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If like me you thought your AstroZeneca jab was second best some good news – politicalbetting.com

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  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:



    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.

    From t'internet. Wealth taxes in Europe:

    Net Wealth Taxes
    Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on individuals’ wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€152,000 or US $170,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax dates to 1892. Under COVID-19-related measures, individual business owners and shareholders who realize a loss in 2020 are eligible for a one-year deferred payment of the wealth tax.

    Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 3.75 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($784,000; lower in some regions), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while nonresidents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain.

    Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. The Swiss net wealth tax was first implemented in 1840.
    Yes, I never met anyone in Switzerland who thought the wealth tax unreasonable. Come to that, I've never met anyone who hated IHT, though I know there's a widespread belief to that effect. When I inherited from my mother, it was a nice windfall, and paying the tax just made it a smaller windfall, but still very welcome. It never occurred to me to grumble, any more than I mutter about VAT when I buy something - and VAT is far more significant as it hits you every day, rather than a couple of times in your life.

    We all extrapolate from our personal feelings and those of oyr friends. But I'm quite sure that people get used to whatever the tax arrangements are. What they really do hate is volatility, the sort of thing you see in populist states where a tax is suddenly doubled.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    dixiedean said:

    See Lozza has thrown his hat into the ring.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/06/laurence-fox-joins-london-mayoral-race-on-anti-lockdown-ticket

    What's the over/under for his share?

    Will he even be on the ballot?
  • RobD said:

    RobD said:

    DavidL said:

    So The Sunday Times have done a piece on Boris Johnson's finances, he really is a shit negotiator.

    Johnson’s biggest likely outlay is the result of what one Old Etonian school friend describes as “his pecker problem”. The friend recalls: “Boris has always had a problem keeping his pecker in his trousers. And that’s what so often has led him into trouble.”

    Six children — those are the ones that are known about — by three women, plus two divorces and an imminent third wedding to pay for don’t come cheap.

    Johnson is still believed to help support two of his four children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler, who are all now in their twenties after expensive private schools and universities.

    Stephanie, aged 11, is Johnson’s fifth child, through his affair with Helen Macintyre, an art consultant, and Wilfred will be one next month.

    Johnson’s first divorce, from Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1993, was not costly and they had no children. But his divorce last year from Wheeler, a human rights QC, after 25 years together, was a different matter. Having separated in the summer of 2018 after Johnson met Symonds, it took them until February 2020 to reach a financial settlement.

    Word in legal circles is that Johnson was by then desperate to finalise the divorce, because Symonds was pregnant and he was determined not to announce the pregnancy until Wheeler, and their children, had been placated.

    That gave his soon-to-be-ex-wife considerable leverage in the protracted negotiations, leading to what one QC who professes familiarity with the details describes as “one of the most devastatingly one-sided divorces in British legal history”.

    It even gave Wheeler a considerable percentage of Johnson’s future lucrative earnings after he leaves office. Might it be no wonder then that Boris needs a leg-up with the home decor?


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-is-boris-johnson-so-skint-5jvvbgdxg

    Why the hell does a QC need any money from her ex? She should be supporting him.
    Also why does he have to support children in their twenties?
    Because he promised the support beforehand and this is to ensure he honours it.

    I mean who would trust the word of Boris Johnson, much better to get it down in writing via a court order.
    OK, perhaps my question is why do adults in their twenties who went to private school and university need any sort of financial support?
    Because they may have made financial commitments based on promises of their father (say a mortgage) and their mother may have been worried he might resile from that, especially if he had more kids.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    rcs1000 said:

    DougSeal said:
    And with J&J coming on stream there, they stand a really good chance of not being far behind the UK. (Albeit some states are going to be doing better than others.)
    My mother in law in CT had a reaction to a Pfizer first dose and is trying to persuade Yale Health to give her J&J as a follow up.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    DavidL said:

    So The Sunday Times have done a piece on Boris Johnson's finances, he really is a shit negotiator.

    Johnson’s biggest likely outlay is the result of what one Old Etonian school friend describes as “his pecker problem”. The friend recalls: “Boris has always had a problem keeping his pecker in his trousers. And that’s what so often has led him into trouble.”

    Six children — those are the ones that are known about — by three women, plus two divorces and an imminent third wedding to pay for don’t come cheap.

    Johnson is still believed to help support two of his four children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler, who are all now in their twenties after expensive private schools and universities.

    Stephanie, aged 11, is Johnson’s fifth child, through his affair with Helen Macintyre, an art consultant, and Wilfred will be one next month.

    Johnson’s first divorce, from Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1993, was not costly and they had no children. But his divorce last year from Wheeler, a human rights QC, after 25 years together, was a different matter. Having separated in the summer of 2018 after Johnson met Symonds, it took them until February 2020 to reach a financial settlement.

    Word in legal circles is that Johnson was by then desperate to finalise the divorce, because Symonds was pregnant and he was determined not to announce the pregnancy until Wheeler, and their children, had been placated.

    That gave his soon-to-be-ex-wife considerable leverage in the protracted negotiations, leading to what one QC who professes familiarity with the details describes as “one of the most devastatingly one-sided divorces in British legal history”.

    It even gave Wheeler a considerable percentage of Johnson’s future lucrative earnings after he leaves office. Might it be no wonder then that Boris needs a leg-up with the home decor?


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-is-boris-johnson-so-skint-5jvvbgdxg

    Why the hell does a QC need any money from her ex? She should be supporting him.
    Also why does he have to support children in their twenties?
    Because he promised the support beforehand and this is to ensure he honours it.

    I mean who would trust the word of Boris Johnson, much better to get it down in writing via a court order.
    OK, perhaps my question is why do adults in their twenties who went to private school and university need any sort of financial support?
    Because they may have made financial commitments based on promises of their father (say a mortgage) and their mother may have been worried he might resile from that, especially if he had more kids.
    Talk about entitled. Isn't the whole point of adulthood going it alone? OK, you might get support with the deposit, but paying for the mortgage?
  • RobD said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    DavidL said:

    So The Sunday Times have done a piece on Boris Johnson's finances, he really is a shit negotiator.

    Johnson’s biggest likely outlay is the result of what one Old Etonian school friend describes as “his pecker problem”. The friend recalls: “Boris has always had a problem keeping his pecker in his trousers. And that’s what so often has led him into trouble.”

    Six children — those are the ones that are known about — by three women, plus two divorces and an imminent third wedding to pay for don’t come cheap.

    Johnson is still believed to help support two of his four children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler, who are all now in their twenties after expensive private schools and universities.

    Stephanie, aged 11, is Johnson’s fifth child, through his affair with Helen Macintyre, an art consultant, and Wilfred will be one next month.

    Johnson’s first divorce, from Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1993, was not costly and they had no children. But his divorce last year from Wheeler, a human rights QC, after 25 years together, was a different matter. Having separated in the summer of 2018 after Johnson met Symonds, it took them until February 2020 to reach a financial settlement.

    Word in legal circles is that Johnson was by then desperate to finalise the divorce, because Symonds was pregnant and he was determined not to announce the pregnancy until Wheeler, and their children, had been placated.

    That gave his soon-to-be-ex-wife considerable leverage in the protracted negotiations, leading to what one QC who professes familiarity with the details describes as “one of the most devastatingly one-sided divorces in British legal history”.

    It even gave Wheeler a considerable percentage of Johnson’s future lucrative earnings after he leaves office. Might it be no wonder then that Boris needs a leg-up with the home decor?


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-is-boris-johnson-so-skint-5jvvbgdxg

    Why the hell does a QC need any money from her ex? She should be supporting him.
    Also why does he have to support children in their twenties?
    Because he promised the support beforehand and this is to ensure he honours it.

