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And she can appear in adverts separately from sponsorship. Since she is fluent in Mandarin as well as English, the huge Chinese market is also open to her.
I expect that she also may well change perceptions of the British-Romanian community. Even Nigel Farage seems to be changing his mind over having Romanians as neighbours.
I note she came here aged 2, which would have been 2005 or so. Did her father come on his Romanian passport under FOM, with his Chinese spouse?
Why is this even being discussed? As you say, she came here at the age of two and obviously qualifies to represent Britain or she wouldn't be allowed to represent Britain.
We should just be celebrating her remarkable achievement.
Foxy from time to time gets a bit strange over these things e.g. posting link to a dubious tweet about basically all the England footballers "wouldn't play for England if not for immigration"....
I don't think even the most brexity Brexit person is against international financial workers coming to work in the UK under visa schemes for highly skilled workers.
Personally, the only time an individual birthplace comes into consideration when talking about representing England, Britain, UK, is if they played international sport for another country then switched.
Fine if they are finance workers but not if they arrive in an inflatable, very fair system right enough , so as long as they are the right type it is OK. Sums up England right there.
This shows how close she maybe was to winning Wimbledon. Sans that little panic attack she might well have gone all the way there. If we think this is big - which it is - just imagine how that would have been. Perhaps a blessing for her.
Stunning achievement, obvs, and Spoty cert, obvs, but what particularly struck me was her post match performance. Very calm, almost a touch corporate, little vulnerability. I think she's going to be pretty formidable both on the court and as a brand.
Morning. I wondered if there has been any thinking on the 'reform party' rise, 5% in a recent poll. Looks like a continuation of the Brexit party. Thanks to the NI apocolypsef**k (as someone described it on here, accurately); they now have 2 unique policies of being low tax, against Covid Passports, and there is some low key anti woke stuff going on according to their website, a bit of a bonus. This does look, to me, like rather fertile political ground - maybe a new home for @Casino_Royale; and other disillusioned tories.
Not enough to win seats, but enough to cause the Conservatives significant difficulties.
Part of Johnson's genius was to absorb the party to his right. They were chumps to fall for it, but they did. Fighting on two fronts is always harder.
I would guess reform is really a ruse to get the tories back on track, in much the same way as Laurence Fox briefly got them to shift up a gear in the war on woke last year. Already there seems to have been a U turn on vaccine passports.
It will be fascinating to see how quickly the Tory invulnerability is swept away - if we are seeing the start of it.
So far they have been able to lie and break the law and have been practically applauded for doing so by the Cult of Boris. Yes its marvellous that he lied to the Queen etc.
So this week's lies - that the tax increase is to pay for social care, and that its progressive - shouldn't have been any concern. Tory voters like being lied to. And yet suddenly it appears they don't.
One possible angle. We saw the zeal for Brexit. That was seen as doing something to someone else - the man, the powers that be, the EU, the bureaucrats. Easy to support something that supposedly only hits Other People.
But this tax hike hits everyone. And the people who felt hard done by when we were in the EU get hard done the hardest. And thats before working families get scalped by the UC cut. And to cap it all off, they can't even see what benefit there is - the NHS will be on its knees again this winter and keep getting worse according to Javid.
Like I said, this is the Tories apocalpseofuck.
Interestingly - the reason it's not included within National insurance was because Rishi wanted it to be obvious on every payslip.
Which means if Labour gets its messaging right on every payslip there is a deduction to allow the Southern pensioners to keep their home
I get the rationale. Its not a tax rise, its a "Social Care Levy". Same as the "Adult Social Care Levy" 2% on your council tax.
The problem is that people see straight through it. With council tax the complaint is why am I having to pay for something someone else needs (direct repeated horse's mouth quotes from the doorstep before anyone picks at it).
So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted.
BTW, southern pensioners DO NOT keep their home. The iniquity of social care was that people have to liquidate their kids inheritance to pay for their own care. They still need to pay £86k - which means selling their home. "Ah but not when they are alive" I heard some clown apologist say on here.
Yes, so after they die the house gets sold to pay for their care. No inheritance.
Its literally the apocalypseofuck. A massive tax rise. On the hardest working (which in punter land is "me"). To fix something that isn't fixed in 3 years. To patch the NHS before then so where the fuck is the Brexit money.
Rishi needs to get his brilliant spin machine on it. Boris produced the plan. Its his team not mine. I warned him not to. Or he goes down with the clown.
It is a tax rise. Of course it is - how can tackling social care not be a tax rise.
There seems to be some confusion as to the position of the home when someone permanently goes to a care home.
The house is either completely in or completely out of the assessment.
These are the main circumstances that prevent the home being brought into the finance assessment, under CURRENT rules:
- It is it's still occupied by spouse - it is still occupied by a relative (typically child) who is over 60 - it is still occupied by any relative who is disabled (of any age) - the first 12 weeks' care home costs are always disregarded
To repeat - these are the rules now.
The change - and it is a big change - that is coming Autumn 2023 is the £86k cap. This means that even when the property is brought into the assessment the maximum that can be taken of its value (in combination with other asset and income contributions to care) is £86k.
So where you say: "So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted" what do you mean? Money is clearly going to be needed to cover care home hosts when the £86k cap is reached. Are you suggesting that the Autumn 2023 date will not be adhered to? You must be or your comment makes no sense.
An excellent explanation and some need to learn the detail before commenting
I don't think we have the detail to read as yet. As Stocky says, the current rules are as he describes. Whether the new rules will be identical except for the £86K cap is not yet clear.
You've made the point a couple of times that Labour's line te help people not go into care is unrealistic. But this too partly comes down to money. If councils are financed well enough to provide really extensive home care, beyond what is currently offered, then people will be able to delay or even sometimes avoid the necessity. There are plenty of examples of people who felt that having someone pop in for 20 minutes twice a day for minimal care was, although appreciated, just not a safe lifestyle. Clearly care homes will still be needed, but it does make sense to spend more on enabling people not to need them until it's really essential.
I think there are many more elderly people who are struggling, but who actually really do need to be in a good care home.
They are reluctant to go into one -- for many & various reasons.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
She was wearing this years Nike collection.....which came in choice of red with blue, or blue with red.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Err, what?
I said last week that she had no chance, and I’m now saying she has a much better chance having won the tournament.
Do you even understand what the English words 'no chance' mean? If you write no chance you don't suddenly get the right to revise the words into 'by no chance I really meant not a lot of chance.' Your kind of langauge is dangerous in betting circles.
I said at the time that you'd written something silly.
The context to my comment was that she had no chance *unless she wins the tournament*.
How not to admit you were wrong. Now you're adding words that you didn't put.
We all make mistakes. The secret to success is to admit them, if not to others at least to yourself. To attempt to re-write what you said belittles yourself. Take some time out and reflect.
So, I wonder who will land the big sponsorship deal with Emma? Someone is going to pay her an enormous amount of money for the modern face of a global superstar.
Emma Raducanu can have more than one sponsor, and from inside and outside the tennis world. Look at the logos plastered all over Lewis Hamilton when he wins the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And she can appear in adverts separately from sponsorship. Since she is fluent in Mandarin as well as English, the huge Chinese market is also open to her.
I expect that she also may well change perceptions of the British-Romanian community. Even Nigel Farage seems to be changing his mind over having Romanians as neighbours.
I note she came here aged 2, which would have been 2005 or so. Did her father come on his Romanian passport under FOM, with his Chinese spouse?
Seems a tad unlikely given Romania didn't join the EU until 2007.
What DO her parents do? All Wikipedia says is that they 'work in finance'. They seem to have a bob or two, anyway.
It will be fascinating to see how quickly the Tory invulnerability is swept away - if we are seeing the start of it.
So far they have been able to lie and break the law and have been practically applauded for doing so by the Cult of Boris. Yes its marvellous that he lied to the Queen etc.
So this week's lies - that the tax increase is to pay for social care, and that its progressive - shouldn't have been any concern. Tory voters like being lied to. And yet suddenly it appears they don't.
One possible angle. We saw the zeal for Brexit. That was seen as doing something to someone else - the man, the powers that be, the EU, the bureaucrats. Easy to support something that supposedly only hits Other People.
But this tax hike hits everyone. And the people who felt hard done by when we were in the EU get hard done the hardest. And thats before working families get scalped by the UC cut. And to cap it all off, they can't even see what benefit there is - the NHS will be on its knees again this winter and keep getting worse according to Javid.
Like I said, this is the Tories apocalpseofuck.
Interestingly - the reason it's not included within National insurance was because Rishi wanted it to be obvious on every payslip.
Which means if Labour gets its messaging right on every payslip there is a deduction to allow the Southern pensioners to keep their home
I get the rationale. Its not a tax rise, its a "Social Care Levy". Same as the "Adult Social Care Levy" 2% on your council tax.
The problem is that people see straight through it. With council tax the complaint is why am I having to pay for something someone else needs (direct repeated horse's mouth quotes from the doorstep before anyone picks at it).
So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted.
BTW, southern pensioners DO NOT keep their home. The iniquity of social care was that people have to liquidate their kids inheritance to pay for their own care. They still need to pay £86k - which means selling their home. "Ah but not when they are alive" I heard some clown apologist say on here.
Yes, so after they die the house gets sold to pay for their care. No inheritance.
Its literally the apocalypseofuck. A massive tax rise. On the hardest working (which in punter land is "me"). To fix something that isn't fixed in 3 years. To patch the NHS before then so where the fuck is the Brexit money.
Rishi needs to get his brilliant spin machine on it. Boris produced the plan. Its his team not mine. I warned him not to. Or he goes down with the clown.
So capping social care costs at £86k means most of the value of the average family home would not be taken in care costs
It is a long time since I sat O level maths, but isn't median an unusual metric to use to demonstrate your point. I would have thought mean/average would be more appropriate. I don't know what difference this might make, just making an observation.
Median is probably a good one to use here: it means half of the houses cost more, half of them cost less. The mean value is badly affected by a relatively small number of very high priced houses (or London as it is sometimes called).
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
An ability to control people with a backdoor ID card is not one I want the government to have.
Let the antivaxxers who get sick die. We don't need zero covid and we don't need zero deaths.
Yawn. Facial recognition, gait recognition, spending tracking in a cashless society (what you should really worry about), mobile cell triangulation, internet log ons, and you think a "backdoor ID card" is a substantial threat? Do you also have a theory on the viability of heavier-than-air flying machines?
Fortunately the EU will come to our rescue and impose them de facto. No international vaxxport, no Ibiza.
Mr. Dickson, he's just an airhead spender desperate for popularity and quite willing to throw money (not his) away to get nice headlines that rapidly fade.
