"‘This is an unfolding disaster. My advice? Don’t get cancer in 2020’
A misplaced obsession with Covid-19 fuelled by vested interests is killing tens of thousands, the leading oncologist Karol Sikora tells Rhys Blakely" (£)
another example of where our disproportionate response to virus is now doing real harm.
Thank goodness I’m in Spain where my diagnosis was in the first few weeks of The outbreak and my treatment has proceeded without delay, apart from the hospitalization after the first dose of chemo. I think if you’re waiting for a new hip you may have had to wait but most treatments Appear to be progressing as normal.
I believe even in the UK cancer treatment is still prioritised, it is elective surgery that has been pushed back by Covid patients
Cancer targets are unchanged, albeit often missed. Cancer referrals are down by 50% though.
That is very sad. Surely there is no reason now why the GP service should not be being provided through a mix of online/telephone and direct consultations.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
No. A Hard Brexit is leaving without any sort of trade deal with the EU, which is what the Tory party explicitly promised in its manifesto it would get.
That is the promise it made to those who voted for it. We’ll see whether this government sticks to its very clear promise of a trade deal with the EU which will strengthen the Union.
I have my doubts but we’ll see.
The trouble is that the Conservatives made a set of promises about the UK-EU trade deal which weren't theirs to make in isolation.
They were within their rights to ask for those things. They could even demand them. What they couldn't do was guarantee them in the face of a Europe-wide shrug of the shoulders. (Are any continental politicians, even very Eurosceptic ones, arguing that the EU should soften its demands and give the UK more of what it wants?)
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in atreas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
No. A Hard Brexit is leaving without any sort of trade deal with the EU, which is what the Tory party explicitly promised in its manifesto it would get.
That is the promise it made to those who voted for it. We’ll see whether this government sticks to its very clear promise of a trade deal with the EU which will strengthen the Union.
I have my doubts but we’ll see.
The problem with meaningless phrases like "Hard Brexit" and "Soft Brexit" is they have no defined meaning so are used instead as point-scoring phrases whose meaning can be changed depending upon what point the person is trying to make.
The country voted in 2016 and 2019 to leave the Single Market but to seek a free trade agreement instead. Whether you call that Soft or Hard is not that major an issue.
"‘This is an unfolding disaster. My advice? Don’t get cancer in 2020’
A misplaced obsession with Covid-19 fuelled by vested interests is killing tens of thousands, the leading oncologist Karol Sikora tells Rhys Blakely" (£)
another example of where our disproportionate response to virus is now doing real harm.
Thank goodness I’m in Spain where my diagnosis was in the first few weeks of The outbreak and my treatment has proceeded without delay, apart from the hospitalization after the first dose of chemo. I think if you’re waiting for a new hip you may have had to wait but most treatments Appear to be progressing as normal.
I believe even in the UK cancer treatment is still prioritised, it is elective surgery that has been pushed back by Covid patients
So the article is inaccurate?
A newspaper article inaccurate? Surely some mistake....
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
I hope it is a very painful No Deal totally owned by this government and its supporters, but I suspect that Cummings won't allow that.
Remain lost, get over it.
That’s all Brexiteers have. We won. That’s it.
No articulation of any benefits of Brexit, no adaptation to the current circumstances. No attempt to win anyone over or find a positive case.
Just we won, we will do it, to hell with the consequences and damn the rest of you.
I see the r rate for Remainerdepression is back on the rise.
He has a point. What's it all for? Other than fish obviously.
Who are we going to sell the fish to? We are closing off our main market for goods.
we can always eat more of it ourselves.
It will vary our diet from eating grass.
Brits do not like fish all that much. It is why we sell our fish.
Now, if we could develop a wild McDonalds burger that could be harvested (ideally living in a clamshell style bap) then no doubt we would eat every single one...
Actually Brits love fish but they only like a resticted range. A bit of education would do wonders to widening what we like.
They tried that in the war. Brexiters ought to be forcefed on snoek and rock salmon for the rest of their lives.
Your country needs YOU... to eat bloater paste!
Well, herring can't be deep-fried so we have to find some other way of making it 'easy'.
(But it shallow-fries very well after being dipped in oatmeal - had it with new potatoes a few days ago.)
"‘This is an unfolding disaster. My advice? Don’t get cancer in 2020’
A misplaced obsession with Covid-19 fuelled by vested interests is killing tens of thousands, the leading oncologist Karol Sikora tells Rhys Blakely" (£)
Not really convinced that Karol Sikora really qualifies as either "leading" or 'mainstream'. Does he have serious and credible research to back up his rather large claimed numbers?
(Speaking as a slightly skeptical person who has been through the entire cycle of cancer testing, diagnosis, advice, treatment and probably remission under NHS management since March / April).
I also note the history of the Times manufacturing sensational stories out of the air during the Corona pandemic.
I hope it is a very painful No Deal totally owned by this government and its supporters, but I suspect that Cummings won't allow that.
Remain lost, get over it.
That’s all Brexiteers have. We won. That’s it.
No articulation of any benefits of Brexit, no adaptation to the current circumstances. No attempt to win anyone over or find a positive case.
Just we won, we will do it, to hell with the consequences and damn the rest of you.
I see the r rate for Remainerdepression is back on the rise.
He has a point. What's it all for? Other than fish obviously.
Who are we going to sell the fish to? We are closing off our main market for goods.
we can always eat more of it ourselves.
It will vary our diet from eating grass.
Brits do not like fish all that much. It is why we sell our fish.
Now, if we could develop a wild McDonalds burger that could be harvested (ideally living in a clamshell style bap) then no doubt we would eat every single one...
Actually Brits love fish but they only like a resticted range. A bit of education would do wonders to widening what we like.
They tried that in the war. Brexiters ought to be forcefed on snoek and rock salmon for the rest of their lives.
And Guga for high days and holidays.
Would there be enough after the exiled Leodheasachaid have had theirs?
Crow rather than gannet down south perhaps (though I gather that the wartime local 'craw' from the 'Crow Wood' [translated for PB sensibilities] was actually young rooks in that rookery, rather than corbies proper).
"‘This is an unfolding disaster. My advice? Don’t get cancer in 2020’
A misplaced obsession with Covid-19 fuelled by vested interests is killing tens of thousands, the leading oncologist Karol Sikora tells Rhys Blakely" (£)
another example of where our disproportionate response to virus is now doing real harm.
Thank goodness I’m in Spain where my diagnosis was in the first few weeks of The outbreak and my treatment has proceeded without delay, apart from the hospitalization after the first dose of chemo. I think if you’re waiting for a new hip you may have had to wait but most treatments Appear to be progressing as normal.
I believe even in the UK cancer treatment is still prioritised, it is elective surgery that has been pushed back by Covid patients
Cancer targets are unchanged, albeit often missed. Cancer referrals are down by 50% though.
That is very sad. Surely there is no reason now why the GP service should not be being provided through a mix of online/telephone and direct consultations.
Anecdote alert!
According to the doctors at the hospital, when I took my mother-in-law in, they were actively seeking patients. Referrals were massively down, and no-shows for booked treatments and operations were very high.
My GP put one of the admin staff on a task of ringing round people due to do to hospital to persuade them to go. Anyone who was doubtful, she then arranged to call herself.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
A FTA that ends free movement, allows our own trade deals, regains control of our fishing waters etc would be permissible under the Tory manifesto, any other deal would not.
Regulatory alignment and a LPA might be OK but only if it allowed improvements in animal welfare standards as promised for example
Many will have worked from age 16 and not get pension till 66, ie 50 years. They do not stop your contributions after you have paid for 35 years. The "sat on their butt" is the liklihood that anyone mealy mouthed enough to be whinging that they want a share of pensioners savings is unlikely to b ea hard working person , more like to be a sponging no user who would rather whinge than actually go out and work hard to earn their own money rather than coveting other hard workers money.
Currently, you’d need about £250k to buy an annuity that matches the state pension. If your bus driver had paid the maximum possible NI (which would have required a high income - some bus driver!) for their entire lives & the money had been invested to keep pace with earnings, my BOTE calculation says that they still wouldn’t have "saved" 250k in NI contributions. Oh, and if we take NI as "insurance" instead of a tax as you suggest then we need to knock off the other things that NI was supposed to pay for as well before we "invest" anything: unemployment payments, the portion of NI that goes to the NHS and so on. Remember that NI was only 5-6% of earnings up to the upper limit in the 70s.
Your 50 year working bus driver is getting far more out of the system than they ever paid in malcolmg. As a nation this is something we can afford to pay, but current retirees are getting out far more than they paid in - that is the reality.
Did you include the interest if it was invested like any other pension. I paid less to my pension pot than NI over the years I bet, and yet it is multiple times your annuity value. Far better to have NO NI and let people pay into a real pension scheme, they would get significantly better pension and it would cost the state little to nothing.
It might be but NI doesn't pay for pensions, it pays for the NHS and other things too.
Why pensioners should not be contributing to the NHS is beyond me, NI should be merged with income tax and have everyone treated the same.
They have contributed all their lives and will still do so if they earn above their tax allowance. The only thing they do not pay is NI and that was intended for pensions.
NI may have originally been intended for pensions but it hasn't been for years. If all of NI had been paid into a pension scheme - and if pensioners only got paid out from that scheme and not through general taxation - then that would be reasonable. Its not the case though.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
If they really did not care about their grandchildren, grandparents would have sold their houses, bought flats in retirement villages and gone on luxury holidays and spent their children and grandchildrens' inheritance.