    I mean who would trust the word of Boris Johnson, much better to get it down in writing via a court order.
    OK, perhaps my question is why do adults in their twenties who went to private school and university need any sort of financial support?
    Because they may have made financial commitments based on promises of their father (say a mortgage) and their mother may have been worried he might resile from that, especially if he had more kids.
    Talk about entitled. Isn't the whole point of adulthood going it alone? OK, you might get support with the deposit, but paying for the mortgage?
    How about they were planning on renting and their father said no renting is bad, get a mortgage.

    Or get a bigger house and I'll pay the difference.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    edited March 2021
    A simple rule, if you want to divorce a lawyer then either be a lawyer yourself or bring your own lube.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,088
    edited March 2021
    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Fishing said:

    kinabalu said:

    Fishing said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    It's crystal clear to me what Labour's line should be. Balance the books, yes, but this time the broadest shoulders really should bear the burden. Tax the arse off those who can afford to pay. Details tbc.

    The problem here is the media narrative would be Tories give you free stuff, Labour just take away your hard earned. It's a difficult conundrum to beat.
    It's difficult for Labour because they don't know what the Tory theme will be. But whatever it is, I think Labour should be positioning to the fiscal left of it. This sounds obvious but it's less so in these days of cross dressing economic populism.

    But first of all, mirror the Tories on "sound money". If the Tories are abandoning that principle, Labour should too. It would be an electoral own goal to embrace hairshirt voluntarily. And if the Tories are sticking to it, to sound money, Labour should too, and to the same extent. Goal is to remove that "Labour equals feckless deficits, Tories are the grown ups" talking point.

    Then within that framework Labour should be offering higher spending and higher tax to fund it, compared with the Tories. And make a virtue of this. Make sure the spending is on wildly popular things, and the tax is hitting the better off, personal and corporate, hard. I think the time is right for this. I know there's a danger, "Labour's tax bombshell bla bla" but I think it's a risk worth taking.

    TLDR: Fight right populism with left populism.
    The trouble with that theory is voters instinctively know it doesn't make sense and that the extra tax will have of necessity have to be levied on the basic rate payers too.

    Giving you an example 50 billion extra spending in the budget
    Top 10% of earners is about 5 million people
    To balance the extra spending you need to take an average of 10,000 pounds of extra tax off each one every year. Bear in mind that the income for the top decile doesn't cross 100,000 until about you being in the top 2 to 3% and to make that average of 10000 you will need to be taking eye watering sums off about 500,000 people

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax

    Labour budgets that propose such a paltry sum as a mere 50billion are as rare as rocking horse poo.Hell that wouldn't even cover the waspi women from the 2019 manifesto
    Yes, it's dishonest to pretend everything can be funded by taxing the affluent. But you can skew it heavily in that direction. There's plenty of scope.

    A wealth tax should imo be part of this if we were being purely rational but the politics of that is toxic. The one we have now - IHT - is as popular as a cup of sick even with people who will not in a million years be subject to it.

    The peculiar attachment to privilege we have developed these days (also see private schools) is a great handicap to any party of the left here. This is why a GE win for Labour in a sense counts more than one for the Cons. It's a greater achievement.
    I think "the left" has a problem with voters with these issues because a lot of people recognise that a large amount of lefties motivation is so often hypocritical and/or based on envy and sometimes complete irrationality. I am obviously a little more to the right of you, but I see no difference between wanting the best advantage for your children (private schooling) and choosing a holiday to the Maldives, or an expensive dinner out that average person can't afford. A lot of people who do not choose private schools understand this. Left wingers froth about it though, often while they are booking their green offset holiday to the said Maldives!
    That's not a great comparison. The schooling feeds through to prospects in a way that fancy holidays etc don't.
    It is an illustration of how people should be allowed to spend (or waste if that is your view) their money how they choose. And why is wanting better prospects for your own kids a bad thing? Many well off left wingers just do it differently. They simply buy a house in the right catchment or buy private tuition. In many respects these virtue signallers (particularly the very well off ones) are simply denying places in the best schools to people who cant compete with them for housing. The left's obsession with private schooling is one of their worst hypocrisies
    Yawn. People always reduce and personalize like that on this issue because they can't make the macro argument that private schools are compatible with any semblance of equal opportunities. They can't make that argument because it is palpably ludicrous.

    There is an honest case for private schools and it goes like this -

    Yes, they violate in grievous fashion the principle of equal opportunities and allow the affluent to purchase further and significant advantage for their already advantaged offspring. And yes, this hard codes and propagates inequality down the generations.

    BUT, it's a fundamental right of people to spend their own money how they choose. And it's intrinsic to human nature, and a good thing on the micro level, for people to want to give their kids the best start in life they can. Which is what they are doing when they fork out for school fees.

    And the second outweighs the first. The contribution of the private opt out in education to inequality is not sufficient to justify the serious infringement of personal liberty involved in removing it.

    That is a powerful argument.

    But all of this "lefty hypocrisy" and "but you'd still have selection by house price" and "we should make state schools so good that nobody wants to go private" bla bla bla is just a way of avoiding the issue or trying to nitpick out of addressing it.

    It's all utter hogwash, Nigel, is my point. So please don't torture me with it.
    Actually I don't think private schools are incompatible with equality of oportunity PROVIDED that the government establishes a decent number of scholarships so that poor but gifted children can get into them. That was grammar-school-educated Mrs Thatcher's policy - the Assisted Places Scheme - that public schoolbody Blair abolished in a huge victory for elitism.
    So some poor kids get into an elite public school by being very bright and beating off loads of competition but rich kids take the majority of places through parental wealth?

    That may be a benign bit of tinkering but it hardly transforms things.
    There's no point in the taxpayer paying for a first rate academic education to children who can't benefit from it, whether they are rich or poor. If parents want to do it that's their business. But providing poor kids can pass the entrance exams, the government should pay their fees.
    Ok. But you offered it as a transformational change that would make our elite private schools compatible with equal opportunities. It hardly does that,
    As one that grew up poor I will try and put it simply..,

    The biggest bar to social mobility is people with your attitude. People telling us constantly "Don't bother, it won't make a difference. The system is rigged against you. It isnt your fault". Too many believe you and do give up which makes it self fulfilling. This is why I have so much bile against that sort of thinking
    I also grew up poor. And, yes, I get that point but - deep breath and one more time - that is NOT what I think or am saying! WTF are you imputing that to me?

    I would never say to a child "don't bother, the system is rigged against you." Of course I wouldn't. The desire to see a system that is not so rigged against poor children does not mean you are right now wanting to give them carte blanche to not try because the system is rigged.

    Surely you can see how absurd that inference is? If you can't, I give up.

    Look, rather than talking to me, you seem to be talking to some generic "leftist bogeyman" onto which you wish to unload some stuff. It's kind of fascinating in a way but I've had enough now. Catch you another time.
    One thing I have observed is that credentialism works against those who have started out at a disadvantage.

    You can't get a job as an office junior without a degree now. No more barrow boys in the City....

    And it is ranked credentialism - for many places, Russell Group 2.1 or 1st will get you in. Other degrees, not so much.
    It's a weird situation because the jobs we're recruiting don't require a degree as we have the "or equivalent experience" but in reality to get the "or equivalent experience" you will have needed a degree to get into the industry in the first place.

    Definitely think people don't need a degree to do my job. I mean I did a chemistry degree which has been virtually worthless ever since I graduated except to meet the "degree or equivalent experience required" at the very start of my career.
    When I was at Goldman Sachs in the late 90s, the average age of someone who came in at graduate training level (i.e. pre-MBA) was 27 or 28. Almost no-one joined straight from University, usually spending three or four years working elsewhere.