Right, that’s Andrew and Nigel covered, but what do you think about Boris?
Breaking
Police Scotland granted warrant to seize evidence in the £600,000 SNP fraud enquiry including accounts and any relevant materials from Johnston Carmichael hired by the SNP
Sturgeon's husband Peter Murrell is to be interviewed by Police Scotland also
Interesting, I wonder how this will play out.
Could you explain?
Do they have the office sealed already, or was it announced when they turned up to do the seizure?
Surely they haven't announced that they are coming?
Or is this a technical meaning of "seize" ie "legal permission to look at stuff they have already taken into custody"?
Ha ha, how would I know. I’m just curious as to what happens, especially it’s impact on betting opportunities. I’m interested in what other peoples takes are. Scottxp has posted a link to the press report.
Was weeks and weeks ago and even the auditors put a clause in their accounts saying they had nothing to do with the 600K. Murrell has been missing for many weeks after they failed to get it passed off as "nothing to see here move along". Missing some of their old buddies who have been moved out.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Mr. Dickson, he's just an airhead spender desperate for popularity and quite willing to throw money (not his) away to get nice headlines that rapidly fade.
Right, that’s Andrew and Nigel covered, but what do you think about Boris?
Breaking
Police Scotland granted warrant to seize evidence in the £600,000 SNP fraud enquiry including accounts and any relevant materials from Johnston Carmichael hired by the SNP
Sturgeon's husband Peter Murrell is to be interviewed by Police Scotland also
Interesting, I wonder how this will play out.
Could you explain?
Do they have the office sealed already, or was it announced when they turned up to do the seizure?
Surely they haven't announced that they are coming?
Or is this a technical meaning of "seize" ie "legal permission to look at stuff they have already taken into custody"?
Ha ha, how would I know. I’m just curious as to what happens, especially it’s impact on betting opportunities. I’m interested in what other peoples takes are. Scottxp has posted a link to the press report.
Remembering the Parliamentary Enquiry, it would not surprise me if the evidence vanished.
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
An ability to control people with a backdoor ID card is not one I want the government to have.
Let the antivaxxers who get sick die. We don't need zero covid and we don't need zero deaths.
Dying is one thing, filling up the hospitals so that sensible people die of other things is another. My wife's scan has been cancelled for tomorrow because the hospitals are at capacity with the current levels of Covid infection. She had already been waiting months for this.
My daughter who lives at home has Covid at the moment. We have been tested and found not to have it but of course the test only measures a point in time. My understanding is that we are much less likely to catch Covid from her (because she is double vaxxed) than we would be if we came into contact with someone who was not vaccinated and who is likely to shed more virus. Why should I, unknowingly, have to take that risk? If people don't want to be vaccinated they can bloody stay at home until this is over (which is likely to be years).
Notable that there do not seem to have been many soft-focus, Rishi-branded Tweets about the tax on the low paid to subsidise the wealthy he has signed off on.
It has been odd messaging so far, no doubt about it. This tax increase is going directly to the NHS initially and then is going to be used to fund SC for those who cannot afford to pay for it. The cost of having a life time limit of £86k of contributions will be a tiny part of the package. Most will not live long enough to get anywhere near that level and the few that do are likely to die very shortly afterwards.
But the government has allowed the meme of this being all about protecting wealthy pensioners to take a firm hold and it will be almost impossible to shift now. It is a curious error.
Another aspect is exactly how the second stage will work. The Government says it will give much more money to the NHS to address the waiting list problem. Fine. The NHS takes on more staff, and waiting lists are reduced. The issue will not go away, as the Health Minister says, but let's say that in 2024 the Government says "Job done, waiting lists are now acceptably low. Now for social care!" Money is moved across from the NHS to social care. Do they then sack the staff they took on to address the waiting lists? Won't the waiting lists then rise again? How will that work?
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
Next year they'll be saying she's a KKK supporter because her white dresses at Wimbledon. 🙄
Raducanu! Just one of the greatest sporting achievements of all time - I’m struggling to think of ones that match it. Clough winning two European Cups, with Forest perhaps.
I’d also like to defend Sandpit, who has very different political views to me. But his contributions to the site are always polite and thoughtful. As it happens I think I was one of he first, if not the first, to suggest that Raducanu could be in the running for SPOTY (Sat 4 Sept), and Sandpit responded to disagree, but he gave perfectly valid reasons for why he thought I was wrong. And I would have been, had it not been for the absolutely incredible quality of tennis she has produced in the last week. The suggestion that there might have been a racial dimension to his views is ridiculous as well as offensive.
If we are going all time, Don Bradman's batting average must be right up there, along with the ridiculousness of Ronaldo and Messi. Usain Bolt perhaps.
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
We're close or past the herd immunity threshold in England. Our armoury is antibodies, t-cells and b-cells. No more need for NPIs.
That was the theory but it fell apart when it became apparent that most, possibly all, of the vaccinated are still going to catch this disease at some point. We need to be able to regulate the rate at which they do in case we have a further hospital crisis.
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
An ability to control people with a backdoor ID card is not one I want the government to have.
Let the antivaxxers who get sick die. We don't need zero covid and we don't need zero deaths.
Yawn. Facial recognition, gait recognition, spending tracking in a cashless society (what you should really worry about), mobile cell triangulation, internet log ons, and you think a "backdoor ID card" is a substantial threat? Do you also have a theory on the viability of heavier-than-air flying machines?
Fortunately the EU will come to our rescue and impose them de facto. No international vaxxport, no Ibiza.
What we have already does that, what the government are ruling out is using them domestically within England.
It will be fascinating to see how quickly the Tory invulnerability is swept away - if we are seeing the start of it.
So far they have been able to lie and break the law and have been practically applauded for doing so by the Cult of Boris. Yes its marvellous that he lied to the Queen etc.
So this week's lies - that the tax increase is to pay for social care, and that its progressive - shouldn't have been any concern. Tory voters like being lied to. And yet suddenly it appears they don't.
One possible angle. We saw the zeal for Brexit. That was seen as doing something to someone else - the man, the powers that be, the EU, the bureaucrats. Easy to support something that supposedly only hits Other People.
But this tax hike hits everyone. And the people who felt hard done by when we were in the EU get hard done the hardest. And thats before working families get scalped by the UC cut. And to cap it all off, they can't even see what benefit there is - the NHS will be on its knees again this winter and keep getting worse according to Javid.
Like I said, this is the Tories apocalpseofuck.
Interestingly - the reason it's not included within National insurance was because Rishi wanted it to be obvious on every payslip.
Which means if Labour gets its messaging right on every payslip there is a deduction to allow the Southern pensioners to keep their home
I get the rationale. Its not a tax rise, its a "Social Care Levy". Same as the "Adult Social Care Levy" 2% on your council tax.
The problem is that people see straight through it. With council tax the complaint is why am I having to pay for something someone else needs (direct repeated horse's mouth quotes from the doorstep before anyone picks at it).
So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted.
BTW, southern pensioners DO NOT keep their home. The iniquity of social care was that people have to liquidate their kids inheritance to pay for their own care. They still need to pay £86k - which means selling their home. "Ah but not when they are alive" I heard some clown apologist say on here.
Yes, so after they die the house gets sold to pay for their care. No inheritance.
Its literally the apocalypseofuck. A massive tax rise. On the hardest working (which in punter land is "me"). To fix something that isn't fixed in 3 years. To patch the NHS before then so where the fuck is the Brexit money.
Rishi needs to get his brilliant spin machine on it. Boris produced the plan. Its his team not mine. I warned him not to. Or he goes down with the clown.
It is a tax rise. Of course it is - how can tackling social care not be a tax rise.
There seems to be some confusion as to the position of the home when someone permanently goes to a care home.
The house is either completely in or completely out of the assessment.
These are the main circumstances that prevent the home being brought into the finance assessment, under CURRENT rules:
- It is it's still occupied by spouse - it is still occupied by a relative (typically child) who is over 60 - it is still occupied by any relative who is disabled (of any age) - the first 12 weeks' care home costs are always disregarded
To repeat - these are the rules now.
The change - and it is a big change - that is coming Autumn 2023 is the £86k cap. This means that even when the property is brought into the assessment the maximum that can be taken of its value (in combination with other asset and income contributions to care) is £86k.
So where you say: "So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted" what do you mean? Money is clearly going to be needed to cover care home hosts when the £86k cap is reached. Are you suggesting that the Autumn 2023 date will not be adhered to? You must be or your comment makes no sense.
An excellent explanation and some need to learn the detail before commenting
I don't think we have the detail to read as yet. As Stocky says, the current rules are as he describes. Whether the new rules will be identical except for the £86K cap is not yet clear.
You've made the point a couple of times that Labour's line te help people not go into care is unrealistic. But this too partly comes down to money. If councils are financed well enough to provide really extensive home care, beyond what is currently offered, then people will be able to delay or even sometimes avoid the necessity. There are plenty of examples of people who felt that having someone pop in for 20 minutes twice a day for minimal care was, although appreciated, just not a safe lifestyle. Clearly care homes will still be needed, but it does make sense to spend more on enabling people not to need them until it's really essential.
I think there are many more elderly people who are struggling, but who actually really do need to be in a good care home.
They are reluctant to go into one -- for many & various reasons.
I would be genuinely interested to see comparative figures for European Countries for care and residential homes on that, and for sheltered accommodation.
It will be fascinating to see how quickly the Tory invulnerability is swept away - if we are seeing the start of it.
So far they have been able to lie and break the law and have been practically applauded for doing so by the Cult of Boris. Yes its marvellous that he lied to the Queen etc.
So this week's lies - that the tax increase is to pay for social care, and that its progressive - shouldn't have been any concern. Tory voters like being lied to. And yet suddenly it appears they don't.
One possible angle. We saw the zeal for Brexit. That was seen as doing something to someone else - the man, the powers that be, the EU, the bureaucrats. Easy to support something that supposedly only hits Other People.
But this tax hike hits everyone. And the people who felt hard done by when we were in the EU get hard done the hardest. And thats before working families get scalped by the UC cut. And to cap it all off, they can't even see what benefit there is - the NHS will be on its knees again this winter and keep getting worse according to Javid.
Like I said, this is the Tories apocalpseofuck.
Interestingly - the reason it's not included within National insurance was because Rishi wanted it to be obvious on every payslip.
Which means if Labour gets its messaging right on every payslip there is a deduction to allow the Southern pensioners to keep their home
I get the rationale. Its not a tax rise, its a "Social Care Levy". Same as the "Adult Social Care Levy" 2% on your council tax.