I would also point out despite the fact today's students pay fees the vast majority of today's grandparents never went to university at all but straight to work after school, only a tiny minority of over 65s went to university and with free tuition
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
Its not impossible. A Canadian style FTA that Barnier originally said was possible meets every single criteria. As Barnier said years ago. The criteria that exist make one type of trade agreement very possible.
"‘This is an unfolding disaster. My advice? Don’t get cancer in 2020’
A misplaced obsession with Covid-19 fuelled by vested interests is killing tens of thousands, the leading oncologist Karol Sikora tells Rhys Blakely" (£)
another example of where our disproportionate response to virus is now doing real harm.
Thank goodness I’m in Spain where my diagnosis was in the first few weeks of The outbreak and my treatment has proceeded without delay, apart from the hospitalization after the first dose of chemo. I think if you’re waiting for a new hip you may have had to wait but most treatments Appear to be progressing as normal.
I believe even in the UK cancer treatment is still prioritised, it is elective surgery that has been pushed back by Covid patients
Cancer targets are unchanged, albeit often missed. Cancer referrals are down by 50% though.
OK - accept that that that is a possible telltale number.
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
On the Holyrood metric of 'let's have him/her as leader because there's no one else left', it looks like Gove will lead Bettertogether II by default. This below will be played on a loop, no doubt to cries of 'Gove's the man the Nats REALLY fear!'.
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
On the Holyrood metric of 'let's have him/her as leader because there's no one else left', it looks like Gove will lead Bettertogether II by default. This below will be played on a loop (no doubt to cries of 'Gove's the man the Nats REALLY fear!'.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
Many leave voters cited care for the future of the country for their grandchildren as their reason for voting leave. I voted for remain but I don't doubt their motivation simply because mine is different.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
Its not impossible. A Canadian style FTA that Barnier originally said was possible meets every single criteria. As Barnier said years ago. The criteria that exist make one type of trade agreement very possible.
Possible.
Depending on what is included, such as the LPF we agreed to in the WDA. That is what Barnier wants, us to stick to our word.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
Its not impossible. A Canadian style FTA that Barnier originally said was possible meets every single criteria. As Barnier said years ago. The criteria that exist make one type of trade agreement very possible.
Possible.
Depending on what is included, such as the LPF we agreed to in the WDA. That is what Barnier wants, us to stick to our word.
The LPF as agreed in the WDA is entirely possible. A CETA style LPF is entire fitting within the WDA definition.
The problem is that Barnier's interpretation of the WDA is different to the words agreed. The LPF agreement in the WDA was very vague and sparse and includes everything from dynamic alignment through to a CETA style LPF. The problem is Barnier doesn't want it to mean that - but the UK never agreed to anything else.
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
On the Holyrood metric of 'let's have him/her as leader because there's no one else left', it looks like Gove will lead Bettertogether II by default. This below will be played on a loop, no doubt to cries of 'Gove's the man the Nats REALLY fear!'.
PS Edit - What's aslo interestding is that if Mr Gove leads BT2 then it would imply that racial/blood ties are all one needs - even when there are Scottish politicians who actually were voted into Scottish constituencies at the relevant period, such as (say) Mr Carmichael or Mr Ross.
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
On the Holyrood metric of 'let's have him/her as leader because there's no one else left', it looks like Gove will lead Bettertogether II by default. This below will be played on a loop, no doubt to cries of 'Gove's the man the Nats REALLY fear!'.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
If you’re well off & have a nice little consulting sideline going then you get a double bung from the government when you reach retirement age - you get to pay less tax /and/ you get to draw your state pension!
I think most pensioners who work probably don't do consulting - except on PB.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
If they really did not care about their grandchildren, grandparents would have sold their houses, bought flats in retirement villages and gone on luxury holidays and spent their children and grandchildrens' inheritance.
I would also point out despite the fact today's students pay fees the vast majority of today's grandparents never went to university at all but straight to work after school, only a tiny minority of over 65s went to university and with free tuition
The last point is very true as is the myth that my generation had houses handed to them on a plate and never did without when we. I had no foreign holidays to help fund my first mortgage in London, no car till I was 30 and then so old that the caretaker on the first day at my new school asked at the staff meeting is anyone know anything about a rusty Datsun Sunny dumped in the staff car park. 90% of my furniture was second hand and the floorboards were without carpet not to be trendy but because a carpet was out of the question.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
Many leave voters cited care for the future of the country for their grandchildren as their reason for voting leave. I voted for remain but I don't doubt their motivation simply because mine is different.
The few I know voted leave despite their grandchildren pleading with them to vote remain only to be told that as they were older they knew better. The most annoying trait of people my age and older can possess.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
Its not impossible. A Canadian style FTA that Barnier originally said was possible meets every single criteria. As Barnier said years ago. The criteria that exist make one type of trade agreement very possible.
Possible.
Depending on what is included, such as the LPF we agreed to in the WDA. That is what Barnier wants, us to stick to our word.
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
On the Holyrood metric of 'let's have him/her as leader because there's no one else left', it looks like Gove will lead Bettertogether II by default. This below will be played on a loop, no doubt to cries of 'Gove's the man the Nats REALLY fear!'.
"‘This is an unfolding disaster. My advice? Don’t get cancer in 2020’
A misplaced obsession with Covid-19 fuelled by vested interests is killing tens of thousands, the leading oncologist Karol Sikora tells Rhys Blakely" (£)
Not really convinced that Karol Sikora really qualifies as either "leading" or 'mainstream'. Does he have serious and credible research to back up his rather large claimed numbers?
(Speaking as a slightly skeptical person who has been through the entire cycle of cancer testing, diagnosis, advice, treatment and probably remission under NHS management since March / April).
I also note the history of the Times manufacturing sensational stories out of the air during the Corona pandemic.
Sikora is a well known liar, I'm surprised he gets so much coverage.
I'm old enough to remember the "easiest deal in history". Good times.
Are you old enough to remember "probably won't be due to politics"?
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Then you shouldn't bandy about quotes like "easiest deal in history" without knowing what they meant. I'm assuming you're referring to the famous Liam Fox quote - in which he goes on to say that politics would be the reason it isn't easy. Nothing's changed since.
I'm old enough to remember the "easiest deal in history". Good times.
Are you old enough to remember "probably won't be due to politics"?
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Then you shouldn't bandy about quotes like "easiest deal in history" without knowing what they meant. I'm assuming you're referring to the famous Liam Fox quote - in which he goes on to say that politics would be the reason it isn't easy. Nothing's changed since.
Don't pretend like it wasn't common "leave" trope that the EU needed us more than we needed them and that a deal would be easy. I had that put to me on many occasions in impromptu debates at my previous job at a factory in County Durham.
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
On the Holyrood metric of 'let's have him/her as leader because there's no one else left', it looks like Gove will lead Bettertogether II by default. This below will be played on a loop, no doubt to cries of 'Gove's the man the Nats REALLY fear!'.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
If they really did not care about their grandchildren, grandparents would have sold their houses, bought flats in retirement villages and gone on luxury holidays and spent their children and grandchildrens' inheritance.
I would also point out despite the fact today's students pay fees the vast majority of today's grandparents never went to university at all but straight to work after school, only a tiny minority of over 65s went to university and with free tuition
The last point is very true as is the myth that my generation had houses handed to them on a plate and never did without when we. I had no foreign holidays to help fund my first mortgage in London, no car till I was 30 and then so old that the caretaker on the first day at my new school asked at the staff meeting is anyone know anything about a rusty Datsun Sunny dumped in the staff car park. 90% of my furniture was second hand and the floorboards were without carpet not to be trendy but because a carpet was out of the question.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
If they really did not care about their grandchildren, grandparents would have sold their houses, bought flats in retirement villages and gone on luxury holidays and spent their children and grandchildrens' inheritance.
I would also point out despite the fact today's students pay fees the vast majority of today's grandparents never went to university at all but straight to work after school, only a tiny minority of over 65s went to university and with free tuition
My children’s inheritance will be spent on care fees for mum when I’m gone I should have sold up twelve years ago and pissed it all up against the wall, instead some care facility will rapidly eat into £600k, it’s just as well they actually don’t need an inheritance.
Not only did we not pay fees we also got a grant although I reckon I’ve paid for my education multiple times over with some to spare.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
A FTA that ends free movement, allows our own trade deals, regains control of our fishing waters etc would be permissible under the Tory manifesto, any other deal would not.
Regulatory alignment and a LPA might be OK but only if it allowed improvements in animal welfare standards as promised for example
who cares what the latest tory manifesto says? the 2015 manifesto, on the same page as promising an in-out referendum on the EU, promised to strengthen Britain's place in the Single Market - so clearly the promise was: if the vote is to leave the EU we will stay in the Single Market. That clear manifesto promise was broken by the tories, so I fail to see what whatever crap they put in the latest manifesto should have to do with what happens with Brexit.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
A FTA that ends free movement, allows our own trade deals, regains control of our fishing waters etc would be permissible under the Tory manifesto, any other deal would not.
Regulatory alignment and a LPA might be OK but only if it allowed improvements in animal welfare standards as promised for example
who cares what the latest tory manifesto says? the 2015 manifesto, on the same page as promising an in-out referendum on the EU, promised to strengthen Britain's place in the Single Market - so clearly the promise was: if the vote is to leave the EU we will stay in the Single Market. That clear manifesto promise was broken by the tories, so I fail to see what whatever crap they put in the latest manifesto should have to do with what happens with Brexit.