    I mention this because - by and large - what a lot of firms want is someone who's had a couple of years to mature and get into working habits, and have something other than their degree to talk about.
    Yes, that was the same experience for me at Barclays, I already had significant experience elsewhere but my first job at Sony required a degree or equivalent experience to be a junior developer.

    However, loads of firms have got graduate programmes, we shut ours down a year or so before I joined and apparently the company has no intention of bringing it back mainly for the reasons you say.
    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.
    Not to relitigate but there is at the very least a strong case that private schools are incompatible with equal opportunities in education. To call that argument outdated bollocks is er ... bollocks. If that's the level of your thinking on the topic you are wise to not engage.
    Nope.

    But another day maybe. I have time travel on the Box tonight, so not needed here.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,088
    DougSeal said:

    Ballpark, what fraction of the UK adult population do we have to first-dose crack through before basically the average public health person is going to feel comfortable throwing caution (relatively speaking) to the wind?

    OK, being wary of new variants etc., but surely at some point we will have vaccinated a sufficient proportion that they will feel the can breathe a sigh of relief, and presumably that fraction is not 100% of all UK adults?

    I think the timetable has deliberately been set so that restrictions end three weeks after the last eligible and willing adult had been vaccinated with a first dose i.e. 21 June if it all goes to plan. So then. But people are already starting to let their guard down after vaccination if the ONS is to be believed.
    Midsummer does have a ring about it.

    Like the 11th of the 11th of the 11th etc.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    DavidL said:

    So The Sunday Times have done a piece on Boris Johnson's finances, he really is a shit negotiator.

    Johnson’s biggest likely outlay is the result of what one Old Etonian school friend describes as “his pecker problem”. The friend recalls: “Boris has always had a problem keeping his pecker in his trousers. And that’s what so often has led him into trouble.”

    Six children — those are the ones that are known about — by three women, plus two divorces and an imminent third wedding to pay for don’t come cheap.

    Johnson is still believed to help support two of his four children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler, who are all now in their twenties after expensive private schools and universities.

    Stephanie, aged 11, is Johnson’s fifth child, through his affair with Helen Macintyre, an art consultant, and Wilfred will be one next month.

    Johnson’s first divorce, from Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1993, was not costly and they had no children. But his divorce last year from Wheeler, a human rights QC, after 25 years together, was a different matter. Having separated in the summer of 2018 after Johnson met Symonds, it took them until February 2020 to reach a financial settlement.

    Word in legal circles is that Johnson was by then desperate to finalise the divorce, because Symonds was pregnant and he was determined not to announce the pregnancy until Wheeler, and their children, had been placated.

    That gave his soon-to-be-ex-wife considerable leverage in the protracted negotiations, leading to what one QC who professes familiarity with the details describes as “one of the most devastatingly one-sided divorces in British legal history”.

    It even gave Wheeler a considerable percentage of Johnson’s future lucrative earnings after he leaves office. Might it be no wonder then that Boris needs a leg-up with the home decor?


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-is-boris-johnson-so-skint-5jvvbgdxg

    Why the hell does a QC need any money from her ex? She should be supporting him.
    Hell hath no fury like a QC scorned.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    DavidL said:

    So The Sunday Times have done a piece on Boris Johnson's finances, he really is a shit negotiator.

    Johnson’s biggest likely outlay is the result of what one Old Etonian school friend describes as “his pecker problem”. The friend recalls: “Boris has always had a problem keeping his pecker in his trousers. And that’s what so often has led him into trouble.”

    Six children — those are the ones that are known about — by three women, plus two divorces and an imminent third wedding to pay for don’t come cheap.

    Johnson is still believed to help support two of his four children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler, who are all now in their twenties after expensive private schools and universities.

    Stephanie, aged 11, is Johnson’s fifth child, through his affair with Helen Macintyre, an art consultant, and Wilfred will be one next month.

    Johnson’s first divorce, from Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1993, was not costly and they had no children. But his divorce last year from Wheeler, a human rights QC, after 25 years together, was a different matter. Having separated in the summer of 2018 after Johnson met Symonds, it took them until February 2020 to reach a financial settlement.

    Word in legal circles is that Johnson was by then desperate to finalise the divorce, because Symonds was pregnant and he was determined not to announce the pregnancy until Wheeler, and their children, had been placated.

    That gave his soon-to-be-ex-wife considerable leverage in the protracted negotiations, leading to what one QC who professes familiarity with the details describes as “one of the most devastatingly one-sided divorces in British legal history”.

    It even gave Wheeler a considerable percentage of Johnson’s future lucrative earnings after he leaves office. Might it be no wonder then that Boris needs a leg-up with the home decor?


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-is-boris-johnson-so-skint-5jvvbgdxg

    Why the hell does a QC need any money from her ex? She should be supporting him.
    Also why does he have to support children in their twenties?
    Because he promised the support beforehand and this is to ensure he honours it.

    I mean who would trust the word of Boris Johnson, much better to get it down in writing via a court order.
    OK, perhaps my question is why do adults in their twenties who went to private school and university need any sort of financial support?
    1) They're as profligate and irresponsible with money as their dad

    2) If they can get the money out of him, why not? Worth a punt.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    More vaccine production increases: CureVac has signed a manufacturing deal with Novartis.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    Its part of the Brexit dividend.. buy British...
  • I don't know how anybody can afford 6 kids in this day and age.....the little monsters are more costly than my betting on Ryder Cups...

    Depends on how you bring them up. I have nine. If they want more than the bare pocket money, then get a paper round. They did and having lots of siblings makes them less selfish and self-centred.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    A simple rule, if you want to divorce a lawyer then either be a lawyer yourself or bring your own lube.

    I’m learning the law around divorce right now... 🤑
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    DavidL said:

    So The Sunday Times have done a piece on Boris Johnson's finances, he really is a shit negotiator.

    Johnson’s biggest likely outlay is the result of what one Old Etonian school friend describes as “his pecker problem”. The friend recalls: “Boris has always had a problem keeping his pecker in his trousers. And that’s what so often has led him into trouble.”

    Six children — those are the ones that are known about — by three women, plus two divorces and an imminent third wedding to pay for don’t come cheap.

    Johnson is still believed to help support two of his four children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler, who are all now in their twenties after expensive private schools and universities.

    Stephanie, aged 11, is Johnson’s fifth child, through his affair with Helen Macintyre, an art consultant, and Wilfred will be one next month.

    Johnson’s first divorce, from Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1993, was not costly and they had no children. But his divorce last year from Wheeler, a human rights QC, after 25 years together, was a different matter. Having separated in the summer of 2018 after Johnson met Symonds, it took them until February 2020 to reach a financial settlement.

    Word in legal circles is that Johnson was by then desperate to finalise the divorce, because Symonds was pregnant and he was determined not to announce the pregnancy until Wheeler, and their children, had been placated.

    That gave his soon-to-be-ex-wife considerable leverage in the protracted negotiations, leading to what one QC who professes familiarity with the details describes as “one of the most devastatingly one-sided divorces in British legal history”.

    It even gave Wheeler a considerable percentage of Johnson’s future lucrative earnings after he leaves office. Might it be no wonder then that Boris needs a leg-up with the home decor?


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-is-boris-johnson-so-skint-5jvvbgdxg

    Why the hell does a QC need any money from her ex? She should be supporting him.
    Also why does he have to support children in their twenties?
    Because he promised the support beforehand and this is to ensure he honours it.