The problem is that people see straight through it. With council tax the complaint is why am I having to pay for something someone else needs (direct repeated horse's mouth quotes from the doorstep before anyone picks at it).
So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted.
BTW, southern pensioners DO NOT keep their home. The iniquity of social care was that people have to liquidate their kids inheritance to pay for their own care. They still need to pay £86k - which means selling their home. "Ah but not when they are alive" I heard some clown apologist say on here.
Yes, so after they die the house gets sold to pay for their care. No inheritance.
Its literally the apocalypseofuck. A massive tax rise. On the hardest working (which in punter land is "me"). To fix something that isn't fixed in 3 years. To patch the NHS before then so where the fuck is the Brexit money.
Rishi needs to get his brilliant spin machine on it. Boris produced the plan. Its his team not mine. I warned him not to. Or he goes down with the clown.
It is a tax rise. Of course it is - how can tackling social care not be a tax rise.
There seems to be some confusion as to the position of the home when someone permanently goes to a care home.
The house is either completely in or completely out of the assessment.
These are the main circumstances that prevent the home being brought into the finance assessment, under CURRENT rules:
- It is it's still occupied by spouse - it is still occupied by a relative (typically child) who is over 60 - it is still occupied by any relative who is disabled (of any age) - the first 12 weeks' care home costs are always disregarded
To repeat - these are the rules now.
The change - and it is a big change - that is coming Autumn 2023 is the £86k cap. This means that even when the property is brought into the assessment the maximum that can be taken of its value (in combination with other asset and income contributions to care) is £86k.
So where you say: "So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted" what do you mean? Money is clearly going to be needed to cover care home hosts when the £86k cap is reached. Are you suggesting that the Autumn 2023 date will not be adhered to? You must be or your comment makes no sense.
Thanks for posting the details of the current arrangements - detail always helps debate.
My point is simple. The money is not going to social care, it is going to the NHS. Remember that the NHS has apparently already had "more than" the £18.2bn promised Brexit boost which has sunk without trace into a system described as on its knees. So £12bn more won't be seen to deliver - this is the "waste" I mention. People will be paying more taxes explicitly for an NHS where waiting lists still get longer and services get worse according to Javid.
And then we have social care. This tax rise delivers zero money for social care. No Health Secretary is going to cut the NHS budget by £12bn to transfer the money to social care - especially when the timings are either in the run-in to the election or at the start of the new term post-election. Either way, the money isn't going to be there.
Unless of course they borrow it. Thing is the government made a big play for needing to put up taxes because they can't borrow it. Yet if as claimed they have already injected "more than" the £18.2bn promised on the bus, that money was borrowed. As the true EU figure was £10.4bn and we're paying £7bn of that to the EU this year, that only leaves £3.4bn.
So if they have paid the brexit bonus to the NHS its borrowed money. So they lied when they said they can't borrow money to pay for the NHS crisis. Or they haven't paid the brexit bonus and that is the lie, and now that a tax rise is paying for the NHS there is no bonus at all.
Any way you cut it, they're lying to our faces. Repeatedly. To do the things they pledged not to do. To pay for the NHS to get worse, no fix for social care and no end to houses being flogged to pay for care.
"no fix for social care" - well, whatever trouser-pockets financing is used to pay, some money will be coming to pay for the costs over the £86K cap. That is the headline here.
"and no end to houses being flogged to pay for care" The proposal - basically Dilnot's proposal - tries to steer a course between those that think 1) it outrageous that ANY of the value of the family home is used towards costs "that the NHS should cover because that what we've paid for" and 2) those that think "it's outrageous that relatives get to inherit house values rather than the money being used to pay for the homeowner's care.
Any fixing social care solution was always going to steer a middle course and would involve state funding one way or another.
Personally, I wouldn't have done this now with the country on its knees financially due to eyewatering pandemic costs.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
Next year they'll be saying she's a KKK supporter because her white dresses at Wimbledon. 🙄
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Err, what?
I said last week that she had no chance, and I’m now saying she has a much better chance having won the tournament.
Do you even understand what the English words 'no chance' mean? If you write no chance you don't suddenly get the right to revise the words into 'by no chance I really meant not a lot of chance.' Your kind of langauge is dangerous in betting circles.
I said at the time that you'd written something silly.
The context to my comment was that she had no chance *unless she wins the tournament*.
How not to admit you were wrong. Now you're adding words that you didn't put.
We all make mistakes. The secret to success is to admit them, if not to others at least to yourself. To attempt to re-write what you said belittles yourself. Take some time out and reflect.
So, I wonder who will land the big sponsorship deal with Emma? Someone is going to pay her an enormous amount of money for the modern face of a global superstar.
Emma Raducanu can have more than one sponsor, and from inside and outside the tennis world. Look at the logos plastered all over Lewis Hamilton when he wins the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And she can appear in adverts separately from sponsorship. Since she is fluent in Mandarin as well as English, the huge Chinese market is also open to her.
I expect that she also may well change perceptions of the British-Romanian community. Even Nigel Farage seems to be changing his mind over having Romanians as neighbours.
I note she came here aged 2, which would have been 2005 or so. Did her father come on his Romanian passport under FOM, with his Chinese spouse?
Why is this even being discussed? As you say, she came here at the age of two and obviously qualifies to represent Britain or she wouldn't be allowed to represent Britain.
We should just be celebrating her remarkable achievement.
We're discussing it because a country which has chunks of the population celebrating romanian migrants going home is also celebrating a romanian migrant winning the tennis.
Isn't that a bit clunky? I mean, are you suspicious about countries which were knocking merry hell out of one another in the middle of the last century now getting together and celebrating political unity by belting out an overblown anthem originating in the aggressor country?
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Err, what?
I said last week that she had no chance, and I’m now saying she has a much better chance having won the tournament.
Do you even understand what the English words 'no chance' mean? If you write no chance you don't suddenly get the right to revise the words into 'by no chance I really meant not a lot of chance.' Your kind of langauge is dangerous in betting circles.
I said at the time that you'd written something silly.
The context to my comment was that she had no chance *unless she wins the tournament*.
How not to admit you were wrong. Now you're adding words that you didn't put.
We all make mistakes. The secret to success is to admit them, if not to others at least to yourself. To attempt to re-write what you said belittles yourself. Take some time out and reflect.
So, I wonder who will land the big sponsorship deal with Emma? Someone is going to pay her an enormous amount of money for the modern face of a global superstar.
Emma Raducanu can have more than one sponsor, and from inside and outside the tennis world. Look at the logos plastered all over Lewis Hamilton when he wins the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And she can appear in adverts separately from sponsorship. Since she is fluent in Mandarin as well as English, the huge Chinese market is also open to her.
I expect that she also may well change perceptions of the British-Romanian community. Even Nigel Farage seems to be changing his mind over having Romanians as neighbours.
I note she came here aged 2, which would have been 2005 or so. Did her father come on his Romanian passport under FOM, with his Chinese spouse?
Why is this even being discussed? As you say, she came here at the age of two and obviously qualifies to represent Britain or she wouldn't be allowed to represent Britain.
We should just be celebrating her remarkable achievement.
We're discussing it because a country which has chunks of the population celebrating romanian migrants going home is also celebrating a romanian migrant winning the tennis.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Err, what?
I said last week that she had no chance, and I’m now saying she has a much better chance having won the tournament.
Do you even understand what the English words 'no chance' mean? If you write no chance you don't suddenly get the right to revise the words into 'by no chance I really meant not a lot of chance.' Your kind of langauge is dangerous in betting circles.
I said at the time that you'd written something silly.
The context to my comment was that she had no chance *unless she wins the tournament*.
How not to admit you were wrong. Now you're adding words that you didn't put.
We all make mistakes. The secret to success is to admit them, if not to others at least to yourself. To attempt to re-write what you said belittles yourself. Take some time out and reflect.
So, I wonder who will land the big sponsorship deal with Emma? Someone is going to pay her an enormous amount of money for the modern face of a global superstar.
Emma Raducanu can have more than one sponsor, and from inside and outside the tennis world. Look at the logos plastered all over Lewis Hamilton when he wins the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And she can appear in adverts separately from sponsorship. Since she is fluent in Mandarin as well as English, the huge Chinese market is also open to her.
I expect that she also may well change perceptions of the British-Romanian community. Even Nigel Farage seems to be changing his mind over having Romanians as neighbours.
I note she came here aged 2, which would have been 2005 or so. Did her father come on his Romanian passport under FOM, with his Chinese spouse?
Why is this even being discussed? As you say, she came here at the age of two and obviously qualifies to represent Britain or she wouldn't be allowed to represent Britain.
We should just be celebrating her remarkable achievement.
Foxy from time to time gets a bit strange over these things e.g. posting link to a dubious tweet about basically all the England footballers "wouldn't play for England if not for immigration"....
I don't think even the most brexity Brexit person is against international financial workers coming to work in the UK under visa schemes for highly skilled workers.
Personally, the only time an individual birthplace comes into consideration when talking about representing England, Britain, UK, is if they played international sport for another country then switched.
Fine if they are finance workers but not if they arrive in an inflatable, very fair system right enough , so as long as they are the right type it is OK. Sums up England right there.
Well ... yes. Immigration is good for the country if said immigrants are good for the country, and bad for the country if not. Taking the former group is uncontroversial. There is an argument for taking the latter group on the argument of the benefit to those particular immigrants, but that needs to be balanced against the ability of the existing population to accommodate them. Examples of individual immigrants who are good for the country (having children who represent the country at sport is a high profile example but actually of very little relevance compared to the large numbers of e.g. immigrant NHS hospital doctors) doesn't alter the basic argument that mass uncontrolled Immigration requires those immigrants to access the support and services of the state, which costs money; creates a demand for housing in an already under-supplied market; holds down the level of wages for semi-skilled and unskilled work, and inhibits investment in improvement of productivity; changes the nature and social fabric of certain localities where immigrants are concentrated, and in some cases brings in those whose views on the working of society are incompatible with ours, sometimes to the extent that they want to blow bits of it up.
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
An ability to control people with a backdoor ID card is not one I want the government to have.
Let the antivaxxers who get sick die. We don't need zero covid and we don't need zero deaths.
Yawn. Facial recognition, gait recognition, spending tracking in a cashless society (what you should really worry about), mobile cell triangulation, internet log ons, and you think a "backdoor ID card" is a substantial threat? Do you also have a theory on the viability of heavier-than-air flying machines?
Fortunately the EU will come to our rescue and impose them de facto. No international vaxxport, no Ibiza.