Come on man don't be ridiculous. A newer manifesto clearly trumps an older one.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
If you’re well off & have a nice little consulting sideline going then you get a double bung from the government when you reach retirement age - you get to pay less tax /and/ you get to draw your state pension!
I think most pensioners who work probably don't do consulting - except on PB.
Nobody is going to admit to nipping out to collect the trolleys at Tesco are they!
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
A FTA that ends free movement, allows our own trade deals, regains control of our fishing waters etc would be permissible under the Tory manifesto, any other deal would not.
Regulatory alignment and a LPA might be OK but only if it allowed improvements in animal welfare standards as promised for example
who cares what the latest tory manifesto says? the 2015 manifesto, on the same page as promising an in-out referendum on the EU, promised to strengthen Britain's place in the Single Market - so clearly the promise was: if the vote is to leave the EU we will stay in the Single Market. That clear manifesto promise was broken by the tories, so I fail to see what whatever crap they put in the latest manifesto should have to do with what happens with Brexit.
Come on man don't be ridiculous. A newer manifesto clearly trumps an older one.
Come on man, don't be so silly. The 2015 manifesto was not overridden until the 2017 election. The Tory government had already ruled out staying in the Single Market before then. If they can ignore manifesto commitments in 2016-2017, they can equally ignore them now.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
A FTA that ends free movement, allows our own trade deals, regains control of our fishing waters etc would be permissible under the Tory manifesto, any other deal would not.
Regulatory alignment and a LPA might be OK but only if it allowed improvements in animal welfare standards as promised for example
who cares what the latest tory manifesto says? the 2015 manifesto, on the same page as promising an in-out referendum on the EU, promised to strengthen Britain's place in the Single Market - so clearly the promise was: if the vote is to leave the EU we will stay in the Single Market. That clear manifesto promise was broken by the tories, so I fail to see what whatever crap they put in the latest manifesto should have to do with what happens with Brexit.
Come on man don't be ridiculous. A newer manifesto clearly trumps an older one.
Come on man, don't be so silly. The 2015 manifesto was not overridden until the 2017 election. The Tory government had already ruled out staying in the Single Market before then. If they can ignore manifesto commitments in 2016-2017, they can equally ignore them now.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
Many leave voters cited care for the future of the country for their grandchildren as their reason for voting leave. I voted for remain but I don't doubt their motivation simply because mine is different.
The few I know voted leave despite their grandchildren pleading with them to vote remain only to be told that as they were older they knew better. The most annoying trait of people my age and older can possess.
Not nearly as annoying as the youngsters active on twitter who failed to vote in the referendum and may well have tilted the result.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
If they really did not care about their grandchildren, grandparents would have sold their houses, bought flats in retirement villages and gone on luxury holidays and spent their children and grandchildrens' inheritance.
I would also point out despite the fact today's students pay fees the vast majority of today's grandparents never went to university at all but straight to work after school, only a tiny minority of over 65s went to university and with free tuition
The last point is very true as is the myth that my generation had houses handed to them on a plate and never did without when we. I had no foreign holidays to help fund my first mortgage in London, no car till I was 30 and then so old that the caretaker on the first day at my new school asked at the staff meeting is anyone know anything about a rusty Datsun Sunny dumped in the staff car park. 90% of my furniture was second hand and the floorboards were without carpet not to be trendy but because a carpet was out of the question.
Londoner AND a Pensioner.
You're for the high jump, matey...
I now live on my ill-gotten gains in sunny SE Spain where the people still venerate the elderly.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
A FTA that ends free movement, allows our own trade deals, regains control of our fishing waters etc would be permissible under the Tory manifesto, any other deal would not.
Regulatory alignment and a LPA might be OK but only if it allowed improvements in animal welfare standards as promised for example
who cares what the latest tory manifesto says? the 2015 manifesto, on the same page as promising an in-out referendum on the EU, promised to strengthen Britain's place in the Single Market - so clearly the promise was: if the vote is to leave the EU we will stay in the Single Market. That clear manifesto promise was broken by the tories, so I fail to see what whatever crap they put in the latest manifesto should have to do with what happens with Brexit.
Come on man don't be ridiculous. A newer manifesto clearly trumps an older one.
Come on man, don't be so silly. The 2015 manifesto was not overridden until the 2017 election. The Tory government had already ruled out staying in the Single Market before then. If they can ignore manifesto commitments in 2016-2017, they can equally ignore them now.
Yeah but they are not going to so it's academic.
Whether they do or not (and it's not unlikely that they will break at least one those 2019 manifesto commitments), I'm only pointing out that tories arguing that a tory govt is bound to follow what their manifesto said on Brexit is hypocritical bollocks.
"‘This is an unfolding disaster. My advice? Don’t get cancer in 2020’
A misplaced obsession with Covid-19 fuelled by vested interests is killing tens of thousands, the leading oncologist Karol Sikora tells Rhys Blakely" (£)
another example of where our disproportionate response to virus is now doing real harm.
Thank goodness I’m in Spain where my diagnosis was in the first few weeks of The outbreak and my treatment has proceeded without delay, apart from the hospitalization after the first dose of chemo. I think if you’re waiting for a new hip you may have had to wait but most treatments Appear to be progressing as normal.
I believe even in the UK cancer treatment is still prioritised, it is elective surgery that has been pushed back by Covid patients
Cancer targets are unchanged, albeit often missed. Cancer referrals are down by 50% though.
That is very sad. Surely there is no reason now why the GP service should not be being provided through a mix of online/telephone and direct consultations.
Anecdote alert!
According to the doctors at the hospital, when I took my mother-in-law in, they were actively seeking patients. Referrals were massively down, and no-shows for booked treatments and operations were very high.
My GP put one of the admin staff on a task of ringing round people due to do to hospital to persuade them to go. Anyone who was doubtful, she then arranged to call herself.
My wife has been waiting some months for CT scan and consultant says queue is enormous and no idea when it will happen so having to just get it done privately. Had same issue with cardiologist.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
Many leave voters cited care for the future of the country for their grandchildren as their reason for voting leave. I voted for remain but I don't doubt their motivation simply because mine is different.
The few I know voted leave despite their grandchildren pleading with them to vote remain only to be told that as they were older they knew better. The most annoying trait of people my age and older can possess.
Not nearly as annoying as the youngsters active on twitter who failed to vote in the referendum and may well have tilted the result.
"‘This is an unfolding disaster. My advice? Don’t get cancer in 2020’
A misplaced obsession with Covid-19 fuelled by vested interests is killing tens of thousands, the leading oncologist Karol Sikora tells Rhys Blakely" (£)
Not really convinced that Karol Sikora really qualifies as either "leading" or 'mainstream'. Does he have serious and credible research to back up his rather large claimed numbers?
(Speaking as a slightly skeptical person who has been through the entire cycle of cancer testing, diagnosis, advice, treatment and probably remission under NHS management since March / April).
I also note the history of the Times manufacturing sensational stories out of the air during the Corona pandemic.
Sikora is a well known liar, I'm surprised he gets so much coverage.
There’s a whole list of people who, if praised in a covid post, make me automatically skip past it. Sikora, Woolhouse, Tegnell/Giesecke, Heneghan etc. Their rabid supporters probably being the reason (the KBF types are just deranged for a start).
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
On the Holyrood metric of 'let's have him/her as leader because there's no one else left', it looks like Gove will lead Bettertogether II by default. This below will be played on a loop, no doubt to cries of 'Gove's the man the Nats REALLY fear!'.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
Many leave voters cited care for the future of the country for their grandchildren as their reason for voting leave. I voted for remain but I don't doubt their motivation simply because mine is different.
The few I know voted leave despite their grandchildren pleading with them to vote remain only to be told that as they were older they knew better. The most annoying trait of people my age and older can possess.
Not nearly as annoying as the youngsters active on twitter who failed to vote in the referendum and may well have tilted the result.
"When you've finished killing Kruger with your mouth, Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine"
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
"‘This is an unfolding disaster. My advice? Don’t get cancer in 2020’
A misplaced obsession with Covid-19 fuelled by vested interests is killing tens of thousands, the leading oncologist Karol Sikora tells Rhys Blakely" (£)
another example of where our disproportionate response to virus is now doing real harm.
Thank goodness I’m in Spain where my diagnosis was in the first few weeks of The outbreak and my treatment has proceeded without delay, apart from the hospitalization after the first dose of chemo. I think if you’re waiting for a new hip you may have had to wait but most treatments Appear to be progressing as normal.
I believe even in the UK cancer treatment is still prioritised, it is elective surgery that has been pushed back by Covid patients
Cancer targets are unchanged, albeit often missed. Cancer referrals are down by 50% though.
That is very sad. Surely there is no reason now why the GP service should not be being provided through a mix of online/telephone and direct consultations.
Anecdote alert!
According to the doctors at the hospital, when I took my mother-in-law in, they were actively seeking patients. Referrals were massively down, and no-shows for booked treatments and operations were very high.
My GP put one of the admin staff on a task of ringing round people due to do to hospital to persuade them to go. Anyone who was doubtful, she then arranged to call herself.
My wife has been waiting some months for CT scan and consultant says queue is enormous and no idea when it will happen so having to just get it done privately. Had same issue with cardiologist.
Sorry to hear that - I know you were both quite poorly earlier this year - is she out of the woods now?