    I mean who would trust the word of Boris Johnson, much better to get it down in writing via a court order.
    OK, perhaps my question is why do adults in their twenties who went to private school and university need any sort of financial support?
    Because they may have made financial commitments based on promises of their father (say a mortgage) and their mother may have been worried he might resile from that, especially if he had more kids.
    Talk about entitled. Isn't the whole point of adulthood going it alone? OK, you might get support with the deposit, but paying for the mortgage?
    How about they were planning on renting and their father said no renting is bad, get a mortgage.

    Or get a bigger house and I'll pay the difference.
    If it was the first, as adult decision makers it wouldn't make a difference if daddykins told them to do something else, it would be their responsibility.

    If it was the second the same would apply - your house, you take the risk of the bank of dad not following through - but if their mother was able to pin his feet to the floor because of such a vague promise, all the better for them.

    But as others have said no one, including his kids, should really make plans based on Boris following through on his promises. You'd be going in eyes open that he might not deliver.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    I will be voting for Khan (again). He has not been perfect and quite ineffective in many ways however he is not Shaun Bailey.

    The trouble is he's Sadiq Khan.
    And he's not Shaun Bailey, who would be worse.

    Khan gets a 5/10 from me.
    Khan is known to be mediocre. Bailey is merely expected to be.

    Vote for hope and change!
  • A simple rule, if you want to divorce a lawyer then either be a lawyer yourself or bring your own lube.

    I’m learning the law around divorce right now... 🤑
    You haven't lived until you've been named as a co-respondent in divorce proceedings.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Charles said:

    I will be voting for Khan (again). He has not been perfect and quite ineffective in many ways however he is not Shaun Bailey.

    The trouble is he's Sadiq Khan.
    And he's not Shaun Bailey, who would be worse.

    Khan gets a 5/10 from me.
    Khan is known to be mediocre. Bailey is merely expected to be.

    Vote for hope and change!
    Well, it's not the greatest campaign slogan but given no one, even the Tories, thinks he has a chance, worth a shot I suppose.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    I think Pfizer will remain the best out of the AZN but I believe they use the same methodology.

    I think J&J might turn out to be the best one as it only requires on jab.

    Although I fully expect regardless of the brand we'll all require annual jabs.

    But I'm glad I got the Pfizer one, I mean has AZN ever come up with a tablet like viagra, that's two humanity altering game changers from one company.

    Yeah but Pfizer thought they were making a heart drug and the erections were a weird adverse event

  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    @Floater those responsible citizens are just sterilising their masks.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    That’s what I struggle with. She’s had a good career in her own right. I can understand a split of current assets and support for the kids. But why a percentage of future earnings for her?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Does anyone know when Novavax is going to be approved in the UK? Its efficacious. Its UK trial ended back in January. The UK government has an order for 60m doses.

  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    On topic. We discussed at length several months ago how the trials of Oxford and Pfizer were not apples to apples, given Oxford gave PCR tests to every participant every two weeks, and Pfizer only did when a participant exhibited TWO symptoms. For reasons unknown, this didn’t seem to enter the consciousness of even highly skilled specialised investors, yet alone uninformed policy makers and members of the media and public.

    Gove’s whole thing about experts rings as true today as ever. The so called experts in the field have largely given shonky advice to investor clients and to policy makers.

    That said, it really puzzles me how bad the communication and PR has been from Oxford / Azn, given they have by some distance a superior product when taken in the round (efficacy, ease of distribution, cost).
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    MaxPB said:

    Also on topic, I think all of the vaccines will end up at ~90-95% efficacy in the real world but one of the advantages of the AZ and J&J vaccines is that they continue to provide high levels of protection months after the first dose and the second dose will likely give very long term immunity. It means that countries can roll them out without needing to hold half of them back to achieve a very high degree of immunity as the mRNA vaccines seem to require. It means double the number of people can been immunised in the same amount of time and achieve 70-80% immunity from severe symptoms and hospitalisation, for what we and other countries need to achieve it's the single most important part of our vaccine programmes.

    The irony is (as I pointed out back in January) that we conducted what was effectively a very large clinical trial for the benefit if the rest of the world, and at the time were largely criticised for doing so.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Charles said:

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    That’s what I struggle with. She’s had a good career in her own right. I can understand a split of current assets and support for the kids. But why a percentage of future earnings for her?
    Because she promised not to spill the beans on Boris's behaviour during the marriage?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    DavidL said:

    So The Sunday Times have done a piece on Boris Johnson's finances, he really is a shit negotiator.

    Johnson’s biggest likely outlay is the result of what one Old Etonian school friend describes as “his pecker problem”. The friend recalls: “Boris has always had a problem keeping his pecker in his trousers. And that’s what so often has led him into trouble.”

    Six children — those are the ones that are known about — by three women, plus two divorces and an imminent third wedding to pay for don’t come cheap.

    Johnson is still believed to help support two of his four children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler, who are all now in their twenties after expensive private schools and universities.

    Stephanie, aged 11, is Johnson’s fifth child, through his affair with Helen Macintyre, an art consultant, and Wilfred will be one next month.

    Johnson’s first divorce, from Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1993, was not costly and they had no children. But his divorce last year from Wheeler, a human rights QC, after 25 years together, was a different matter. Having separated in the summer of 2018 after Johnson met Symonds, it took them until February 2020 to reach a financial settlement.

    Word in legal circles is that Johnson was by then desperate to finalise the divorce, because Symonds was pregnant and he was determined not to announce the pregnancy until Wheeler, and their children, had been placated.

    That gave his soon-to-be-ex-wife considerable leverage in the protracted negotiations, leading to what one QC who professes familiarity with the details describes as “one of the most devastatingly one-sided divorces in British legal history”.

    It even gave Wheeler a considerable percentage of Johnson’s future lucrative earnings after he leaves office. Might it be no wonder then that Boris needs a leg-up with the home decor?


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-is-boris-johnson-so-skint-5jvvbgdxg

    Why the hell does a QC need any money from her ex? She should be supporting him.
    Hell hath no fury like a QC scorned.
    I suspect an actual judge is worse.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Fishing said:

    kinabalu said:

    Fishing said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    It's crystal clear to me what Labour's line should be. Balance the books, yes, but this time the broadest shoulders really should bear the burden. Tax the arse off those who can afford to pay. Details tbc.

    The problem here is the media narrative would be Tories give you free stuff, Labour just take away your hard earned. It's a difficult conundrum to beat.
    It's difficult for Labour because they don't know what the Tory theme will be. But whatever it is, I think Labour should be positioning to the fiscal left of it. This sounds obvious but it's less so in these days of cross dressing economic populism.

    But first of all, mirror the Tories on "sound money". If the Tories are abandoning that principle, Labour should too. It would be an electoral own goal to embrace hairshirt voluntarily. And if the Tories are sticking to it, to sound money, Labour should too, and to the same extent. Goal is to remove that "Labour equals feckless deficits, Tories are the grown ups" talking point.

    Then within that framework Labour should be offering higher spending and higher tax to fund it, compared with the Tories. And make a virtue of this. Make sure the spending is on wildly popular things, and the tax is hitting the better off, personal and corporate, hard. I think the time is right for this. I know there's a danger, "Labour's tax bombshell bla bla" but I think it's a risk worth taking.

    TLDR: Fight right populism with left populism.
    The trouble with that theory is voters instinctively know it doesn't make sense and that the extra tax will have of necessity have to be levied on the basic rate payers too.

    Giving you an example 50 billion extra spending in the budget
    Top 10% of earners is about 5 million people
    To balance the extra spending you need to take an average of 10,000 pounds of extra tax off each one every year. Bear in mind that the income for the top decile doesn't cross 100,000 until about you being in the top 2 to 3% and to make that average of 10000 you will need to be taking eye watering sums off about 500,000 people

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax

    Labour budgets that propose such a paltry sum as a mere 50billion are as rare as rocking horse poo.Hell that wouldn't even cover the waspi women from the 2019 manifesto
    Yes, it's dishonest to pretend everything can be funded by taxing the affluent. But you can skew it heavily in that direction. There's plenty of scope.