Even though I accept that this is a losing battle, I don't think the creation of a centralised ID database (by way of vaccine passports) is a positive step forward.
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
An ability to control people with a backdoor ID card is not one I want the government to have.
Let the antivaxxers who get sick die. We don't need zero covid and we don't need zero deaths.
Dying is one thing, filling up the hospitals so that sensible people die of other things is another. My wife's scan has been cancelled for tomorrow because the hospitals are at capacity with the current levels of Covid infection. She had already been waiting months for this.
My daughter who lives at home has Covid at the moment. We have been tested and found not to have it but of course the test only measures a point in time. My understanding is that we are much less likely to catch Covid from her (because she is double vaxxed) than we would be if we came into contact with someone who was not vaccinated and who is likely to shed more virus. Why should I, unknowingly, have to take that risk? If people don't want to be vaccinated they can bloody stay at home until this is over (which is likely to be years).
Your understanding on the second point may not be correct. I have asked several times on here for details of the research that proves that vaccination reduces viral shedding/risk of infection in asymptomatic cases of the delta variant. It has not been forthcoming. This is a part of the argument for the social benefits of the vaccine.
Exactly as I've said from the get go. Never happening. Rhetoric only.
Will I ever get anything wrong? It's getting silly.
Yes, you will, sadly the Trump nomination. But lets not talk any more about that until we have to.
Oh god, no, let's not. There's lots of life to live before then. But, yes, I'd have those lay bets back if I could. Now I'm just hoping for something, anything, please just something.
It will be fascinating to see how quickly the Tory invulnerability is swept away - if we are seeing the start of it.
So far they have been able to lie and break the law and have been practically applauded for doing so by the Cult of Boris. Yes its marvellous that he lied to the Queen etc.
So this week's lies - that the tax increase is to pay for social care, and that its progressive - shouldn't have been any concern. Tory voters like being lied to. And yet suddenly it appears they don't.
One possible angle. We saw the zeal for Brexit. That was seen as doing something to someone else - the man, the powers that be, the EU, the bureaucrats. Easy to support something that supposedly only hits Other People.
But this tax hike hits everyone. And the people who felt hard done by when we were in the EU get hard done the hardest. And thats before working families get scalped by the UC cut. And to cap it all off, they can't even see what benefit there is - the NHS will be on its knees again this winter and keep getting worse according to Javid.
Like I said, this is the Tories apocalpseofuck.
Interestingly - the reason it's not included within National insurance was because Rishi wanted it to be obvious on every payslip.
Which means if Labour gets its messaging right on every payslip there is a deduction to allow the Southern pensioners to keep their home
I get the rationale. Its not a tax rise, its a "Social Care Levy". Same as the "Adult Social Care Levy" 2% on your council tax.
The problem is that people see straight through it. With council tax the complaint is why am I having to pay for something someone else needs (direct repeated horse's mouth quotes from the doorstep before anyone picks at it).
So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted.
BTW, southern pensioners DO NOT keep their home. The iniquity of social care was that people have to liquidate their kids inheritance to pay for their own care. They still need to pay £86k - which means selling their home. "Ah but not when they are alive" I heard some clown apologist say on here.
Yes, so after they die the house gets sold to pay for their care. No inheritance.
Its literally the apocalypseofuck. A massive tax rise. On the hardest working (which in punter land is "me"). To fix something that isn't fixed in 3 years. To patch the NHS before then so where the fuck is the Brexit money.
Rishi needs to get his brilliant spin machine on it. Boris produced the plan. Its his team not mine. I warned him not to. Or he goes down with the clown.
It is a tax rise. Of course it is - how can tackling social care not be a tax rise.
There seems to be some confusion as to the position of the home when someone permanently goes to a care home.
The house is either completely in or completely out of the assessment.
These are the main circumstances that prevent the home being brought into the finance assessment, under CURRENT rules:
- It is it's still occupied by spouse - it is still occupied by a relative (typically child) who is over 60 - it is still occupied by any relative who is disabled (of any age) - the first 12 weeks' care home costs are always disregarded
To repeat - these are the rules now.
The change - and it is a big change - that is coming Autumn 2023 is the £86k cap. This means that even when the property is brought into the assessment the maximum that can be taken of its value (in combination with other asset and income contributions to care) is £86k.
So where you say: "So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted" what do you mean? Money is clearly going to be needed to cover care home hosts when the £86k cap is reached. Are you suggesting that the Autumn 2023 date will not be adhered to? You must be or your comment makes no sense.
An excellent explanation and some need to learn the detail before commenting
I don't think we have the detail to read as yet. As Stocky says, the current rules are as he describes. Whether the new rules will be identical except for the £86K cap is not yet clear.
You've made the point a couple of times that Labour's line te help people not go into care is unrealistic. But this too partly comes down to money. If councils are financed well enough to provide really extensive home care, beyond what is currently offered, then people will be able to delay or even sometimes avoid the necessity. There are plenty of examples of people who felt that having someone pop in for 20 minutes twice a day for minimal care was, although appreciated, just not a safe lifestyle. Clearly care homes will still be needed, but it does make sense to spend more on enabling people not to need them until it's really essential.
The central theme in all this is spending money we just have not got, and the massive sums are involved
The NI rise, together with the reduction in April to 2.5% pension uplift and working pensioners paying the 1.25% hypothecated tax from April 23 are not unreasonable
However, my real concern is hitting the young and low paid with this tax as it is unfair, and removing the £20 UC uplift is immoral
None of this is easy but it is plain for everyone to see that the tax rises announced are not going to be sufficient and other taxes will be needed. I can understand why Jon Ashworth would not commit to abolitioning this rise
It will be fascinating to see how quickly the Tory invulnerability is swept away - if we are seeing the start of it.
So far they have been able to lie and break the law and have been practically applauded for doing so by the Cult of Boris. Yes its marvellous that he lied to the Queen etc.
So this week's lies - that the tax increase is to pay for social care, and that its progressive - shouldn't have been any concern. Tory voters like being lied to. And yet suddenly it appears they don't.
One possible angle. We saw the zeal for Brexit. That was seen as doing something to someone else - the man, the powers that be, the EU, the bureaucrats. Easy to support something that supposedly only hits Other People.
But this tax hike hits everyone. And the people who felt hard done by when we were in the EU get hard done the hardest. And thats before working families get scalped by the UC cut. And to cap it all off, they can't even see what benefit there is - the NHS will be on its knees again this winter and keep getting worse according to Javid.
Like I said, this is the Tories apocalpseofuck.
The last point is the one that will have the biggest impact come the next election.
The NHS won't be visibly better, at best it will have caught up with the backlog, but perhaps not even that. Social care coverage will actually be worse.
Visible, successful signs of levelling up before the next GE will be few and far between. The same applies to improvements to the NHS and social care. Energy bills will be higher. Working people will be paying more tax for worse services. Johnson's pitch will be "Trust Me" after having consistently and demonstrably lied for a number of years.
Nah, it will be you cant trust Starmer to stand up to the Frenchies and Scots.
Is that it? Is that really all it boils down to these days? Thou shalt hate thy neighbour as thyself.
RIP the Conservative and Unionist Party
It worked last time
Indeed. But that was “the English Nationalist Party” (hat-tip FUDHY), not the Conservative and Unionist Party.
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
An ability to control people with a backdoor ID card is not one I want the government to have.
Let the antivaxxers who get sick die. We don't need zero covid and we don't need zero deaths.
Yawn. Facial recognition, gait recognition, spending tracking in a cashless society (what you should really worry about), mobile cell triangulation, internet log ons, and you think a "backdoor ID card" is a substantial threat? Do you also have a theory on the viability of heavier-than-air flying machines?
Fortunately the EU will come to our rescue and impose them de facto. No international vaxxport, no Ibiza.
What we have already does that, what the government are ruling out is using them domestically within England.
Fine by me. I don't care about having to produce one, I care about having to have one - anywhere, for any purpose - as a nudge in the direction of getting vaccinated.
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
We're close or past the herd immunity threshold in England. Our armoury is antibodies, t-cells and b-cells. No more need for NPIs.
That was the theory but it fell apart when it became apparent that most, possibly all, of the vaccinated are still going to catch this disease at some point. We need to be able to regulate the rate at which they do in case we have a further hospital crisis.
Not really, if everyone is going to get it then a vaccine passport makes no difference. What makes a difference is booster programmes and it looks as though the government is set to overrule the JCVI and have a very wide one indeed, my cousin who has been involved with the London roll out was recently told that basically everyone will be eligible and everyone in groups 1-9 will be proactively contacted but in reality anyone who is 6+ months after their second dose won't be turned away.
Slightly less (26 per cent) believe that securing another independence referendum should be a priority. The poll found that 17 per cent favour a second vote within the next 12 months, while a further 36 per cent back one in the next two to five years and 47 per cent do not want one at all in the next few years. Sturgeon hopes to stage a fresh vote by the end of 2023.
Support for independence, when those who are undecided are excluded, remains at 48 per cent compared with 52 per cent in favour of Scotland remaining in the UK.
So that's 53% of Scots that want Indyref2 within the next five years as per Secretary Jack's principles.
Got to feel for Joe Salisbury. Wins the mens doubles and the mixed doubles on consecutive days in an unprecedented event and barely even a mention.
I wonder how much notice Djokovic will get outside Serbia for winning a calendar slam and breaking the all time slam record this evening as well.
Because sensational achievement though it is - particularly when you consider he's been up against Federer, Nadal and to a lesser extent, Murray all his career - this is altogether fresher and more exciting.
Let's face it, everyone expects Djokovic to win to the extent it might well be more newsworthy if he doesn't.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
She was wearing this years Nike collection.....which came in choice of red with blue, or blue with red.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Sandpit is married to a Ukrainian and lives in Dubai. You can stop wondering because it isn’t that.
As an economic migrant himself he seems very willing to deny that opportunity to others.
That’s out of order.
Is it? Migration is either good or bad. Personally enjoying the benefits of migration and the ability to live elsewhere whilst insisting that others do not is hypocrisy. I'm not pointing the finger at Sandpit here but its a vibe that was all too common in English expats in Spain who lived there, spoke minimal Spanish and integrated as little as possible. Loud beach care conversations about "bloody migrants" back home who come in to sponge and don't speak the language.
Migration is not either good or bad. You seem to be saying that if something is good then more of it would be better. I can’t actually think of a single thing (with the possible exception of money) for which that stays true past a certain point.
Hang on. My point is pretty simple. You can't be an economic migrant and complain about others being economic migrants.
Being an economic migrant is either good - and others should be allowed to do what you have done - or it is bad and you shouldn't have been allowed to become one.