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
If you’re well off & have a nice little consulting sideline going then you get a double bung from the government when you reach retirement age - you get to pay less tax /and/ you get to draw your state pension!
I think most pensioners who work probably don't do consulting - except on PB.
Nobody is going to admit to nipping out to collect the trolleys at Tesco are they!
My sample of working pensioners starting something new from the last 3 days is one person starting a burger van.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
Its not impossible. A Canadian style FTA that Barnier originally said was possible meets every single criteria. As Barnier said years ago. The criteria that exist make one type of trade agreement very possible.
Possible.
Depending on what is included, such as the LPF we agreed to in the WDA. That is what Barnier wants, us to stick to our word.
Have to say I'm genuinely puzzled about this "Unionist Alliance" notion. It's not unreasonable for the anti-SNP parties to want to seek common ground - perhaps if the Conservatives want it so badly, they should agree to support a Labour, LD or Green FM for Scotland - would they do that?
Have to say I'm genuinely puzzled about this "Unionist Alliance" notion. It's not unreasonable for the anti-SNP parties to want to seek common ground - perhaps if the Conservatives want it so badly, they should agree to support a Labour, LD or Green FM for Scotland - would they do that?
It's based on the fact that Labour and the LDs gerrymandered the unique modified d'Hondt system at Holyrood such that if you do well on the constituency seats you are penalised on the list seats. This was self-confessedly designed by Dewar and whoever was LD leader in Scotland at the time to pretty much prevent the SNP ever getting a majority - though Alex Salmond broke the system in 2010. It thereforte has the disadvantages of FPTP but back to front, so to speak.
The idea is to have a pretend Unionist party deal with the constituencies and then the actual Britnat parties clean up on the lists, because they are not actually [edit] standing for the cinstituencies and won't win any, and so won't get marked down at all. How one manages to navigate the lack of trust of the Tories after the last 6 years, never mind the electoral laws and voter reactions to getting i nbed again with the Tories and Mr Johnson especially (so to speak), remain unclear. [Edit] as does the alliance.s actual policies short of no to indyref.
Have to say I'm genuinely puzzled about this "Unionist Alliance" notion. It's not unreasonable for the anti-SNP parties to want to seek common ground - perhaps if the Conservatives want it so badly, they should agree to support a Labour, LD or Green FM for Scotland - would they do that?
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
On the Holyrood metric of 'let's have him/her as leader because there's no one else left', it looks like Gove will lead Bettertogether II by default. This below will be played on a loop, no doubt to cries of 'Gove's the man the Nats REALLY fear!'.
Gove is Scottish and it was a comedy show. Davidson is interim Tory leader at Holyrood, Ross her successor, Gove is organising the Unionist Alliance behind the scenes. He is Better Together's Mandelson to Davidson's Blair, not its leader
If Gove (and his puppetmaster Cummings) are anywhere near the front of anything, it would be far better for everybody else to steer clear.
You sound as thought you would cheerfully see the Scots hive off from the rest of us, Mr HY.
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
On the Holyrood metric of 'let's have him/her as leader because there's no one else left', it looks like Gove will lead Bettertogether II by default. This below will be played on a loop, no doubt to cries of 'Gove's the man the Nats REALLY fear!'.
Gove is Scottish and it was a comedy show. Davidson is interim Tory leader at Holyrood, Ross her successor, Gove is organising the Unionist Alliance behind the scenes. He is Better Together's Mandelson to Davidson's Blair, not its leader
If Gove (and his puppetmaster Cummings) are anywhere near the front of anything, it would be far better for everybody else to steer clear.
You sound as thought you would cheerfully see the Scots hive off from the rest of us, Mr HY.
No, Gove is doing the right thing, last week meeting with former FM McConnell from Scottish Labour, Danny Alexander from the LDs and liasing with Galloway as they begin to form the Unionist Alliance to take on the SNP in 2021
On the pensions triple lock, isn’t the answer to forget 2020 and use 2019 as the baseline: i.e. 2021 pension increase on 2019 will be the higher of inflation, incomes or 5%. If Boris can’t sell that, he is not the leader he is made out to be (by some).
Have to say I'm genuinely puzzled about this "Unionist Alliance" notion. It's not unreasonable for the anti-SNP parties to want to seek common ground - perhaps if the Conservatives want it so badly, they should agree to support a Labour, LD or Green FM for Scotland - would they do that?
I would happily back a Labour or LD FM, though not a Green as they back independence.
I would also happily stand down all Scottish Conservative candidates for the constituency seats at Holyrood next year where the Scottish Conservatives were not in first or second place in 2021 and just stand Tory candidates for the list in those areas
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
Its not impossible. A Canadian style FTA that Barnier originally said was possible meets every single criteria. As Barnier said years ago. The criteria that exist make one type of trade agreement very possible.
Possible.
Depending on what is included, such as the LPF we agreed to in the WDA. That is what Barnier wants, us to stick to our word.
The same LPF conditions as Canada?
The LPF we agreed in the WDA PD.
Great. Just copy and paste the agreed WDA PD word-for-word into the new legal document and go with that. What's the issue?
Or did you forget the WDA PD was a political text and no legal LPF was agreed in the first place then? Which is the issue now.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
A FTA that ends free movement, allows our own trade deals, regains control of our fishing waters etc would be permissible under the Tory manifesto, any other deal would not.
Regulatory alignment and a LPA might be OK but only if it allowed improvements in animal welfare standards as promised for example
who cares what the latest tory manifesto says? the 2015 manifesto, on the same page as promising an in-out referendum on the EU, promised to strengthen Britain's place in the Single Market - so clearly the promise was: if the vote is to leave the EU we will stay in the Single Market. That clear manifesto promise was broken by the tories, so I fail to see what whatever crap they put in the latest manifesto should have to do with what happens with Brexit.
That was Cameron's manifesto and he resigned after the referendum result, May then had her manifesto in 2017 and Boris now has his own manifesto he won a majority for last year
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
On the Holyrood metric of 'let's have him/her as leader because there's no one else left', it looks like Gove will lead Bettertogether II by default. This below will be played on a loop, no doubt to cries of 'Gove's the man the Nats REALLY fear!'.
Anyone any idea why testing capacity not being fully utilised?
Probably because people aren't coming forward to get tested.
If testing capacity were being fully utilised it would be worrying as it would mean demand was exceeding supply and people would have to go without testing who need it.
I agree, fishing is non negotiable, both as the Tories won so many fishing ports at GE19 and as they are targeting fishing port constituencies at Holyrood next year like Moray currently held by the SNP.
Compromise may be possible on the LPA and regulatory alignment though as that would still allow the UK to do a FTA that ends free movement and allows us to do our own trade deals
Should the priority be the country or the Conservative party?
Is there a difference?
The country overwhelmingly elected the Conservative Party. If the country wants a different parties principles then they can elect a different one at the next election.
The country didn’t overwhelmingly elect a conservative government, it got less than50% of the vote so is a minority administration. It was also elected to look after the interests of all its residents as far as is possible and has a responsibility to seek fairness. This government does not try to do anything but look after those who pay the piper (And I don’t mean the average tax payer) knowing it can get away with it And will continue to do so. So much for democracy.
It is a majority administration elected under the standard voting system used by billions of people across the globe, an order of magnitude more people than any other voting system at all.
The party got millions more votes than any other party. Don't be a sore loser.
Still a minority administration governing (If you can call it that) in the interests of a very small group of people
364/650 is a majority. Its a majority administration by definition.
Minority of votes no majority support within the country, lucky to have been up against corbyn, lucky to be up against a party still seriously damaged by corbyn. A privileged position that should not be abused to benefit one group of people or one view point.
Really if you don't understand the working of our electoral system by now you never will. I doubt we'd hear a peep from you if Labour had the most seats after a GE.
Indeed, if we had pure PR the LDs would have held the balance of power at every general election in my lifetime apart from 2015 when UKIP would have held the balance of power, so we would still have had an EU referendum. Neither the Tories nor Labour have ever got over 50% of the vote.
In 2019 the LDs and the SNP and Greens would have held the balance of power, though the LDs ruled out backing Corbyn
There's a handful of seats where Labour lost their deposit in 2019 in England which LDs (or an independent) narrowly failed to win where there's a more sensible/credible argument Labour should stand down such as Winchester, Esher and Walton, Cheltenham and East Devon. Also a few extra seats such as St Ives, Eastbourne, SW Surrey or Guildford where this could potentially make a difference at the margins.
The main focus for the LDs has to be on winning soft Tory voters though as nearly all Con-LD seats apart from Wimbledon, Wantage, Finchley and Golders Green, Hitchin and Harpenden etc have a Labour vote of less than 15%.
The GPEW would be silly to stand Con-LD or Con-Lab marginals in 2024 though IMO and instead focus on safe Tory seats where they are strong at a local level (such as North Herefordshire, Solihull, Derbyshire Dales, Cannock Chase etc) and safer Labour seats where they are either strong or where disaffected Corbynites have an issue with the local Labour MP.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
If they really did not care about their grandchildren, grandparents would have sold their houses, bought flats in retirement villages and gone on luxury holidays and spent their children and grandchildrens' inheritance.
I would also point out despite the fact today's students pay fees the vast majority of today's grandparents never went to university at all but straight to work after school, only a tiny minority of over 65s went to university and with free tuition
My children’s inheritance will be spent on care fees for mum when I’m gone I should have sold up twelve years ago and pissed it all up against the wall, instead some care facility will rapidly eat into £600k, it’s just as well they actually don’t need an inheritance.