    A wealth tax should imo be part of this if we were being purely rational but the politics of that is toxic. The one we have now - IHT - is as popular as a cup of sick even with people who will not in a million years be subject to it.

    The peculiar attachment to privilege we have developed these days (also see private schools) is a great handicap to any party of the left here. This is why a GE win for Labour in a sense counts more than one for the Cons. It's a greater achievement.
    I think "the left" has a problem with voters with these issues because a lot of people recognise that a large amount of lefties motivation is so often hypocritical and/or based on envy and sometimes complete irrationality. I am obviously a little more to the right of you, but I see no difference between wanting the best advantage for your children (private schooling) and choosing a holiday to the Maldives, or an expensive dinner out that average person can't afford. A lot of people who do not choose private schools understand this. Left wingers froth about it though, often while they are booking their green offset holiday to the said Maldives!
    That's not a great comparison. The schooling feeds through to prospects in a way that fancy holidays etc don't.
    It is an illustration of how people should be allowed to spend (or waste if that is your view) their money how they choose. And why is wanting better prospects for your own kids a bad thing? Many well off left wingers just do it differently. They simply buy a house in the right catchment or buy private tuition. In many respects these virtue signallers (particularly the very well off ones) are simply denying places in the best schools to people who cant compete with them for housing. The left's obsession with private schooling is one of their worst hypocrisies
    Yawn. People always reduce and personalize like that on this issue because they can't make the macro argument that private schools are compatible with any semblance of equal opportunities. They can't make that argument because it is palpably ludicrous.

    There is an honest case for private schools and it goes like this -

    Yes, they violate in grievous fashion the principle of equal opportunities and allow the affluent to purchase further and significant advantage for their already advantaged offspring. And yes, this hard codes and propagates inequality down the generations.

    BUT, it's a fundamental right of people to spend their own money how they choose. And it's intrinsic to human nature, and a good thing on the micro level, for people to want to give their kids the best start in life they can. Which is what they are doing when they fork out for school fees.

    And the second outweighs the first. The contribution of the private opt out in education to inequality is not sufficient to justify the serious infringement of personal liberty involved in removing it.

    That is a powerful argument.

    But all of this "lefty hypocrisy" and "but you'd still have selection by house price" and "we should make state schools so good that nobody wants to go private" bla bla bla is just a way of avoiding the issue or trying to nitpick out of addressing it.

    It's all utter hogwash, Nigel, is my point. So please don't torture me with it.
    Actually I don't think private schools are incompatible with equality of oportunity PROVIDED that the government establishes a decent number of scholarships so that poor but gifted children can get into them. That was grammar-school-educated Mrs Thatcher's policy - the Assisted Places Scheme - that public schoolbody Blair abolished in a huge victory for elitism.
    So some poor kids get into an elite public school by being very bright and beating off loads of competition but rich kids take the majority of places through parental wealth?

    That may be a benign bit of tinkering but it hardly transforms things.
    There's no point in the taxpayer paying for a first rate academic education to children who can't benefit from it, whether they are rich or poor. If parents want to do it that's their business. But providing poor kids can pass the entrance exams, the government should pay their fees.
    Ok. But you offered it as a transformational change that would make our elite private schools compatible with equal opportunities. It hardly does that,
    As one that grew up poor I will try and put it simply..,

    The biggest bar to social mobility is people with your attitude. People telling us constantly "Don't bother, it won't make a difference. The system is rigged against you. It isnt your fault". Too many believe you and do give up which makes it self fulfilling. This is why I have so much bile against that sort of thinking
    I also grew up poor. And, yes, I get that point but - deep breath and one more time - that is NOT what I think or am saying! WTF are you imputing that to me?

    I would never say to a child "don't bother, the system is rigged against you." Of course I wouldn't. The desire to see a system that is not so rigged against poor children does not mean you are right now wanting to give them carte blanche to not try because the system is rigged.

    Surely you can see how absurd that inference is? If you can't, I give up.

    Look, rather than talking to me, you seem to be talking to some generic "leftist bogeyman" onto which you wish to unload some stuff. It's kind of fascinating in a way but I've had enough now. Catch you another time.
    One thing I have observed is that credentialism works against those who have started out at a disadvantage.

    You can't get a job as an office junior without a degree now. No more barrow boys in the City....

    And it is ranked credentialism - for many places, Russell Group 2.1 or 1st will get you in. Other degrees, not so much.
    It's a weird situation because the jobs we're recruiting don't require a degree as we have the "or equivalent experience" but in reality to get the "or equivalent experience" you will have needed a degree to get into the industry in the first place.

    Definitely think people don't need a degree to do my job. I mean I did a chemistry degree which has been virtually worthless ever since I graduated except to meet the "degree or equivalent experience required" at the very start of my career.
    When I was at Goldman Sachs in the late 90s, the average age of someone who came in at graduate training level (i.e. pre-MBA) was 27 or 28. Almost no-one joined straight from University, usually spending three or four years working elsewhere.

    I mention this because - by and large - what a lot of firms want is someone who's had a couple of years to mature and get into working habits, and have something other than their degree to talk about.
    My educational and working-life career has always been about Tier 1B to be honest.

    I went Red Brick, rather than Oxbridge - I wanted 10 week terms, more fun as well as a very good degree - and I went Big4/niche consultancy, rather than McKinsey or US investment banking route because I didn't want to work all hours God sends. My wife is the same with niche mid-size law firms rather than the large US ones.

    Basically, I want a good career and a good salary but I really can't be arsed with the very very top. I like my downtime.
    Interestingly, the most common route into Goldman was probably red brick followed by accounting, a tech company, law or something else, followed by the GS graduate training program.

    I, with my Cambridge philosophy degree, was definitely the outlier.
    But, it must have been quite hardcore working for Goldman, right?

    I don't think I'd have enjoyed it.
    Mother Merrill was a lot more fun 😊
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    Denis Thatcher was a millionaire when that still meant something.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    edited March 2021
    moonshine said:

    On topic. We discussed at length several months ago how the trials of Oxford and Pfizer were not apples to apples, given Oxford gave PCR tests to every participant every two weeks, and Pfizer only did when a participant exhibited TWO symptoms. For reasons unknown, this didn’t seem to enter the consciousness of even highly skilled specialised investors, yet alone uninformed policy makers and members of the media and public.

    Gove’s whole thing about experts rings as true today as ever. The so called experts in the field have largely given shonky advice to investor clients and to policy makers.

    That said, it really puzzles me how bad the communication and PR has been from Oxford / Azn, given they have by some distance a superior product when taken in the round (efficacy, ease of distribution, cost).

    That's not true.

    The measure that AZ used was not based on PCR readings alone, but PCR plus symptoms.

    You can read The Lancet paper here, and it is very specifically about symptomatic CV19: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32623-4/fulltext?fbclid=IwAR39cr4iOmVyctpuoZ5JdxytsnRdYm6lwsO24Fhb3refju1PcHLC7bTitSs
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    edited March 2021
    Charles said:

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    That’s what I struggle with. She’s had a good career in her own right. I can understand a split of current assets and support for the kids. But why a percentage of future earnings for her?
    Presumably the aame reason a lot companies may be worth way more than it seems they should - she asked for it, and he, for whatever reason, agreed to pay that price. Those reasons seem to be the big question. As suggesed by rcs, she seems to have been pretty quiet.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    rcs1000 said:

    moonshine said:

    On topic. We discussed at length several months ago how the trials of Oxford and Pfizer were not apples to apples, given Oxford gave PCR tests to every participant every two weeks, and Pfizer only did when a participant exhibited TWO symptoms. For reasons unknown, this didn’t seem to enter the consciousness of even highly skilled specialised investors, yet alone uninformed policy makers and members of the media and public.