No. Again, you are assuming that it is a binary choice, that all economic migrants are fungible.
I’m a Physics teacher. Does that mean I should think anybody that wants to should be able to teach Physics, or am I allowed to suggest that only those qualified to do so should?
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
We're close or past the herd immunity threshold in England. Our armoury is antibodies, t-cells and b-cells. No more need for NPIs.
That was the theory but it fell apart when it became apparent that most, possibly all, of the vaccinated are still going to catch this disease at some point. We need to be able to regulate the rate at which they do in case we have a further hospital crisis.
Not really, if everyone is going to get it then a vaccine passport makes no difference. What makes a difference is booster programmes and it looks as though the government is set to overrule the JCVI and have a very wide one indeed, my cousin who has been involved with the London roll out was recently told that basically everyone will be eligible and everyone in groups 1-9 will be proactively contacted but in reality anyone who is 6+ months after their second dose won't be turned away.
That's smart, that's definitely the way it should be.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
On sporting achievements, on the basis that Spurs will never win the Premier League or Champions League, I don't think I will ever see anything greater than that Ben Stokes innings against the Australians at Headingly in 2019.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Sandpit is married to a Ukrainian and lives in Dubai. You can stop wondering because it isn’t that.
As an economic migrant himself he seems very willing to deny that opportunity to others.
That’s out of order.
Is it? Migration is either good or bad. Personally enjoying the benefits of migration and the ability to live elsewhere whilst insisting that others do not is hypocrisy. I'm not pointing the finger at Sandpit here but its a vibe that was all too common in English expats in Spain who lived there, spoke minimal Spanish and integrated as little as possible. Loud beach care conversations about "bloody migrants" back home who come in to sponge and don't speak the language.
Migration is not either good or bad. You seem to be saying that if something is good then more of it would be better. I can’t actually think of a single thing (with the possible exception of money) for which that stays true past a certain point.
Hang on. My point is pretty simple. You can't be an economic migrant and complain about others being economic migrants.
Being an economic migrant is either good - and others should be allowed to do what you have done - or it is bad and you shouldn't have been allowed to become one.
No. Again, you are assuming that it is a binary choice, that all economic migrants are fungible.
I’m a Physics teacher. Does that mean I should think anybody that wants to should be able to teach Physics, or am I allowed to suggest that only those qualified to do so should?
Hope the new term is going as smoothly as can be expected. Fucking chaos where I am with all these LFTs but it's nice to have my classroom back.
Notable that there do not seem to have been many soft-focus, Rishi-branded Tweets about the tax on the low paid to subsidise the wealthy he has signed off on.
It has been odd messaging so far, no doubt about it. This tax increase is going directly to the NHS initially and then is going to be used to fund SC for those who cannot afford to pay for it. The cost of having a life time limit of £86k of contributions will be a tiny part of the package. Most will not live long enough to get anywhere near that level and the few that do are likely to die very shortly afterwards.
But the government has allowed the meme of this being all about protecting wealthy pensioners to take a firm hold and it will be almost impossible to shift now. It is a curious error.
Another aspect is exactly how the second stage will work. The Government says it will give much more money to the NHS to address the waiting list problem. Fine. The NHS takes on more staff, and waiting lists are reduced. The issue will not go away, as the Health Minister says, but let's say that in 2024 the Government says "Job done, waiting lists are now acceptably low. Now for social care!" Money is moved across from the NHS to social care. Do they then sack the staff they took on to address the waiting lists? Won't the waiting lists then rise again? How will that work?
I think that there is enough churn in the NHS to resolve these problems but what is important is that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past by having wards fill up with bed blockers who cannot be released from hospital because adequate care packages are simply not available. Spending on SC will reduce the pressure on the NHS and will result in care being provided in considerably less expensive environments than a hospital ward. The government is absolutely right to seize this nettle.
On sporting achievements, on the basis that Spurs will never win the Premier League or Champions League, I don't think I will ever see anything greater than that Ben Stokes innings against the Australians at Headingly in 2019.
The ghost of Bob Willis feels doubly hard done by - overshadowed by Botham *and* Stokes.
Professor Sir John Curtice's (PBUH) take on this poll
“Although support for independence has been stable during the summer, the poll confirms how risky it would be for Nicola Sturgeon if a referendum were held any time soon. She might well lose, thereby bringing an end to her political career and ending any hope of independence being delivered for at least a generation.”
He added: “Some of this seems to have dawned upon Yes supporters. Back in March, over half (53 per cent) said that a second independence ballot should be held within 12 months. Now that figure stands at just 34 per cent. While nearly all Yes supporters (95 per cent) want a referendum to be held within the next five years, most are willing to be patient for a while. But Ms Sturgeon will need to use the leeway this gives her to increase the level of support for independence.”
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Professor Sir John Curtice's (PBUH) take on this poll
“Although support for independence has been stable during the summer, the poll confirms how risky it would be for Nicola Sturgeon if a referendum were held any time soon. She might well lose, thereby bringing an end to her political career and ending any hope of independence being delivered for at least a generation.”
He added: “Some of this seems to have dawned upon Yes supporters. Back in March, over half (53 per cent) said that a second independence ballot should be held within 12 months. Now that figure stands at just 34 per cent. While nearly all Yes supporters (95 per cent) want a referendum to be held within the next five years, most are willing to be patient for a while. But Ms Sturgeon will need to use the leeway this gives her to increase the level of support for independence.”
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Err, what?
I said last week that she had no chance, and I’m now saying she has a much better chance having won the tournament.
Do you even understand what the English words 'no chance' mean? If you write no chance you don't suddenly get the right to revise the words into 'by no chance I really meant not a lot of chance.' Your kind of langauge is dangerous in betting circles.
I said at the time that you'd written something silly.
The context to my comment was that she had no chance *unless she wins the tournament*.
How not to admit you were wrong. Now you're adding words that you didn't put.
We all make mistakes. The secret to success is to admit them, if not to others at least to yourself. To attempt to re-write what you said belittles yourself. Take some time out and reflect.
So, I wonder who will land the big sponsorship deal with Emma? Someone is going to pay her an enormous amount of money for the modern face of a global superstar.
Emma Raducanu can have more than one sponsor, and from inside and outside the tennis world. Look at the logos plastered all over Lewis Hamilton when he wins the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And she can appear in adverts separately from sponsorship. Since she is fluent in Mandarin as well as English, the huge Chinese market is also open to her.
I expect that she also may well change perceptions of the British-Romanian community. Even Nigel Farage seems to be changing his mind over having Romanians as neighbours.
I note she came here aged 2, which would have been 2005 or so. Did her father come on his Romanian passport under FOM, with his Chinese spouse?
Why is this even being discussed? As you say, she came here at the age of two and obviously qualifies to represent Britain or she wouldn't be allowed to represent Britain.
We should just be celebrating her remarkable achievement.
We're discussing it because a country which has chunks of the population celebrating romanian migrants going home is also celebrating a romanian migrant winning the tennis.
Isn't that a bit clunky? I mean, are you suspicious about countries which were knocking merry hell out of one another in the middle of the last century now getting together and celebrating political unity by belting out an overblown anthem originating in the aggressor country?
I'm not talking about the middle of the last century. I'm talking this year. People wanted forrin to go home. They voted for brexit to have them go home. They're celebrating the forrin going away - and Romanian migrants are the literal bogeymen. And now celebrate a Romanian migrant as one of their own.
Perhaps the forrin are only ok when they grow up to speak with the tennis accent and win for their adopted country? Less so when they clean up your mother's piss in a care home.
Notable that there do not seem to have been many soft-focus, Rishi-branded Tweets about the tax on the low paid to subsidise the wealthy he has signed off on.
It has been odd messaging so far, no doubt about it. This tax increase is going directly to the NHS initially and then is going to be used to fund SC for those who cannot afford to pay for it. The cost of having a life time limit of £86k of contributions will be a tiny part of the package. Most will not live long enough to get anywhere near that level and the few that do are likely to die very shortly afterwards.
But the government has allowed the meme of this being all about protecting wealthy pensioners to take a firm hold and it will be almost impossible to shift now. It is a curious error.
Many with dementia will live long enough to breach £86k. Easily. Over five years, maybe over ten, will not be unusual. £86k is 18 months of costs.
On sporting achievements, on the basis that Spurs will never win the Premier League or Champions League, I don't think I will ever see anything greater than that Ben Stokes innings against the Australians at Headingly in 2019.
2019 is my favourite sporting year. I saw England win the cricket world cup, and I saw in person Liverpool spank Barca 4 nil, beat Spurs in the CL Final, and saw Stokes win the Headingley test.
Lockdown/Covid-19 has been terrible for sports fans like me.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Err, what?
I said last week that she had no chance, and I’m now saying she has a much better chance having won the tournament.
Do you even understand what the English words 'no chance' mean? If you write no chance you don't suddenly get the right to revise the words into 'by no chance I really meant not a lot of chance.' Your kind of langauge is dangerous in betting circles.
I said at the time that you'd written something silly.
The context to my comment was that she had no chance *unless she wins the tournament*.
How not to admit you were wrong. Now you're adding words that you didn't put.
We all make mistakes. The secret to success is to admit them, if not to others at least to yourself. To attempt to re-write what you said belittles yourself. Take some time out and reflect.
So, I wonder who will land the big sponsorship deal with Emma? Someone is going to pay her an enormous amount of money for the modern face of a global superstar.
Emma Raducanu can have more than one sponsor, and from inside and outside the tennis world. Look at the logos plastered all over Lewis Hamilton when he wins the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And she can appear in adverts separately from sponsorship. Since she is fluent in Mandarin as well as English, the huge Chinese market is also open to her.
I expect that she also may well change perceptions of the British-Romanian community. Even Nigel Farage seems to be changing his mind over having Romanians as neighbours.
I note she came here aged 2, which would have been 2005 or so. Did her father come on his Romanian passport under FOM, with his Chinese spouse?
Why is this even being discussed? As you say, she came here at the age of two and obviously qualifies to represent Britain or she wouldn't be allowed to represent Britain.
We should just be celebrating her remarkable achievement.
We're discussing it because a country which has chunks of the population celebrating romanian migrants going home is also celebrating a romanian migrant winning the tennis.
Isn't that a bit clunky? I mean, are you suspicious about countries which were knocking merry hell out of one another in the middle of the last century now getting together and celebrating political unity by belting out an overblown anthem originating in the aggressor country?
I'm not talking about the middle of the last century. I'm talking this year. People wanted forrin to go home. They voted for brexit to have them go home. They're celebrating the forrin going away - and Romanian migrants are the literal bogeymen. And now celebrate a Romanian migrant as one of their own.