Not only did we not pay fees we also got a grant although I reckon I’ve paid for my education multiple times over with some to spare.
Only if she does not dies before she needs residential care, if she needs at home care the house is still exempt from being liable for those fees on her death and the £1 million threshold for IHT under Osborne remains.
Given only 10% went to university pre the 1990s 90% did not get a grant or a degree of our over 65s
Anyone any idea why testing capacity not being fully utilised?
Probably because people aren't coming forward to get tested.
If testing capacity were being fully utilised it would be worrying as it would mean demand was exceeding supply and people would have to go without testing who need it.
Or that track & trace isn't as pro-active as it could be?
I agree, fishing is non negotiable, both as the Tories won so many fishing ports at GE19 and as they are targeting fishing port constituencies at Holyrood next year like Moray currently held by the SNP.
Compromise may be possible on the LPA and regulatory alignment though as that would still allow the UK to do a FTA that ends free movement and allows us to do our own trade deals
Should the priority be the country or the Conservative party?
Is there a difference?
The country overwhelmingly elected the Conservative Party. If the country wants a different parties principles then they can elect a different one at the next election.
The country didn’t overwhelmingly elect a conservative government, it got less than50% of the vote so is a minority administration. It was also elected to look after the interests of all its residents as far as is possible and has a responsibility to seek fairness. This government does not try to do anything but look after those who pay the piper (And I don’t mean the average tax payer) knowing it can get away with it And will continue to do so. So much for democracy.
It is a majority administration elected under the standard voting system used by billions of people across the globe, an order of magnitude more people than any other voting system at all.
The party got millions more votes than any other party. Don't be a sore loser.
Still a minority administration governing (If you can call it that) in the interests of a very small group of people
364/650 is a majority. Its a majority administration by definition.
Minority of votes no majority support within the country, lucky to have been up against corbyn, lucky to be up against a party still seriously damaged by corbyn. A privileged position that should not be abused to benefit one group of people or one view point.
Really if you don't understand the working of our electoral system by now you never will. I doubt we'd hear a peep from you if Labour had the most seats after a GE.
Indeed, if we had pure PR the LDs would have held the balance of power at every general election in my lifetime apart from 2015 when UKIP would have held the balance of power, so we would still have had an EU referendum. Neither the Tories nor Labour have ever got over 50% of the vote.
In 2019 the LDs and the SNP and Greens would have held the balance of power, though the LDs ruled out backing Corbyn
There's a handful of seats where Labour lost their deposit in 2019 in England which LDs (or an independent) narrowly failed to win where there's a more sensible/credible argument Labour should stand down such as Winchester, Esher and Walton, Cheltenham and East Devon. Also a few extra seats such as St Ives, Eastbourne, SW Surrey or Guildford where this could potentially make a difference at the margins.
The main focus for the LDs has to be on winning soft Tory voters though as nearly all Con-LD seats apart from Wimbledon, Wantage, Finchley and Golders Green, Hitchin and Harpenden etc have a Labour vote of less than 15%.
The GPEW would be silly to stand Con-LD or Con-Lab marginals in 2024 though IMO and instead focus on safe Tory seats where they are strong at a local level (such as North Herefordshire, Solihull, Derbyshire Dales, Cannock Chase etc) and safer Labour seats where they are either strong or where disaffected Corbynites have an issue with the local Labour MP.
Chingford and Woodford Green was also a seat where the LD vote was higher than the Tory majority.
However as stated earlier 280 seats had a Tory voteshare over 50% at GE19, so for Starmer to become PM he needs a pact with the LDs to try and gain the remain 85 seats where the Tory vote was under 50%
I just Googled what the highest Test score is for a batsman, to see if my memory was right that Lara had the record and what it is - and from what came up I have to say that either Lara is different to how I remember him . . . or Google is coming up with a case of substituting one black person for another.
(PS I know who the image is - I just found it amusing and thought others here might too)
On the pensions triple lock, isn’t the answer to forget 2020 and use 2019 as the baseline: i.e. 2021 pension increase on 2019 will be the higher of inflation, incomes or 5%. If Boris can’t sell that, he is not the leader he is made out to be (by some).
Edited for grammar.
Its 2021 earnings thats the problem for the 2022 increase. As a short term fix yes using a different years calculation would work.
In the long run, its mathematically impossible to keep guaranteeing an ever increasing share of the pie for any one section of the government budget.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
Its not impossible. A Canadian style FTA that Barnier originally said was possible meets every single criteria. As Barnier said years ago. The criteria that exist make one type of trade agreement very possible.
Possible.
Depending on what is included, such as the LPF we agreed to in the WDA. That is what Barnier wants, us to stick to our word.
The same LPF conditions as Canada?
The LPF we agreed in the WDA PD.
Great. Just copy and paste the agreed WDA PD word-for-word into the new legal document and go with that. What's the issue?
Or did you forget the WDA PD was a political text and no legal LPF was agreed in the first place then? Which is the issue now.
The thing is we do not get to dictate the counter parties position.
It is why I expect no Trade Agreement, though there may be bare bones agreements on flights etc.
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
If they really did not care about their grandchildren, grandparents would have sold their houses, bought flats in retirement villages and gone on luxury holidays and spent their children and grandchildrens' inheritance.
I would also point out despite the fact today's students pay fees the vast majority of today's grandparents never went to university at all but straight to work after school, only a tiny minority of over 65s went to university and with free tuition
My children’s inheritance will be spent on care fees for mum when I’m gone I should have sold up twelve years ago and pissed it all up against the wall, instead some care facility will rapidly eat into £600k, it’s just as well they actually don’t need an inheritance.
Not only did we not pay fees we also got a grant although I reckon I’ve paid for my education multiple times over with some to spare.
Only if she does not dies before she needs residential care, if she needs at home care the house is still exempt from being liable for those fees on her death and the £1 million threshold for IHT under Osborne remains.
Given only 10% went to university pre the 1990s 90% did not get a grant or a degree of our over 65s
She will require a 24 hr/day secure Environment, potentially in sheltered accommodation with the right levels of support, eventually it will have to be a nursing home but I would hope that can be avoided as long as possible. Whilst I’m here there isn’t a problem but there is no certainty about how long that stays the situation.
Afternoon all Have to say I'm genuinely puzzled about this "Unionist Alliance" notion. It's not unreasonable for the anti-SNP parties to want to seek common ground - perhaps if the Conservatives want it so badly, they should agree to support a Labour, LD or Green FM for Scotland - would they do that?
I would happily back a Labour or LD FM, though not a Green as they back independence. I would also happily stand down all Scottish Conservative candidates for the constituency seats at Holyrood next year where the Scottish Conservatives were not in first or second place in 2021 and just stand Tory candidates for the list in those areas
On first sight, that seems a very reasonable proposal from old HY. I actually started to wonder why he was not Leader of the Conservaive Party, instead of the useless Johnson....
And then I remembered the long spoon, and all that.
HY, when all is said and done, is just the mouthpiece for the Gove-Cummings project. What are they really after? Why, surely, to contaminate all the other non-SNP parties by association with the Conservatives.
Nobody should ever trust the Conservatives over anything, ever again.
I agree, fishing is non negotiable, both as the Tories won so many fishing ports at GE19 and as they are targeting fishing port constituencies at Holyrood next year like Moray currently held by the SNP.
Compromise may be possible on the LPA and regulatory alignment though as that would still allow the UK to do a FTA that ends free movement and allows us to do our own trade deals
Should the priority be the country or the Conservative party?
Is there a difference?
The country overwhelmingly elected the Conservative Party. If the country wants a different parties principles then they can elect a different one at the next election.
The country didn’t overwhelmingly elect a conservative government, it got less than50% of the vote so is a minority administration. It was also elected to look after the interests of all its residents as far as is possible and has a responsibility to seek fairness. This government does not try to do anything but look after those who pay the piper (And I don’t mean the average tax payer) knowing it can get away with it And will continue to do so. So much for democracy.
It is a majority administration elected under the standard voting system used by billions of people across the globe, an order of magnitude more people than any other voting system at all.
The party got millions more votes than any other party. Don't be a sore loser.
Still a minority administration governing (If you can call it that) in the interests of a very small group of people
364/650 is a majority. Its a majority administration by definition.
Minority of votes no majority support within the country, lucky to have been up against corbyn, lucky to be up against a party still seriously damaged by corbyn. A privileged position that should not be abused to benefit one group of people or one view point.
Really if you don't understand the working of our electoral system by now you never will. I doubt we'd hear a peep from you if Labour had the most seats after a GE.
Indeed, if we had pure PR the LDs would have held the balance of power at every general election in my lifetime apart from 2015 when UKIP would have held the balance of power, so we would still have had an EU referendum. Neither the Tories nor Labour have ever got over 50% of the vote.
In 2019 the LDs and the SNP and Greens would have held the balance of power, though the LDs ruled out backing Corbyn
There's a handful of seats where Labour lost their deposit in 2019 in England which LDs (or an independent) narrowly failed to win where there's a more sensible/credible argument Labour should stand down such as Winchester, Esher and Walton, Cheltenham and East Devon. Also a few extra seats such as St Ives, Eastbourne, SW Surrey or Guildford where this could potentially make a difference at the margins.