    Gove’s whole thing about experts rings as true today as ever. The so called experts in the field have largely given shonky advice to investor clients and to policy makers.

    That said, it really puzzles me how bad the communication and PR has been from Oxford / Azn, given they have by some distance a superior product when taken in the round (efficacy, ease of distribution, cost).

    That's not true.

    The measure that AZ used was not based on PCR readings alone, but PCR plus symptoms.

    You can read The Lancet paper here, and it is very specifically about symptomatic CV19: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32623-4/fulltext?fbclid=IwAR39cr4iOmVyctpuoZ5JdxytsnRdYm6lwsO24Fhb3refju1PcHLC7bTitSs
    Azn recorded a positive case based on pcr plus one symptoms. Pfizer required two symptoms. But Pfizer didn’t even give you a test unless you phoned up with symptoms. Azn tested everyone every two weeks.
  • Charles said:

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    That’s what I struggle with. She’s had a good career in her own right. I can understand a split of current assets and support for the kids. But why a percentage of future earnings for her?
    I think because he really hadn't contributed much towards the mortgage(s).

    Plus there's this, from The Sunday Times

    Word in legal circles is that Johnson was by then desperate to finalise the divorce, because Symonds was pregnant and he was determined not to announce the pregnancy until Wheeler, and their children, had been placated.

    That gave his soon-to-be-ex-wife considerable leverage in the protracted negotiations, leading to what one QC who professes familiarity with the details describes as “one of the most devastatingly one-sided divorces in British legal history”.


    I suspect his kids were pissed off by how much he hurt their mother.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    edited March 2021
    moonshine said:

    rcs1000 said:

    moonshine said:

    On topic. We discussed at length several months ago how the trials of Oxford and Pfizer were not apples to apples, given Oxford gave PCR tests to every participant every two weeks, and Pfizer only did when a participant exhibited TWO symptoms. For reasons unknown, this didn’t seem to enter the consciousness of even highly skilled specialised investors, yet alone uninformed policy makers and members of the media and public.

    Gove’s whole thing about experts rings as true today as ever. The so called experts in the field have largely given shonky advice to investor clients and to policy makers.

    That said, it really puzzles me how bad the communication and PR has been from Oxford / Azn, given they have by some distance a superior product when taken in the round (efficacy, ease of distribution, cost).

    That's not true.

    The measure that AZ used was not based on PCR readings alone, but PCR plus symptoms.

    You can read The Lancet paper here, and it is very specifically about symptomatic CV19: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32623-4/fulltext?fbclid=IwAR39cr4iOmVyctpuoZ5JdxytsnRdYm6lwsO24Fhb3refju1PcHLC7bTitSs
    Azn recorded a positive case based on pcr plus one symptoms. Pfizer required two symptoms. But Pfizer didn’t even give you a test unless you phoned up with symptoms. Azn tested everyone every two weeks.
    Yes. But the efficacy number was based on symptomatic Covid. It didn't include PCR positive plus no symptoms.

    Edit to add: it's certainly possible that people who got positive PCR tests were asked about symptoms and therefore mentioned mild symptoms that might otherwise have been missed.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    Charles said:

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    That’s what I struggle with. She’s had a good career in her own right. I can understand a split of current assets and support for the kids. But why a percentage of future earnings for her?
    That's the way it works. While he was philandering she was supporting the family and very possibly sacrificing her career and best years for his . Now he's set up time for him to do his bit. A marriage is seen by the law as being joint partners in an enterprise.

    A pity she didn't completely take him to the cleaners.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    moonshine said:

    rcs1000 said:

    moonshine said:

    On topic. We discussed at length several months ago how the trials of Oxford and Pfizer were not apples to apples, given Oxford gave PCR tests to every participant every two weeks, and Pfizer only did when a participant exhibited TWO symptoms. For reasons unknown, this didn’t seem to enter the consciousness of even highly skilled specialised investors, yet alone uninformed policy makers and members of the media and public.

    Gove’s whole thing about experts rings as true today as ever. The so called experts in the field have largely given shonky advice to investor clients and to policy makers.

    That said, it really puzzles me how bad the communication and PR has been from Oxford / Azn, given they have by some distance a superior product when taken in the round (efficacy, ease of distribution, cost).

    That's not true.

    The measure that AZ used was not based on PCR readings alone, but PCR plus symptoms.

    You can read The Lancet paper here, and it is very specifically about symptomatic CV19: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32623-4/fulltext?fbclid=IwAR39cr4iOmVyctpuoZ5JdxytsnRdYm6lwsO24Fhb3refju1PcHLC7bTitSs
    Azn recorded a positive case based on pcr plus one symptoms. Pfizer required two symptoms. But Pfizer didn’t even give you a test unless you phoned up with symptoms. Azn tested everyone every two weeks.
    Yes, in the UK arm, but not the others.

    They only presented data on the symptomatic patients in the Lancet paper in terms of efficacy.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    rcs1000 said:

    Does anyone know when Novavax is going to be approved in the UK? Its efficacious. Its UK trial ended back in January. The UK government has an order for 60m doses.

    Do we know how many Novavax have been produced yet in Billingham ?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    edited March 2021
    MattW said:

    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Fishing said:

    kinabalu said:

    Fishing said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    It's crystal clear to me what Labour's line should be. Balance the books, yes, but this time the broadest shoulders really should bear the burden. Tax the arse off those who can afford to pay. Details tbc.

    The problem here is the media narrative would be Tories give you free stuff, Labour just take away your hard earned. It's a difficult conundrum to beat.
    It's difficult for Labour because they don't know what the Tory theme will be. But whatever it is, I think Labour should be positioning to the fiscal left of it. This sounds obvious but it's less so in these days of cross dressing economic populism.

    But first of all, mirror the Tories on "sound money". If the Tories are abandoning that principle, Labour should too. It would be an electoral own goal to embrace hairshirt voluntarily. And if the Tories are sticking to it, to sound money, Labour should too, and to the same extent. Goal is to remove that "Labour equals feckless deficits, Tories are the grown ups" talking point.

    Then within that framework Labour should be offering higher spending and higher tax to fund it, compared with the Tories. And make a virtue of this. Make sure the spending is on wildly popular things, and the tax is hitting the better off, personal and corporate, hard. I think the time is right for this. I know there's a danger, "Labour's tax bombshell bla bla" but I think it's a risk worth taking.

    TLDR: Fight right populism with left populism.
    The trouble with that theory is voters instinctively know it doesn't make sense and that the extra tax will have of necessity have to be levied on the basic rate payers too.

    Giving you an example 50 billion extra spending in the budget
    Top 10% of earners is about 5 million people
    To balance the extra spending you need to take an average of 10,000 pounds of extra tax off each one every year. Bear in mind that the income for the top decile doesn't cross 100,000 until about you being in the top 2 to 3% and to make that average of 10000 you will need to be taking eye watering sums off about 500,000 people

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax

    Labour budgets that propose such a paltry sum as a mere 50billion are as rare as rocking horse poo.Hell that wouldn't even cover the waspi women from the 2019 manifesto
    Yes, it's dishonest to pretend everything can be funded by taxing the affluent. But you can skew it heavily in that direction. There's plenty of scope.