Perhaps the forrin are only ok when they grow up to speak with the tennis accent and win for their adopted country? Less so when they clean up your mother's piss in a care home.
I consider Emma to be British, but if she is an immigrant she is a Canadian immigrant.
Professor Sir John Curtice's (PBUH) take on this poll
“Although support for independence has been stable during the summer, the poll confirms how risky it would be for Nicola Sturgeon if a referendum were held any time soon. She might well lose, thereby bringing an end to her political career and ending any hope of independence being delivered for at least a generation.”
He added: “Some of this seems to have dawned upon Yes supporters. Back in March, over half (53 per cent) said that a second independence ballot should be held within 12 months. Now that figure stands at just 34 per cent. While nearly all Yes supporters (95 per cent) want a referendum to be held within the next five years, most are willing to be patient for a while. But Ms Sturgeon will need to use the leeway this gives her to increase the level of support for independence.”
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
I don't know if it was intentional, but if it was I like the idea of someone who is comfortable with multiple identities. I think it's healthy on many levels that she might feel she can do this while clearly also being very proud of being British. If that is bonkers, so be it!
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
I did say the Tory knob-cheese up here would get scalped for betraying local farming and fishing, and there he is on the list. Perhaps HYUFD who always relies on the absolute clarity presented by opinion polls would be kind enough to tell us how this poll is wrong.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
It will be fascinating to see how quickly the Tory invulnerability is swept away - if we are seeing the start of it.
So far they have been able to lie and break the law and have been practically applauded for doing so by the Cult of Boris. Yes its marvellous that he lied to the Queen etc.
So this week's lies - that the tax increase is to pay for social care, and that its progressive - shouldn't have been any concern. Tory voters like being lied to. And yet suddenly it appears they don't.
One possible angle. We saw the zeal for Brexit. That was seen as doing something to someone else - the man, the powers that be, the EU, the bureaucrats. Easy to support something that supposedly only hits Other People.
But this tax hike hits everyone. And the people who felt hard done by when we were in the EU get hard done the hardest. And thats before working families get scalped by the UC cut. And to cap it all off, they can't even see what benefit there is - the NHS will be on its knees again this winter and keep getting worse according to Javid.
Like I said, this is the Tories apocalpseofuck.
Interestingly - the reason it's not included within National insurance was because Rishi wanted it to be obvious on every payslip.
Which means if Labour gets its messaging right on every payslip there is a deduction to allow the Southern pensioners to keep their home
I get the rationale. Its not a tax rise, its a "Social Care Levy". Same as the "Adult Social Care Levy" 2% on your council tax.
The problem is that people see straight through it. With council tax the complaint is why am I having to pay for something someone else needs (direct repeated horse's mouth quotes from the doorstep before anyone picks at it).
So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted.
BTW, southern pensioners DO NOT keep their home. The iniquity of social care was that people have to liquidate their kids inheritance to pay for their own care. They still need to pay £86k - which means selling their home. "Ah but not when they are alive" I heard some clown apologist say on here.
Yes, so after they die the house gets sold to pay for their care. No inheritance.
Its literally the apocalypseofuck. A massive tax rise. On the hardest working (which in punter land is "me"). To fix something that isn't fixed in 3 years. To patch the NHS before then so where the fuck is the Brexit money.
Rishi needs to get his brilliant spin machine on it. Boris produced the plan. Its his team not mine. I warned him not to. Or he goes down with the clown.
So capping social care costs at £86k means most of the value of the average family home would not be taken in care costs
It is a long time since I sat O level maths, but isn't median an unusual metric to use to demonstrate your point. I would have thought mean/average would be more appropriate. I don't know what difference this might make, just making an observation.
Nah average is a lot higher because of all those £10m houses in Kensington
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Sandpit is married to a Ukrainian and lives in Dubai. You can stop wondering because it isn’t that.
As an economic migrant himself he seems very willing to deny that opportunity to others.
That’s out of order.
Is it? Migration is either good or bad. Personally enjoying the benefits of migration and the ability to live elsewhere whilst insisting that others do not is hypocrisy. I'm not pointing the finger at Sandpit here but its a vibe that was all too common in English expats in Spain who lived there, spoke minimal Spanish and integrated as little as possible. Loud beach care conversations about "bloody migrants" back home who come in to sponge and don't speak the language.
Migration is not either good or bad. You seem to be saying that if something is good then more of it would be better. I can’t actually think of a single thing (with the possible exception of money) for which that stays true past a certain point.
Hang on. My point is pretty simple. You can't be an economic migrant and complain about others being economic migrants.
Being an economic migrant is either good - and others should be allowed to do what you have done - or it is bad and you shouldn't have been allowed to become one.
No. Again, you are assuming that it is a binary choice, that all economic migrants are fungible.
I’m a Physics teacher. Does that mean I should think anybody that wants to should be able to teach Physics, or am I allowed to suggest that only those qualified to do so should?
I'm not talking migration in general - whoever said that we should allow unqualified people to teach? Oh yeah - the Tories when they created Free Schools...
Anyway, I am saying that if you are an economic migrant then you are in favour of economic migration. Yet we have economic migrants arguing that others shouldn't be allowed to do what they have done.
You can't be against something you personally have done without being a hypocrite.
It will be fascinating to see how quickly the Tory invulnerability is swept away - if we are seeing the start of it.
So far they have been able to lie and break the law and have been practically applauded for doing so by the Cult of Boris. Yes its marvellous that he lied to the Queen etc.
So this week's lies - that the tax increase is to pay for social care, and that its progressive - shouldn't have been any concern. Tory voters like being lied to. And yet suddenly it appears they don't.
One possible angle. We saw the zeal for Brexit. That was seen as doing something to someone else - the man, the powers that be, the EU, the bureaucrats. Easy to support something that supposedly only hits Other People.
But this tax hike hits everyone. And the people who felt hard done by when we were in the EU get hard done the hardest. And thats before working families get scalped by the UC cut. And to cap it all off, they can't even see what benefit there is - the NHS will be on its knees again this winter and keep getting worse according to Javid.
Like I said, this is the Tories apocalpseofuck.
Interestingly - the reason it's not included within National insurance was because Rishi wanted it to be obvious on every payslip.
Which means if Labour gets its messaging right on every payslip there is a deduction to allow the Southern pensioners to keep their home
I get the rationale. Its not a tax rise, its a "Social Care Levy". Same as the "Adult Social Care Levy" 2% on your council tax.
The problem is that people see straight through it. With council tax the complaint is why am I having to pay for something someone else needs (direct repeated horse's mouth quotes from the doorstep before anyone picks at it).
So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted.
BTW, southern pensioners DO NOT keep their home. The iniquity of social care was that people have to liquidate their kids inheritance to pay for their own care. They still need to pay £86k - which means selling their home. "Ah but not when they are alive" I heard some clown apologist say on here.
Yes, so after they die the house gets sold to pay for their care. No inheritance.
Its literally the apocalypseofuck. A massive tax rise. On the hardest working (which in punter land is "me"). To fix something that isn't fixed in 3 years. To patch the NHS before then so where the fuck is the Brexit money.
Rishi needs to get his brilliant spin machine on it. Boris produced the plan. Its his team not mine. I warned him not to. Or he goes down with the clown.
It is a tax rise. Of course it is - how can tackling social care not be a tax rise.
There seems to be some confusion as to the position of the home when someone permanently goes to a care home.
The house is either completely in or completely out of the assessment.
These are the main circumstances that prevent the home being brought into the finance assessment, under CURRENT rules:
- It is it's still occupied by spouse - it is still occupied by a relative (typically child) who is over 60 - it is still occupied by any relative who is disabled (of any age) - the first 12 weeks' care home costs are always disregarded
To repeat - these are the rules now.
The change - and it is a big change - that is coming Autumn 2023 is the £86k cap. This means that even when the property is brought into the assessment the maximum that can be taken of its value (in combination with other asset and income contributions to care) is £86k.
So where you say: "So why would this NI levy be any different? Its a tax. Explicitly called out and supposedly hypothecated. With the money openly wasted" what do you mean? Money is clearly going to be needed to cover care home hosts when the £86k cap is reached. Are you suggesting that the Autumn 2023 date will not be adhered to? You must be or your comment makes no sense.
An excellent explanation and some need to learn the detail before commenting
I don't think we have the detail to read as yet. As Stocky says, the current rules are as he describes. Whether the new rules will be identical except for the £86K cap is not yet clear.
You've made the point a couple of times that Labour's line te help people not go into care is unrealistic. But this too partly comes down to money. If councils are financed well enough to provide really extensive home care, beyond what is currently offered, then people will be able to delay or even sometimes avoid the necessity. There are plenty of examples of people who felt that having someone pop in for 20 minutes twice a day for minimal care was, although appreciated, just not a safe lifestyle. Clearly care homes will still be needed, but it does make sense to spend more on enabling people not to need them until it's really essential.
I think there are many more elderly people who are struggling, but who actually really do need to be in a good care home.
They are reluctant to go into one -- for many & various reasons.
Some people are struggling, and not just elderly ones. We are, in this discussion, forgetting younger people, with, for example, something like MND. Then these's the issue of the 'good' care home; one in which, IMHO, anyway, the resident is given space to be themselves. For example, and this will happen increasingly often I suspect, I had a virtual friend who was one several chat boards. He didn't want to go into the residents lounge as he reported was frequently suggested to him; he was quite happy reading and posting with people who, virtually, had become his friends. But, as mentioned before, someone popping in for 20 minutes doesn't constitute either a safe, or a desirable, system.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
My favourite is when I get accused of integrating too much into British/English culture then get told by others the grandchildren of immigrants don't integrate.
Utterly ridiculous. When I say to my mate "Spurs will not win the league" in that useage I am NOT saying "it is impossible that Spurs with the league".
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Sandpit is married to a Ukrainian and lives in Dubai. You can stop wondering because it isn’t that.
As an economic migrant himself he seems very willing to deny that opportunity to others.
That’s out of order.
Is it? Migration is either good or bad. Personally enjoying the benefits of migration and the ability to live elsewhere whilst insisting that others do not is hypocrisy. I'm not pointing the finger at Sandpit here but its a vibe that was all too common in English expats in Spain who lived there, spoke minimal Spanish and integrated as little as possible. Loud beach care conversations about "bloody migrants" back home who come in to sponge and don't speak the language.
Migration is not either good or bad. You seem to be saying that if something is good then more of it would be better. I can’t actually think of a single thing (with the possible exception of money) for which that stays true past a certain point.