The main focus for the LDs has to be on winning soft Tory voters though as nearly all Con-LD seats apart from Wimbledon, Wantage, Finchley and Golders Green, Hitchin and Harpenden etc have a Labour vote of less than 15%.
The GPEW would be silly to stand Con-LD or Con-Lab marginals in 2024 though IMO and instead focus on safe Tory seats where they are strong at a local level (such as North Herefordshire, Solihull, Derbyshire Dales, Cannock Chase etc) and safer Labour seats where they are either strong or where disaffected Corbynites have an issue with the local Labour MP.
Chingford and Woodford Green was also a seat where the LD vote was higher than the Tory majority.
However as stated earlier 280 seats had a Tory voteshare over 50% at GE19, so for Starmer to become PM he needs a pact with the LDs to try and gain the remain 85 seats where the Tory vote was under 50%
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
Its not impossible. A Canadian style FTA that Barnier originally said was possible meets every single criteria. As Barnier said years ago. The criteria that exist make one type of trade agreement very possible.
Possible.
Depending on what is included, such as the LPF we agreed to in the WDA. That is what Barnier wants, us to stick to our word.
The same LPF conditions as Canada?
The LPF we agreed in the WDA PD.
Great. Just copy and paste the agreed WDA PD word-for-word into the new legal document and go with that. What's the issue?
Or did you forget the WDA PD was a political text and no legal LPF was agreed in the first place then? Which is the issue now.
The thing is we do not get to dictate the counter parties position.
It is why I expect no Trade Agreement, though there may be bare bones agreements on flights etc.
The other party can say what they want as can we - but objectively no LPF was legally agreed in the WDA PD last year and our ambition for a Canada style LPF is entirely in line with the text that was agreed last year.
You don't get to rewrite the WDA PD to claim it agreed things that were never agreed at all.
Anyone any idea why testing capacity not being fully utilised?
Probably because people aren't coming forward to get tested.
If testing capacity were being fully utilised it would be worrying as it would mean demand was exceeding supply and people would have to go without testing who need it.
Or that track & trace isn't as pro-active as it could be?
Given the low levels of infection, it could be very proactive and yet have some spare capacity. The logic is similar to the arguments over hunting for U-boats versus escorting convoys and concentrating activity around them. ,
Indeed it would be good management to have spare capacity at this sort of time.
On the pensions triple lock, isn’t the answer to forget 2020 and use 2019 as the baseline: i.e. 2021 pension increase on 2019 will be the higher of inflation, incomes or 5%. If Boris can’t sell that, he is not the leader he is made out to be (by some).
Edited for grammar.
Its 2021 earnings thats the problem for the 2022 increase. As a short term fix yes using a different years calculation would work.
In the long run, its mathematically impossible to keep guaranteeing an ever increasing share of the pie for any one section of the government budget.
When the old age pension was introduced you weren’t supposed to live into your 80’s or more
I hope it is a very painful No Deal totally owned by this government and its supporters, but I suspect that Cummings won't allow that.
Remain lost, get over it.
That’s all Brexiteers have. We won. That’s it.
No articulation of any benefits of Brexit, no adaptation to the current circumstances. No attempt to win anyone over or find a positive case.
Just we won, we will do it, to hell with the consequences and damn the rest of you.
I see the r rate for Remainerdepression is back on the rise.
He has a point. What's it all for? Other than fish obviously.
Who are we going to sell the fish to? We are closing off our main market for goods.
we can always eat more of it ourselves.
It will vary our diet from eating grass.
Brits do not like fish all that much. It is why we sell our fish.
Now, if we could develop a wild McDonalds burger that could be harvested (ideally living in a clamshell style bap) then no doubt we would eat every single one...
Actually Brits love fish but they only like a resticted range. A bit of education would do wonders to widening what we like.
They tried that in the war. Brexiters ought to be forcefed on snoek and rock salmon for the rest of their lives.
Your country needs YOU... to eat bloater paste!
Well, herring can't be deep-fried so we have to find some other way of making it 'easy'.
(But it shallow-fries very well after being dipped in oatmeal - had it with new potatoes a few days ago.)
I agree, fishing is non negotiable, both as the Tories won so many fishing ports at GE19 and as they are targeting fishing port constituencies at Holyrood next year like Moray currently held by the SNP.
Compromise may be possible on the LPA and regulatory alignment though as that would still allow the UK to do a FTA that ends free movement and allows us to do our own trade deals
Should the priority be the country or the Conservative party?
Is there a difference?
The country overwhelmingly elected the Conservative Party. If the country wants a different parties principles then they can elect a different one at the next election.
The country didn’t overwhelmingly elect a conservative government, it got less than50% of the vote so is a minority administration. It was also elected to look after the interests of all its residents as far as is possible and has a responsibility to seek fairness. This government does not try to do anything but look after those who pay the piper (And I don’t mean the average tax payer) knowing it can get away with it And will continue to do so. So much for democracy.
It is a majority administration elected under the standard voting system used by billions of people across the globe, an order of magnitude more people than any other voting system at all.
The party got millions more votes than any other party. Don't be a sore loser.
Still a minority administration governing (If you can call it that) in the interests of a very small group of people
364/650 is a majority. Its a majority administration by definition.
Minority of votes no majority support within the country, lucky to have been up against corbyn, lucky to be up against a party still seriously damaged by corbyn. A privileged position that should not be abused to benefit one group of people or one view point.
Really if you don't understand the working of our electoral system by now you never will. I doubt we'd hear a peep from you if Labour had the most seats after a GE.
Indeed, if we had pure PR the LDs would have held the balance of power at every general election in my lifetime apart from 2015 when UKIP would have held the balance of power, so we would still have had an EU referendum. Neither the Tories nor Labour have ever got over 50% of the vote.
In 2019 the LDs and the SNP and Greens would have held the balance of power, though the LDs ruled out backing Corbyn
There's a handful of seats where Labour lost their deposit in 2019 in England which LDs (or an independent) narrowly failed to win where there's a more sensible/credible argument Labour should stand down such as Winchester, Esher and Walton, Cheltenham and East Devon. Also a few extra seats such as St Ives, Eastbourne, SW Surrey or Guildford where this could potentially make a difference at the margins.
The main focus for the LDs has to be on winning soft Tory voters though as nearly all Con-LD seats apart from Wimbledon, Wantage, Finchley and Golders Green, Hitchin and Harpenden etc have a Labour vote of less than 15%.
The GPEW would be silly to stand Con-LD or Con-Lab marginals in 2024 though IMO and instead focus on safe Tory seats where they are strong at a local level (such as North Herefordshire, Solihull, Derbyshire Dales, Cannock Chase etc) and safer Labour seats where they are either strong or where disaffected Corbynites have an issue with the local Labour MP.
Chingford and Woodford Green was also a seat where the LD vote was higher than the Tory majority.
However as stated earlier 280 seats had a Tory voteshare over 50% at GE19, so for Starmer to become PM he needs a pact with the LDs to try and gain the remain 85 seats where the Tory vote was under 50%
Or for the Tory vote to drop, obviously!
Given the national Tory voteshare in 2019 was 44% and not one poll has the Tory vote under 40% not one seat with a Tory voteshare over 50% is currently at risk, even if some with voteshares under 50% might be if Labour or LD voters voted tactically
"the biggest problem we have is that pensioners are now on average wealthier than the younger population" No shit Sherlock, after a lifetime at work the retired have assets.
On average, pensioner households in the UK have higher weekly income after direct taxation (income, council tax etc, but not VAT) than working households (see latest ONS release) - pity the working household unable to access mortgage credit & therefore forced to grind without even the carrot of being able to retire having paid off a mortgage!
(Working age household incoming was hammered in the 2008-13 recession, whereas retired people’s income was mostly either index linked pensions or index linked benefits.)
We are in a situation as a country where we have a retired people’s party who have a massive vested interest in keeping up the incomes of their voters at the expense of a working population who not only must pay taxes to counter the inflationary consequences of the older generation’s benefits but are also must pay them rent in return for the right to a roof over their heads.
You can see why certain parts of the younger generation might be a tad tetchy about this.
You are right, but by no means all pensioners are wealthy. Many still have to live off the relatively low state pension (£134.25 a week is not a lot of money), or the state pension plus a small occupational pension. Very few, if any, poorer pensioners seem to be active on PB.
So the triple lock helps the poorer pensioners keep up, as it benefits the state pension. Rather than abandon it, surely the equitable solution is to use taxation (both on income and assets, on inheritance) to raise more money from those pensioners that can afford it, while protecting those at the bottom of the heap.
Surely pensioners are taxed the same as anyone else, if they earn more than their tax allowance then they get taxed on it. They do not get any special tax treatment.
Eh? Of course plenty to do, Corbyn wanted to be PM as a pensioner, he wouldnt have paid any NI.
Which brings us to an interesting issue.
When pensions were setup, the idea was that, on reaching an age when hard manual labour* was no longer possible, working class people would have enough money to live.
The nature of work has changed - there are vastly fewer (as a proportion) jobs that have such an onerous physical element.
At the same time, health and fitness means there are many who are capable of work longer.
In addition, there are more and more part time jobs, or ones that are flexible hours. For example, the mother of a friend is a retried accountant - she puts in some hours, helping with the accounts of companies she used to work for. Which pays for the holidays each year...
The idea that we all work till the age of X and then stop suddenly is as out of date as everyone dressing in pinstripe & bowler hat and catching 7:15 to Charing Cross each morning.