    A wealth tax should imo be part of this if we were being purely rational but the politics of that is toxic. The one we have now - IHT - is as popular as a cup of sick even with people who will not in a million years be subject to it.

    The peculiar attachment to privilege we have developed these days (also see private schools) is a great handicap to any party of the left here. This is why a GE win for Labour in a sense counts more than one for the Cons. It's a greater achievement.
    I think "the left" has a problem with voters with these issues because a lot of people recognise that a large amount of lefties motivation is so often hypocritical and/or based on envy and sometimes complete irrationality. I am obviously a little more to the right of you, but I see no difference between wanting the best advantage for your children (private schooling) and choosing a holiday to the Maldives, or an expensive dinner out that average person can't afford. A lot of people who do not choose private schools understand this. Left wingers froth about it though, often while they are booking their green offset holiday to the said Maldives!
    That's not a great comparison. The schooling feeds through to prospects in a way that fancy holidays etc don't.
    It is an illustration of how people should be allowed to spend (or waste if that is your view) their money how they choose. And why is wanting better prospects for your own kids a bad thing? Many well off left wingers just do it differently. They simply buy a house in the right catchment or buy private tuition. In many respects these virtue signallers (particularly the very well off ones) are simply denying places in the best schools to people who cant compete with them for housing. The left's obsession with private schooling is one of their worst hypocrisies
    Yawn. People always reduce and personalize like that on this issue because they can't make the macro argument that private schools are compatible with any semblance of equal opportunities. They can't make that argument because it is palpably ludicrous.

    There is an honest case for private schools and it goes like this -

    Yes, they violate in grievous fashion the principle of equal opportunities and allow the affluent to purchase further and significant advantage for their already advantaged offspring. And yes, this hard codes and propagates inequality down the generations.

    BUT, it's a fundamental right of people to spend their own money how they choose. And it's intrinsic to human nature, and a good thing on the micro level, for people to want to give their kids the best start in life they can. Which is what they are doing when they fork out for school fees.

    And the second outweighs the first. The contribution of the private opt out in education to inequality is not sufficient to justify the serious infringement of personal liberty involved in removing it.

    That is a powerful argument.

    But all of this "lefty hypocrisy" and "but you'd still have selection by house price" and "we should make state schools so good that nobody wants to go private" bla bla bla is just a way of avoiding the issue or trying to nitpick out of addressing it.

    It's all utter hogwash, Nigel, is my point. So please don't torture me with it.
    Actually I don't think private schools are incompatible with equality of oportunity PROVIDED that the government establishes a decent number of scholarships so that poor but gifted children can get into them. That was grammar-school-educated Mrs Thatcher's policy - the Assisted Places Scheme - that public schoolbody Blair abolished in a huge victory for elitism.
    So some poor kids get into an elite public school by being very bright and beating off loads of competition but rich kids take the majority of places through parental wealth?

    That may be a benign bit of tinkering but it hardly transforms things.
    There's no point in the taxpayer paying for a first rate academic education to children who can't benefit from it, whether they are rich or poor. If parents want to do it that's their business. But providing poor kids can pass the entrance exams, the government should pay their fees.
    Ok. But you offered it as a transformational change that would make our elite private schools compatible with equal opportunities. It hardly does that,
    As one that grew up poor I will try and put it simply..,

    The biggest bar to social mobility is people with your attitude. People telling us constantly "Don't bother, it won't make a difference. The system is rigged against you. It isnt your fault". Too many believe you and do give up which makes it self fulfilling. This is why I have so much bile against that sort of thinking
    I also grew up poor. And, yes, I get that point but - deep breath and one more time - that is NOT what I think or am saying! WTF are you imputing that to me?

    I would never say to a child "don't bother, the system is rigged against you." Of course I wouldn't. The desire to see a system that is not so rigged against poor children does not mean you are right now wanting to give them carte blanche to not try because the system is rigged.

    Surely you can see how absurd that inference is? If you can't, I give up.

    Look, rather than talking to me, you seem to be talking to some generic "leftist bogeyman" onto which you wish to unload some stuff. It's kind of fascinating in a way but I've had enough now. Catch you another time.
    One thing I have observed is that credentialism works against those who have started out at a disadvantage.

    You can't get a job as an office junior without a degree now. No more barrow boys in the City....

    And it is ranked credentialism - for many places, Russell Group 2.1 or 1st will get you in. Other degrees, not so much.
    It's a weird situation because the jobs we're recruiting don't require a degree as we have the "or equivalent experience" but in reality to get the "or equivalent experience" you will have needed a degree to get into the industry in the first place.

    Definitely think people don't need a degree to do my job. I mean I did a chemistry degree which has been virtually worthless ever since I graduated except to meet the "degree or equivalent experience required" at the very start of my career.
    When I was at Goldman Sachs in the late 90s, the average age of someone who came in at graduate training level (i.e. pre-MBA) was 27 or 28. Almost no-one joined straight from University, usually spending three or four years working elsewhere.

    I mention this because - by and large - what a lot of firms want is someone who's had a couple of years to mature and get into working habits, and have something other than their degree to talk about.
    Yes, that was the same experience for me at Barclays, I already had significant experience elsewhere but my first job at Sony required a degree or equivalent experience to be a junior developer.

    However, loads of firms have got graduate programmes, we shut ours down a year or so before I joined and apparently the company has no intention of bringing it back mainly for the reasons you say.
    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.
    Not to relitigate but there is at the very least a strong case that private schools are incompatible with equal opportunities in education. To call that argument outdated bollocks is er ... bollocks. If that's the level of your thinking on the topic you are wise to not engage.
    Nope.

    But another day maybe. I have time travel on the Box tonight, so not needed here.
    Good call. I've over-contributed today on this. Still, hadn't done it for ages.

    But, yep, another time, and I would ask you to do the work. Your mission should you choose to accept it is to make the case that our elite private schools (with access based on ability to pay the fees) are NOT an impediment to equal opportunities for children.

    Good luck with it.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 4,922
    Charles said:

    I will be voting for Khan (again). He has not been perfect and quite ineffective in many ways however he is not Shaun Bailey.

    The trouble is he's Sadiq Khan.
    And he's not Shaun Bailey, who would be worse.

    Khan gets a 5/10 from me.
    Khan is known to be mediocre. Bailey is merely expected to be.

    Vote for hope and change!
    Charles said:

    I will be voting for Khan (again). He has not been perfect and quite ineffective in many ways however he is not Shaun Bailey.

    The trouble is he's Sadiq Khan.
    And he's not Shaun Bailey, who would be worse.

    Khan gets a 5/10 from me.
    Khan is known to be mediocre. Bailey is merely expected to be.

    Vote for hope and change!
    I wasn’t particularly inclined to vote in this one, but Bailey is such a shockingly bad candidate I feel I have to give Khan my first preference
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587

    Charles said:

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    That’s what I struggle with. She’s had a good career in her own right. I can understand a split of current assets and support for the kids. But why a percentage of future earnings for her?
    I think because he really hadn't contributed much towards the mortgage(s).

    Plus there's this, from The Sunday Times

    Word in legal circles is that Johnson was by then desperate to finalise the divorce, because Symonds was pregnant and he was determined not to announce the pregnancy until Wheeler, and their children, had been placated.

    That gave his soon-to-be-ex-wife considerable leverage in the protracted negotiations, leading to what one QC who professes familiarity with the details describes as “one of the most devastatingly one-sided divorces in British legal history”.


    I suspect his kids were pissed off by how much he hurt their mother.
    It is common knowledge Ms. Wheeler's husband behaved like a dog with two dicks throughout their marriage. He played away, fast and loose, so I think she is perfectly entitled to her pound of flesh. My sympathy for her is tempered by the reality that her husband's first marriage was annulled on account of Ms. Wheeler having a bun in the oven.