Hang on. My point is pretty simple. You can't be an economic migrant and complain about others being economic migrants.
Being an economic migrant is either good - and others should be allowed to do what you have done - or it is bad and you shouldn't have been allowed to become one.
No. Again, you are assuming that it is a binary choice, that all economic migrants are fungible.
I’m a Physics teacher. Does that mean I should think anybody that wants to should be able to teach Physics, or am I allowed to suggest that only those qualified to do so should?
Hope the new term is going as smoothly as can be expected. Fucking chaos where I am with all these LFTs but it's nice to have my classroom back.
A poor start fo me personally: I was ill at the beginning of term and missed three days lying in bed feeling sorry for myself. Trying to set cover for a class you haven’t seen yet when you have a high temperature and a headache and all your notes are at school is not something I would recommend.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
You tell me, you're the one inferring something from the Nike dress colours for 2021.
No, you were inferring that I thought she was not really British because I pointed out she was wearing the colours of the Romanian flag. I am interested in understanding why you think I would think that. Because that is not what I think.
Notable that there do not seem to have been many soft-focus, Rishi-branded Tweets about the tax on the low paid to subsidise the wealthy he has signed off on.
It has been odd messaging so far, no doubt about it. This tax increase is going directly to the NHS initially and then is going to be used to fund SC for those who cannot afford to pay for it. The cost of having a life time limit of £86k of contributions will be a tiny part of the package. Most will not live long enough to get anywhere near that level and the few that do are likely to die very shortly afterwards.
But the government has allowed the meme of this being all about protecting wealthy pensioners to take a firm hold and it will be almost impossible to shift now. It is a curious error.
Another aspect is exactly how the second stage will work. The Government says it will give much more money to the NHS to address the waiting list problem. Fine. The NHS takes on more staff, and waiting lists are reduced. The issue will not go away, as the Health Minister says, but let's say that in 2024 the Government says "Job done, waiting lists are now acceptably low. Now for social care!" Money is moved across from the NHS to social care. Do they then sack the staff they took on to address the waiting lists? Won't the waiting lists then rise again? How will that work?
I think that there is enough churn in the NHS to resolve these problems but what is important is that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past by having wards fill up with bed blockers who cannot be released from hospital because adequate care packages are simply not available. Spending on SC will reduce the pressure on the NHS and will result in care being provided in considerably less expensive environments than a hospital ward. The government is absolutely right to seize this nettle.
But they are not seizing this nettle. You keep saying they have fixed it - are you following a completely different set of announcements to the rest of us?
You are 100% right about the bed blocking problem. That needs fixing NOW. Doing so would be seizing the thistle. But they are not. The proposal is money in 2 years time. Not enough money to fix the issue, which has to be cut from the NHS. Which we both know won't happen.
No money now despite the massive need. Jam promised tomorrow. Knowing there will be no jam. And you call this seizing the nettle?
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Err, what?
I said last week that she had no chance, and I’m now saying she has a much better chance having won the tournament.
Do you even understand what the English words 'no chance' mean? If you write no chance you don't suddenly get the right to revise the words into 'by no chance I really meant not a lot of chance.' Your kind of langauge is dangerous in betting circles.
I said at the time that you'd written something silly.
The context to my comment was that she had no chance *unless she wins the tournament*.
How not to admit you were wrong. Now you're adding words that you didn't put.
We all make mistakes. The secret to success is to admit them, if not to others at least to yourself. To attempt to re-write what you said belittles yourself. Take some time out and reflect.
So, I wonder who will land the big sponsorship deal with Emma? Someone is going to pay her an enormous amount of money for the modern face of a global superstar.
Emma Raducanu can have more than one sponsor, and from inside and outside the tennis world. Look at the logos plastered all over Lewis Hamilton when he wins the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And she can appear in adverts separately from sponsorship. Since she is fluent in Mandarin as well as English, the huge Chinese market is also open to her.
I expect that she also may well change perceptions of the British-Romanian community. Even Nigel Farage seems to be changing his mind over having Romanians as neighbours.
I note she came here aged 2, which would have been 2005 or so. Did her father come on his Romanian passport under FOM, with his Chinese spouse?
Why is this even being discussed? As you say, she came here at the age of two and obviously qualifies to represent Britain or she wouldn't be allowed to represent Britain.
We should just be celebrating her remarkable achievement.
We're discussing it because a country which has chunks of the population celebrating romanian migrants going home is also celebrating a romanian migrant winning the tennis.
Isn't that a bit clunky? I mean, are you suspicious about countries which were knocking merry hell out of one another in the middle of the last century now getting together and celebrating political unity by belting out an overblown anthem originating in the aggressor country?
I'm not talking about the middle of the last century. I'm talking this year. People wanted forrin to go home. They voted for brexit to have them go home. They're celebrating the forrin going away - and Romanian migrants are the literal bogeymen. And now celebrate a Romanian migrant as one of their own.
Perhaps the forrin are only ok when they grow up to speak with the tennis accent and win for their adopted country? Less so when they clean up your mother's piss in a care home.
I consider Emma to be British, but if she is an immigrant she is a Canadian immigrant.
She's the twenty-first century Bonar Law or maybe Max Beaverbrook. If she ends up with a nephew then he's guaranteed to become a cabinet minister and end up in prison.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Sandpit is married to a Ukrainian and lives in Dubai. You can stop wondering because it isn’t that.
As an economic migrant himself he seems very willing to deny that opportunity to others.
That’s out of order.
Is it? Migration is either good or bad. Personally enjoying the benefits of migration and the ability to live elsewhere whilst insisting that others do not is hypocrisy. I'm not pointing the finger at Sandpit here but its a vibe that was all too common in English expats in Spain who lived there, spoke minimal Spanish and integrated as little as possible. Loud beach care conversations about "bloody migrants" back home who come in to sponge and don't speak the language.
Migration is not either good or bad. You seem to be saying that if something is good then more of it would be better. I can’t actually think of a single thing (with the possible exception of money) for which that stays true past a certain point.
Hang on. My point is pretty simple. You can't be an economic migrant and complain about others being economic migrants.
Being an economic migrant is either good - and others should be allowed to do what you have done - or it is bad and you shouldn't have been allowed to become one.
No. Again, you are assuming that it is a binary choice, that all economic migrants are fungible.
I’m a Physics teacher. Does that mean I should think anybody that wants to should be able to teach Physics, or am I allowed to suggest that only those qualified to do so should?
I'm not talking migration in general - whoever said that we should allow unqualified people to teach? Oh yeah - the Tories when they created Free Schools...
Anyway, I am saying that if you are an economic migrant then you are in favour of economic migration. Yet we have economic migrants arguing that others shouldn't be allowed to do what they have done.
You can't be against something you personally have done without being a hypocrite.
Depends rather, doesn't it? Can we not, frinstance, distinguish net contributors to from net takers from the economy? People with skills we lack vs those with skills we have coming out of our ears?
I think that is a mistake. Not a mistake like renewing Cressida Dick's appointment, which made me sick to my stomach, but a mistake. We need to build defences that can operate short of lockdowns if England follows the same trend as Scotland did once the schools went back. The ability to control the congregation of people with vaccine passports is an obvious intermediate step. We will not have that in our armoury. Mistake.
FWIW Labour is requiring all delegates to the conference to show evidence of double vaccination or have an immediate test. Seems sensible to me. Labour conferences to me are like night-clubs to MaxPB - I love them. However, I would prefer not to get Covid, and if someone with Covid wants to attend they can piss right off. Surely most crowded venues will feel the same?
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
I don't know if it was intentional, but if it was I like the idea of someone who is comfortable with multiple identities. I think it's healthy on many levels that she might feel she can do this while clearly also being very proud of being British. If that is bonkers, so be it!
You’re wishing that she was doing it, that’s what’s barking. I don’t care what she wears to be honest.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
It's something Asian people face all the time. We're never really British in the eyes of some, both left and right do just from different directions.
Why would someone acknowledging and celebrating their Romanian heritage not really be British?
Because it would be partly Romanian.
All proper flags are red white and blue because those are the only colours you could reliably produce before synthetic dyes, anyway.
Oh well, I’m now more likely to lose £100 to @Philip_Thompson, than I thought I was going to be 48 hours ago!
On September 8th Sandpit wrote:
"She has no chance of winning SPoTY."
Sometimes you just need to admit you got something badly wrong.
I'm even beginning to wonder if the real reason you're hell-bent on this stance is that she looks and sounds something other than a WASP?
I hope that's not the case but otherwise you're coming across as ridiculous and a sore loser.
Sandpit is married to a Ukrainian and lives in Dubai. You can stop wondering because it isn’t that.
As an economic migrant himself he seems very willing to deny that opportunity to others.
That’s out of order.
Is it? Migration is either good or bad. Personally enjoying the benefits of migration and the ability to live elsewhere whilst insisting that others do not is hypocrisy. I'm not pointing the finger at Sandpit here but its a vibe that was all too common in English expats in Spain who lived there, spoke minimal Spanish and integrated as little as possible. Loud beach care conversations about "bloody migrants" back home who come in to sponge and don't speak the language.
Migration is not either good or bad. You seem to be saying that if something is good then more of it would be better. I can’t actually think of a single thing (with the possible exception of money) for which that stays true past a certain point.
Hang on. My point is pretty simple. You can't be an economic migrant and complain about others being economic migrants.
Being an economic migrant is either good - and others should be allowed to do what you have done - or it is bad and you shouldn't have been allowed to become one.
That’s a garbage argument. Different countries have different needs and can set their policies accordingly.
Canada wants people to come so actively trawls for migrants. Australia is not so keen. That’s up to the voters in each of those countries
According to Google, Hamilton has an estimated net worth of $825m.
Serena Williams is on, apparently $210m.
I find that hard to believe with all the endorsements she must have had.
Hamilton will be being paid a lot more though. At about $55 million a year, that’s probably 4-5 times what a tennis player could earn in prize money even if they won every tournament. Plus he will be having all his coaching, nutritionists, physio etc provided by McLaren and Serena will have to pay for her own.
I'm not surprised hes wealthier, but how low her wealth is despite such a long career.
AIUI tennis players fund their own teams. Trainers, medics, hangers-on, tax accountants etc...
Do F1 Drivers get nearly all of it from their 'employer'?
I'm not talking about the middle of the last century. I'm talking this year. People wanted forrin to go home. They voted for brexit to have them go home. They're celebrating the forrin going away - and Romanian migrants are the literal bogeymen. And now celebrate a Romanian migrant as one of their own.