*Skilled or otherwise
Indeed, and with a potential move away from the office these trends will continue, creating more jobs for experienced older people who can comfortably and effectively work from home and fewer opportunities for those leaving education who need training and interaction that is hard to do remotely.
It isnt a zero sum game. Older employed people employ younger ones.
The age limit on NI should go alongside the compulsory retirement age. Both are obsolete in the modern world.
For example, when I liquidate
Its not a zero sum game I agree, but as a nation we should understand that the current generation of youngsters are the first in a century or so to have it worse than their parents. Government should come up with solutions to help them, not continually shaft them with things like the exam failures, high tuition fees, QE, loss of employment rights thru the gig economy, the triple lock and other pensioner subsidies and so on.
I agree. The grey voters need to care more about their grandchildren than they do for the nostalgia of empire.
If they really did not care about their grandchildren, grandparents would have sold their houses, bought flats in retirement villages and gone on luxury holidays and spent their children and grandchildrens' inheritance.
I would also point out despite the fact today's students pay fees the vast majority of today's grandparents never went to university at all but straight to work after school, only a tiny minority of over 65s went to university and with free tuition
My children’s inheritance will be spent on care fees for mum when I’m gone I should have sold up twelve years ago and pissed it all up against the wall, instead some care facility will rapidly eat into £600k, it’s just as well they actually don’t need an inheritance.
Not only did we not pay fees we also got a grant although I reckon I’ve paid for my education multiple times over with some to spare.
Only if she does not dies before she needs residential care, if she needs at home care the house is still exempt from being liable for those fees on her death and the £1 million threshold for IHT under Osborne remains.
Given only 10% went to university pre the 1990s 90% did not get a grant or a degree of our over 65s
She will require a 24 hr/day secure Environment, potentially in sheltered accommodation with the right levels of support, eventually it will have to be a nursing home but I would hope that can be avoided as long as possible. Whilst I’m here there isn’t a problem but there is no certainty about how long that stays the situation.
No certainty no but if she avoids the nursing home then the house is inherited tax free
On the pensions triple lock, isn’t the answer to forget 2020 and use 2019 as the baseline: i.e. 2021 pension increase on 2019 will be the higher of inflation, incomes or 5%. If Boris can’t sell that, he is not the leader he is made out to be (by some).
Edited for grammar.
Its 2021 earnings thats the problem for the 2022 increase. As a short term fix yes using a different years calculation would work.
In the long run, its mathematically impossible to keep guaranteeing an ever increasing share of the pie for any one section of the government budget.
Yes, sorry, forgot that the July earnings figure is used for the April increase the next year. But the points stands that the anomalous rebound in July 2021 from 2020 can be avoided by using a comparison between July 2021 and July 2019.
Your point on the sustainability of the triple-lock is valid, albeit a separate issue. Unless, of course, the Chancellor is using the 2021 anomaly to kill it off.
Brexit shmexit... other than the extremists and obsessives, people are just tired of it all by now. Without movement on fish then WTO it shall be. Which will prove at a macro level to be a storm in a teacup. Still time for a compromise if Mutti steps in but at this point I’m not sure anyone much cares either way.
That sounds about right. It's old news, and there's not going to be a deal because the relatively loose relationship on the table isn't worth either side compromising its objectives. The EU demands close alignment (to stop the UK competing against it effectively, to assert the form of control that it expects across the whole continent, and because a successful Brexit would provide an exit plan for other members that might grow restive in future to follow,) and the UK Government has been elected under such terms that not only does it not want to give in, it couldn't yield even if it did.
Thus the Northern Ireland protocols survive - because the Government doesn't want to stir the hornet's nest on the peace process, the province is of peripheral value to it, and a hard border would wreck its relationship with the Americans - but beyond that there's not much else left to be discussed.
This is just the logical conclusion to everything that's happened since Cameron tried to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from within, and came away with nothing. At every stage the EU raises the hand and expects the UK to cave, but in the end the UK (other than in the special case of the Irish border, where it has sufficient motivation to give in) ends up not doing so, and is therefore pushed further and further away. And so, having started out basically wanting some modest tweaks to migration policy, Britain has ultimately ended up outside all of the EU's structures, whilst the EU has seen its north-western flank fall into the sea, taking its largest city and one of its key member states with it, and its project to unite the continent has been destroyed.
I would say that the moral of this story is all about the damage that inflexibility and an unwillingness to compromise can do, but then again the UK Government keeps throwing money and powers at Scotland and a fat lot of good that's done it. Perhaps, instead, the real story here is about the inevitable fate of those political structures that attempt to bring nations together? Sooner or later, either those nations have to merge into one seamless and virtually homogeneous whole - how many people still identify as Prussian, let alone favour secession from Germany? - or tensions between them will eventually break the whole structure apart. As with England and the EU, so with Scotland and the UK - once popular opinion in one state concludes that the centre of power is remote and acts in a manner inimical to its interests, then interest in and loyalty to the wider structure collapses and secession becomes a matter of when, not if.
Once the number of people who viewed the EU as poison, or at the very least a tedious burden that we could manage perfectly well without, passed a critical threshold then Brexit became inevitable.
The point that Brexiteers and Scottish Nationalists both miss is that Scotland did endorse the Union in 2014 by some margin. Brexit and Johnson have turned that support into antipathy so independence is now the majority opinion. No-one who voted Leave genuinely cares about the Union.
I was working in Edinburgh at the time of the vote (by the way I didn't vote). The feeling I got (and this is purely anecdotal) amongst those who I believe were non-aligned but probably voted 'no', was not one of happiness or even relief. It was a sort of sharpness and almost guilt, like really they wished they'd had more bottle. It never felt like the end of the argument, because it was not people really feeling at home in the union.
That is a clear eyed and somewhat gloomy depiction of 2014 for someone who's invariably pro Union. Can I ask (without any intention to troll), can you see the current crop of Unionists managing to increase that sense of comfort within the Union? Sunak alone seems to have some meager positive currency, as it were, but Gove, BJ, Galloway(!) etc seem to inspire large dollops of amused contempt.
I gave it a like when it appeared. I'd be interested to know too.
On the Holyrood metric of 'let's have him/her as leader because there's no one else left', it looks like Gove will lead Bettertogether II by default. This below will be played on a loop, no doubt to cries of 'Gove's the man the Nats REALLY fear!'.
I see that @HYUFD is claiming that voters at the last election voted for a hard Brexit.
Not so.
The Tory manifesto says this: “We will negotiate a trade agreement next year - one that strengthens our Union....”. Page 5 if anyone is interested.
Those who voted Tory did not vote for a hard Brexit ie an exit without any trade agreement with the EU.
That is if they believed a word the Tories told them, which given their record might be a tad foolish.
'We will keep the UK out of the single market, out of any form of customs union, and end the role of the European Court of Justice.
This future relationship will be one that allows us to: Take back control of our laws. Take back control of our money. Control our own trade policy. Introduce an Australian-style points based immigration system. Raise standards in areas like workers’ rights, animal welfare, agriculture and the environment. Ensure we are in full control of our fishing waters.
...and we will not extend the implementation period beyond December 2020.'
So we can have a trade deal but only provided the EU agrees to allow the UK to do all it wants to do in the future relationship
I’ve read page 5 in full. Indeed, I’ve read the entire manifesto in full. It categorically does not promise a Hard Brexit, which is what you claimed. Anyone reading this - and believing it - did not vote for a Hard Brexit.
The Hard Brexiteers have consistently lied about what their ultimate destination was, from 2016 onwards. As you must have doubtless realised, since you voted Remain. The fact that they are lying now is no surprise.
Wrong. A hard Brexit by definition means leaving the single market and customs union which was precisely what the 2019 Tory manifesto promised.
The manifesto also said we could still do a trade deal with the EU true but also promised, for instance, to regain full control of our fishing waters, which is something the EU is refusing to budge on. If so the manifesto also promised no extension of the implementation period beyond December deal or no deal.
I agree that the Tory manifesto promised to have cake and eat it, promising a trade agreement yet setting criteria that make that impossible.
A WTO Brexit is the inevitable consequence of Brexit, anything softer was always a chimera, used by the Brexiteers to get over the line. If no European rules are to be applied there can be no Trade Deal. No leading Brexiteer has advocated anything like a soft Brexit since June 2016.
Its not impossible. A Canadian style FTA that Barnier originally said was possible meets every single criteria. As Barnier said years ago. The criteria that exist make one type of trade agreement very possible.
Possible.
Depending on what is included, such as the LPF we agreed to in the WDA. That is what Barnier wants, us to stick to our word.
The same LPF conditions as Canada?
The LPF we agreed in the WDA PD.
Great. Just copy and paste the agreed WDA PD word-for-word into the new legal document and go with that. What's the issue?
Or did you forget the WDA PD was a political text and no legal LPF was agreed in the first place then? Which is the issue now.
The thing is we do not get to dictate the counter parties position.
It is why I expect no Trade Agreement, though there may be bare bones agreements on flights etc.
The other party can say what they want as can we - but objectively no LPF was legally agreed in the WDA PD last year and our ambition for a Canada style LPF is entirely in line with the text that was agreed last year.
You don't get to rewrite the WDA PD to claim it agreed things that were never agreed at all.