Perhaps the forrin are only ok when they grow up to speak with the tennis accent and win for their adopted country? Less so when they clean up your mother's piss in a care home.
There's quite a gap between "wanted forrin to go home" (is there anyone here that you think has that view?) and "wanted some immigration control". You appear to ludicrously treat those two positions as exactly the same.
Coincidentally, or not, Raducanu was dressed in the colours of the Romanian flag last night. As for how her parents got to the UK - I thought the narrative was that Labour let anyone in.
Completely barking.
In what way, just out of interest?
That you looked at the colours she was wearing and thought “oh, those are the colours of the Romanian flag.”
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
I don't know if it was intentional, but if it was I like the idea of someone who is comfortable with multiple identities. I think it's healthy on many levels that she might feel she can do this while clearly also being very proud of being British. If that is bonkers, so be it!
You’re wishing that she was doing it, that’s what’s barking. I don’t care what she wears to be honest.
Nor do I. But it is true that I am drawn to the idea of people being comfortable with multiple identities and think it reflects well on places where they feel they can express these. As I say, if that is barking so be it!
Comments
You've made the point a couple of times that Labour's line te help people not go into care is unrealistic. But this too partly comes down to money. If councils are financed well enough to provide really extensive home care, beyond what is currently offered, then people will be able to delay or even sometimes avoid the necessity. There are plenty of examples of people who felt that having someone pop in for 20 minutes twice a day for minimal care was, although appreciated, just not a safe lifestyle. Clearly care homes will still be needed, but it does make sense to spend more on enabling people not to need them until it's really essential.
My point is simple. The money is not going to social care, it is going to the NHS. Remember that the NHS has apparently already had "more than" the £18.2bn promised Brexit boost which has sunk without trace into a system described as on its knees. So £12bn more won't be seen to deliver - this is the "waste" I mention. People will be paying more taxes explicitly for an NHS where waiting lists still get longer and services get worse according to Javid.
And then we have social care. This tax rise delivers zero money for social care. No Health Secretary is going to cut the NHS budget by £12bn to transfer the money to social care - especially when the timings are either in the run-in to the election or at the start of the new term post-election. Either way, the money isn't going to be there.
Unless of course they borrow it. Thing is the government made a big play for needing to put up taxes because they can't borrow it. Yet if as claimed they have already injected "more than" the £18.2bn promised on the bus, that money was borrowed. As the true EU figure was £10.4bn and we're paying £7bn of that to the EU this year, that only leaves £3.4bn.
So if they have paid the brexit bonus to the NHS its borrowed money. So they lied when they said they can't borrow money to pay for the NHS crisis. Or they haven't paid the brexit bonus and that is the lie, and now that a tax rise is paying for the NHS there is no bonus at all.
Any way you cut it, they're lying to our faces. Repeatedly. To do the things they pledged not to do. To pay for the NHS to get worse, no fix for social care and no end to houses being flogged to pay for care.
One with no elephants.
With these sums of money over these time periods, better/worse investment strategies could easily iron out a 2:1 advantage in the inputs. But I am boring myself now, and that's irrelevant as a proxy for whatever we are using money as a proxy for.
Johnson does things he thinks we will like when his back is to the wall. Good old Boris.
The LDs in opposition don't need to commit to anything...yet.
Part of Johnson's genius was to absorb the party to his right. They were chumps to fall for it, but they did. Fighting on two fronts is always harder.
Let the antivaxxers who get sick die. We don't need zero covid and we don't need zero deaths.
I wonder if Red Wall tory MPs would go for this type of Tax Avoidance as morally unacceptable?
Didn't help Hamilton that he had previously done lots of virtue-signalling about saving the planet.
I’d also like to defend Sandpit, who has very different political views to me. But his contributions to the site are always polite and thoughtful. As it happens I think I was one of he first, if not the first, to suggest that Raducanu could be in the running for SPOTY (Sat 4 Sept), and Sandpit responded to disagree, but he gave perfectly valid reasons for why he thought I was wrong. And I would have been, had it not been for the absolutely incredible quality of tennis she has produced in the last week. The suggestion that there might have been a racial dimension to his views is ridiculous as well as offensive.
Being an economic migrant is either good - and others should be allowed to do what you have done - or it is bad and you shouldn't have been allowed to become one.
Hence why she also worn exactly the same outfit for every single match, was as big time players have a range of outfits they circle through.
This shows how close she maybe was to winning Wimbledon. Sans that little panic attack she might well have gone all the way there. If we think this is big - which it is - just imagine how that would have been. Perhaps a blessing for her.
Stunning achievement, obvs, and Spoty cert, obvs, but what particularly struck me was her post match performance. Very calm, almost a touch corporate, little vulnerability. I think she's going to be pretty formidable both on the court and as a brand.
They are reluctant to go into one -- for many & various reasons.
🚨 | NEW: Health Secretary Sajid Javid says the UK ‘will get Christmas this year’
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1436978952443138048
Fortunately the EU will come to our rescue and impose them de facto. No international vaxxport, no Ibiza.
My daughter who lives at home has Covid at the moment. We have been tested and found not to have it but of course the test only measures a point in time. My understanding is that we are much less likely to catch Covid from her (because she is double vaxxed) than we would be if we came into contact with someone who was not vaccinated and who is likely to shed more virus. Why should I, unknowingly, have to take that risk? If people don't want to be vaccinated they can bloody stay at home until this is over (which is likely to be years).
"and no end to houses being flogged to pay for care" The proposal - basically Dilnot's proposal - tries to steer a course between those that think 1) it outrageous that ANY of the value of the family home is used towards costs "that the NHS should cover because that what we've paid for" and 2) those that think "it's outrageous that relatives get to inherit house values rather than the money being used to pay for the homeowner's care.
Any fixing social care solution was always going to steer a middle course and would involve state funding one way or another.
Personally, I wouldn't have done this now with the country on its knees financially due to eyewatering pandemic costs.
Immigration is good for the country if said immigrants are good for the country, and bad for the country if not.
Taking the former group is uncontroversial.
There is an argument for taking the latter group on the argument of the benefit to those particular immigrants, but that needs to be balanced against the ability of the existing population to accommodate them.
Examples of individual immigrants who are good for the country (having children who represent the country at sport is a high profile example but actually of very little relevance compared to the large numbers of e.g. immigrant NHS hospital doctors) doesn't alter the basic argument that mass uncontrolled Immigration requires those immigrants to access the support and services of the state, which costs money; creates a demand for housing in an already under-supplied market; holds down the level of wages for semi-skilled and unskilled work, and inhibits investment in improvement of productivity; changes the nature and social fabric of certain localities where immigrants are concentrated, and in some cases brings in those whose views on the working of society are incompatible with ours, sometimes to the extent that they want to blow bits of it up.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.firstpost.com/sports/us-open-2021-emma-raducanu-to-face-leylah-fernandez-in-historic-all-teen-final-9952221.html/amp
The NI rise, together with the reduction in April to 2.5% pension uplift and working pensioners paying the 1.25% hypothecated tax from April 23 are not unreasonable
However, my real concern is hitting the young and low paid with this tax as it is unfair, and removing the £20 UC uplift is immoral
None of this is easy but it is plain for everyone to see that the tax rises announced are not going to be sufficient and other taxes will be needed. I can understand why Jon Ashworth would not commit to abolitioning this rise
Slightly less (26 per cent) believe that securing another independence referendum should be a priority. The poll found that 17 per cent favour a second vote within the next 12 months, while a further 36 per cent back one in the next two to five years and 47 per cent do not want one at all in the next few years. Sturgeon hopes to stage a fresh vote by the end of 2023.
Support for independence, when those who are undecided are excluded, remains at 48 per cent compared with 52 per cent in favour of Scotland remaining in the UK.
So that's 53% of Scots that want Indyref2 within the next five years as per Secretary Jack's principles.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snp-out-of-step-on-trans-law-says-poll-h068jwqz9
Because sensational achievement though it is - particularly when you consider he's been up against Federer, Nadal and to a lesser extent, Murray all his career - this is altogether fresher and more exciting.
Let's face it, everyone expects Djokovic to win to the extent it might well be more newsworthy if he doesn't.
I’m a Physics teacher. Does that mean I should think anybody that wants to should be able to teach Physics, or am I allowed to suggest that only those qualified to do so should?
Just imagine if someone on the far right pointed this out and said “see, she isn’t really British.”
“Although support for independence has been stable during the summer, the poll confirms how risky it would be for Nicola Sturgeon if a referendum were held any time soon. She might well lose, thereby bringing an end to her political career and ending any hope of independence being delivered for at least a generation.”
He added: “Some of this seems to have dawned upon Yes supporters. Back in March, over half (53 per cent) said that a second independence ballot should be held within 12 months. Now that figure stands at just 34 per cent. While nearly all Yes supporters (95 per cent) want a referendum to be held within the next five years, most are willing to be patient for a while. But Ms Sturgeon will need to use the leeway this gives her to increase the level of support for independence.”
Perhaps the forrin are only ok when they grow up to speak with the tennis accent and win for their adopted country? Less so when they clean up your mother's piss in a care home.
On a happier note, here's a survey on F1 which is worth filling in (10 minutes or so).
https://twitter.com/NobleF1/status/1436973013820391428
Lockdown/Covid-19 has been terrible for sports fans like me.
The right to free assembly is a big one, @DavidL
Anyway, I am saying that if you are an economic migrant then you are in favour of economic migration. Yet we have economic migrants arguing that others shouldn't be allowed to do what they have done.
You can't be against something you personally have done without being a hypocrite.
Then these's the issue of the 'good' care home; one in which, IMHO, anyway, the resident is given space to be themselves. For example, and this will happen increasingly often I suspect, I had a virtual friend who was one several chat boards. He didn't want to go into the residents lounge as he reported was frequently suggested to him; he was quite happy reading and posting with people who, virtually, had become his friends.
But, as mentioned before, someone popping in for 20 minutes doesn't constitute either a safe, or a desirable, system.
Behind Paula Radcliffe and her Mum...
Can't believe I even bothered to type that.
You are 100% right about the bed blocking problem. That needs fixing NOW. Doing so would be seizing the thistle. But they are not. The proposal is money in 2 years time. Not enough money to fix the issue, which has to be cut from the NHS. Which we both know won't happen.
No money now despite the massive need. Jam promised tomorrow. Knowing there will be no jam. And you call this seizing the nettle?
All proper flags are red white and blue because those are the only colours you could reliably produce before synthetic dyes, anyway.
Canada wants people to come so actively trawls for migrants. Australia is not so keen. That’s up to the voters in each of those countries
Do F1 Drivers get nearly all of it from their 'employer'?