"XIV. LEVEL PLAYING FIELD FOR OPEN AND FAIR COMPETITION 77. Given the Union and the United Kingdom's geographic proximity and economic interdependence, the future relationship must ensure open and fair competition, encompassing robust commitments to ensure a level playing field. The precise nature of commitments should be commensurate with the scope and depth of the future relationship and the economic connectedness of the Parties. These commitments should prevent distortions of trade and unfair competitive advantages. To that end, the Parties should uphold the common high standards applicable in the Union and the United Kingdom at the end of the transition period in the areas of state aid, competition, social and employment standards, environment, climate change, and relevant tax matters. The Parties should in particular maintain a robust and comprehensive framework for competition and state aid control that prevents undue distortion of trade and competition; commit to the principles of good governance in the area of taxation and to the curbing of harmful tax practices; and maintain environmental, social and employment standards at the current high levels provided by the existing common standards. In so doing, they should rely on appropriate and relevant Union and international standards, and include appropriate mechanisms to ensure effective implementation domestically, enforcement and dispute settlement. The future relationship should also promote adherence to and effective implementation of relevant internationally agreed principles and rules in these domains, including the Paris Agreement."
Afternoon all Have to say I'm genuinely puzzled about this "Unionist Alliance" notion. It's not unreasonable for the anti-SNP parties to want to seek common ground - perhaps if the Conservatives want it so badly, they should agree to support a Labour, LD or Green FM for Scotland - would they do that?
I would happily back a Labour or LD FM, though not a Green as they back independence. I would also happily stand down all Scottish Conservative candidates for the constituency seats at Holyrood next year where the Scottish Conservatives were not in first or second place in 2021 and just stand Tory candidates for the list in those areas
On first sight, that seems a very reasonable proposal from old HY. I actually started to wonder why he was not Leader of the Conservaive Party, instead of the useless Johnson....
And then I remembered the long spoon, and all that.
HY, when all is said and done, is just the mouthpiece for the Gove-Cummings project. What are they really after? Why, surely, to contaminate all the other non-SNP parties by association with the Conservatives.
Nobody should ever trust the Conservatives over anything, ever again.
Gove isn't, that is why he has been secretly meeting other Unionist parties.
From what I understand there is a serious prospect the Scottish Conservatives will not stand at Holyrood in 2021 in constituency seats which they do not already hold or were not in second place in in 2016 and obviously they would hope Labour and the LDs would reciprocate in Tory held Holyrood constituency seats but still obviously nothing confirmed yet
Comments
They were within their rights to ask for those things. They could even demand them. What they couldn't do was guarantee them in the face of a Europe-wide shrug of the shoulders. (Are any continental politicians, even very Eurosceptic ones, arguing that the EU should soften its demands and give the UK more of what it wants?)
Hence the pickle described in the header.
The country voted in 2016 and 2019 to leave the Single Market but to seek a free trade agreement instead. Whether you call that Soft or Hard is not that major an issue.
A newspaper article inaccurate? Surely some mistake....
(But it shallow-fries very well after being dipped in oatmeal - had it with new potatoes a few days ago.)
(Speaking as a slightly skeptical person who has been through the entire cycle of cancer testing, diagnosis, advice, treatment and probably remission under NHS management since March / April).
I also note the history of the Times manufacturing sensational stories out of the air during the Corona pandemic.
Crow rather than gannet down south perhaps (though I gather that the wartime local 'craw' from the 'Crow Wood' [translated for PB sensibilities] was actually young rooks in that rookery, rather than corbies proper).
According to the doctors at the hospital, when I took my mother-in-law in, they were actively seeking patients. Referrals were massively down, and no-shows for booked treatments and operations were very high.
My GP put one of the admin staff on a task of ringing round people due to do to hospital to persuade them to go. Anyone who was doubtful, she then arranged to call herself.
Regulatory alignment and a LPA might be OK but only if it allowed improvements in animal welfare standards as promised for example
Headline - 6
Seven days - 4
Yesterday - 2
I would also point out despite the fact today's students pay fees the vast majority of today's grandparents never went to university at all but straight to work after school, only a tiny minority of over 65s went to university and with free tuition
https://twitter.com/Ian_Fraser/status/1133074085888577536?s=20
Edit: but what about the future Lady No-To-Indy?
Depending on what is included, such as the LPF we agreed to in the WDA. That is what Barnier wants, us to stick to our word.
The problem is that Barnier's interpretation of the WDA is different to the words agreed. The LPF agreement in the WDA was very vague and sparse and includes everything from dynamic alignment through to a CETA style LPF. The problem is Barnier doesn't want it to mean that - but the UK never agreed to anything else.
Davidson is interim Tory leader at Holyrood, Ross her successor, Gove is organising the Unionist Alliance behind the scenes.
He is Better Together's Mandelson to Davidson's Blair, not its leader
The same LPF conditions as Canada?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/may/22/karol-sikora-honorary-professor-imperial-college
You're for the high jump, matey...
Not only did we not pay fees we also got a grant although I reckon I’ve paid for my education multiple times over with some to spare.
Had same issue with cardiologist.
Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine"
Have to say I'm genuinely puzzled about this "Unionist Alliance" notion. It's not unreasonable for the anti-SNP parties to want to seek common ground - perhaps if the Conservatives want it so badly, they should agree to support a Labour, LD or Green FM for Scotland - would they do that?
Future header pic...
https://twitter.com/darrenhunter2/status/1297159685615898627
The idea is to have a pretend Unionist party deal with the constituencies and then the actual Britnat parties clean up on the lists, because they are not actually [edit] standing for the cinstituencies and won't win any, and so won't get marked down at all. How one manages to navigate the lack of trust of the Tories after the last 6 years, never mind the electoral laws and voter reactions to getting i nbed again with the Tories and Mr Johnson especially (so to speak), remain unclear. [Edit] as does the alliance.s actual policies short of no to indyref.
You sound as thought you would cheerfully see the Scots hive off from the rest of us, Mr HY.
Edited for grammar.
I would also happily stand down all Scottish Conservative candidates for the constituency seats at Holyrood next year where the Scottish Conservatives were not in first or second place in 2021 and just stand Tory candidates for the list in those areas
The lads got a bright future I hope. Well done!
https://twitter.com/Craigmiller1986/status/1297160328946606080?s=20
Anyone any idea why testing capacity not being fully utilised?
Or did you forget the WDA PD was a political text and no legal LPF was agreed in the first place then? Which is the issue now.
If testing capacity were being fully utilised it would be worrying as it would mean demand was exceeding supply and people would have to go without testing who need it.
The main focus for the LDs has to be on winning soft Tory voters though as nearly all Con-LD seats apart from Wimbledon, Wantage, Finchley and Golders Green, Hitchin and Harpenden etc have a Labour vote of less than 15%.
The GPEW would be silly to stand Con-LD or Con-Lab marginals in 2024 though IMO and instead focus on safe Tory seats where they are strong at a local level (such as North Herefordshire, Solihull, Derbyshire Dales, Cannock Chase etc) and safer Labour seats where they are either strong or where disaffected Corbynites have an issue with the local Labour MP.
Given only 10% went to university pre the 1990s 90% did not get a grant or a degree of our over 65s
However as stated earlier 280 seats had a Tory voteshare over 50% at GE19, so for Starmer to become PM he needs a pact with the LDs to try and gain the remain 85 seats where the Tory vote was under 50%
(PS I know who the image is - I just found it amusing and thought others here might too)
https://twitter.com/NHSTayside/status/1297081070869983243?s=20
In the long run, its mathematically impossible to keep guaranteeing an ever increasing share of the pie for any one section of the government budget.
It is why I expect no Trade Agreement, though there may be bare bones agreements on flights etc.
And then I remembered the long spoon, and all that.
HY, when all is said and done, is just the mouthpiece for the Gove-Cummings project. What are they really after? Why, surely, to contaminate all the other non-SNP parties by association with the Conservatives.
Nobody should ever trust the Conservatives over anything, ever again.
You don't get to rewrite the WDA PD to claim it agreed things that were never agreed at all.
Indeed it would be good management to have spare capacity at this sort of time.
Your point on the sustainability of the triple-lock is valid, albeit a separate issue. Unless, of course, the Chancellor is using the 2021 anomaly to kill it off.
77. Given the Union and the United Kingdom's geographic proximity and economic
interdependence, the future relationship must ensure open and fair competition,
encompassing robust commitments to ensure a level playing field. The precise nature of
commitments should be commensurate with the scope and depth of the future relationship
and the economic connectedness of the Parties. These commitments should prevent
distortions of trade and unfair competitive advantages. To that end, the Parties should
uphold the common high standards applicable in the Union and the United Kingdom at the
end of the transition period in the areas of state aid, competition, social and employment standards, environment, climate change, and relevant tax matters. The Parties should in
particular maintain a robust and comprehensive framework for competition and state aid
control that prevents undue distortion of trade and competition; commit to the principles of
good governance in the area of taxation and to the curbing of harmful tax practices; and
maintain environmental, social and employment standards at the current high levels
provided by the existing common standards. In so doing, they should rely on appropriate and
relevant Union and international standards, and include appropriate mechanisms to ensure
effective implementation domestically, enforcement and dispute settlement. The future
relationship should also promote adherence to and effective implementation of relevant
internationally agreed principles and rules in these domains, including the Paris Agreement."
That is what we committed to.
From what I understand there is a serious prospect the Scottish Conservatives will not stand at Holyrood in 2021 in constituency seats which they do not already hold or were not in second place in in 2016 and obviously they would hope Labour and the LDs would reciprocate in Tory held Holyrood constituency seats but still obviously nothing confirmed yet