    There seems to be more than a little sympathy for Mr Johnson's financial trevails as a result of his marriage difficulties on here this evening. I suspect Johnson does not share such concerns, as he is aware that when the chips are down, there will always be a friendly patron to bail him out, as there has always been.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    rcs1000 said:

    Does anyone know when Novavax is going to be approved in the UK? Its efficacious. Its UK trial ended back in January. The UK government has an order for 60m doses.

    Nothing definite, but I found this in a report dated March 2nd from an American website, on the FDA approval process:

    Whatever happens with the FDA, Novavax is likely to receive authorization in parts of the world in the next few months. Erck [Stanley Erck, CEO of Novavax] expects to have completed a rolling submission to the MHRA by the end of the month. Based on how quickly the MHRA reviewed other vaccines, the timeline suggests Novavax could get clearance to sell its vaccine in the U.K. in April. Rolling reviews in Australia, Canada, the EU and New Zealand are also underway.

    https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/novavax-targets-may-approval-for-covid-19-vaccine-u-s
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    I think Pfizer will remain the best out of the AZN but I believe they use the same methodology.

    I think J&J might turn out to be the best one as it only requires on jab.

    Although I fully expect regardless of the brand we'll all require annual jabs.

    But I'm glad I got the Pfizer one, I mean has AZN ever come up with a tablet like viagra, that's two humanity altering game changers from one company.

    Pfizer, of course, tried to buy AZN back in 2014.
    Just as well they didn’t succeed.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    edited March 2021
    OT. Just seen a chink of light for Labour on Ch4 News. Andrew Bridgen reminding those of us who had forgotten why underneath we've always loathed Tories.

    After some horrific clips of Yemen reminding us why getting more vaccines than the wicked Europeans isn't everything Bridgen explained why charity begins at home.

    Lisa Nandy-though not the most articulate MP in parliament-reminded us that at least Labour aren't c*nts.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Nigelb said:

    I think Pfizer will remain the best out of the AZN but I believe they use the same methodology.

    I think J&J might turn out to be the best one as it only requires on jab.

    Although I fully expect regardless of the brand we'll all require annual jabs.

    But I'm glad I got the Pfizer one, I mean has AZN ever come up with a tablet like viagra, that's two humanity altering game changers from one company.

    Pfizer, of course, tried to buy AZN back in 2014.
    Just as well they didn’t succeed.
    And what's happened since, coupled with the more hawkish stance towards China, might have wider implications in future. You wonder if the Government might find reasons to block any future attempts to swallow up AstraZeneca? Wouldn't be a complete surprise if the takeover of ARM gets kiboshed as well.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    Roger said:

    OT. Just seen a chink of light for Labour on Ch4 News. Andrew Bridgen reminding those of us who had forgotten why underneath we've always loathed Tories.

    After some horrific clips of Yemen reminding why getting more vaccines than the wicked Europeans isn't everything Bridgen explained why charity begins at home.

    Lisa Nandy-though not the most articulate MP in parliament-reminded us that at least Labour aren't c*nts.

    Labour could save a great deal of election expenditure by just showing existing footage of Bridgen and Phillip Davies, rather than go to the expense of making their own PPBs.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited March 2021

    There would never have been a better time to abolish the triple lock.

    I would like to see the Government look at a much more radical review of tax and benefits. Set a minimum income level, sufficient to live on without needing benefits or charity. £16,200 per year would equate to a 35 hour week at the living wage. Set that as the personal allowance. Receive a rebate if your income is less. Pay tax if your income is more. Combine tax and NI for a basic rate of 32%. Same rate for self-employed. Income based on earned and unearned income (dividends and Capital Gains) at the same rate. Higher tax rates of 52% and 57%, so no upper limit on NI contributions. Don’t know what the net cost would be. A job for a think tank, maybe?

    Why should the taxpayer subsidise low paying companies? If you want to improve people's standards of living in that way then increase the minimum wage to a level where someone working a standard week is earning whatever you consider to be the living wage level. If companies cannot afford to operate whilst paying their employees a basic living wage and paying their taxes under normal operating circumstances then they do not deserve to be in business.

    UBI or anything like it is merely the taxpayer subsidising the profits of companies.
    No it is not. For two childless adults working full-time the minimum wage already does reach that threshold. No subsidies to any company at all.

    The issue that needs to be fixed though is that if people aren't working we don't tell them "go get a job then" and let them and their children end up on the streets or starving to death if they don't. They get benefits to ensure that they have enough to survive.

    So then the difference between someone not working and someone who is working full time is not the difference in income the working person earns because there is a corresponding loss of benefits to go with that.

    Between loss of benefits, NIC and income tax the state can be reclaiming 90% of someone's income.

    Not a penny of this goes to the company.
    Rubbish. If it is the unemployed or those unable to work we are talking about then they get money from the Government already. You can debate about increasing that amount but that has nothing to do with a UBI. And yes, if companies pay less than a living wage and the Government is expected to make up the difference as it is having to do now then it is absolutely the case that you are subsidising the companies. If they are, as you foolishly claim, already paying that amount then there is no need for UBI anyway.
    Sorry but you don't understand the issue so are talking rubbish it seems. Yes the minimum wage already today covers basic minimum income required for two adults working full-time with no children. Anyone in that situation is NOT entitled to any benefits.

    However not everyone is in that situation. Some people work part-time. Some people don't work. Some people have lots of kids that the state has said it will help pay for.

    That is where the benefits bill goes. Not to couples working full-time in secure even if minimum wage jobs.

    The problem is if someone on benefits today works sixteen hours per week then they're "taxed" 90% on every pound after that 16 hours. What would you do if facing a marginal tax rate of 90%?

    A UBI would smooth the transition from not working, to working part time, to working full time encouraging people to work more. Because currently they're not.
    You are way out of date. That is no longer the case. Under Universal Credit the loss is 63p in the pound not 90p. And that is not even on the full amount. The first £292 of earnings per month is exempted so does not count towards reductions in UC. (£512 if you have to find your own accommodation).

    If you are earning minimum wage working 17 hours a week you earn £593 a month. If you have to find your own accommodation your allowance is £512.

    That means the reduction in UC you will receive is 63% of £81 or £51 in the month.

    UC for a single person over 25 is £409 a month. That means if they work 17 hours a week and earn £593 a month then their UC drops to £358 a month.

    That is a total income of £951 a month. They pay no tax on that as they are under the £12,500 limit and they pay no NI as they earn less than £183 a week.

    By the way I am not in any way defending these levels of support. Living on such low incomes is definitely living on the edge. But your claim about losing 90% when you work more than 16 hours a week is simply untrue.

    63p in the pound from UC withdrawal alone.

    That comes ON TOP OF not instead of being required to pay National Insurance and Income Tax if past those thresholds.

    It is very possible to be paying Income Tax, National Insurance and losing UC all simultaneously which comes close to 90% not 63% which is a ridiculous position to be in.
    By the time you get to the point where you would have to pay NI and Tax you are well beyond the point at which you would be worried about the small difference in the UC. And NI and IC are only charged on the difference in earnings above that point, not on UC. So your point is...well pointless. Admit it you just got it wrong.
    Sorry but you're completely and 100% wrong. £12,500 is not "well beyond the point" at which you would be worried about the "small difference" in UC. It may be a small difference to you, it certainly isn't a small difference to the individual.

    You may not think it makes a difference but for those in the situation it makes a massive difference. You can't just wish away the withdrawal or the taxes.

    If someone is eg working Part Time and is offered extra work, or overtime, but they're going to face Income Tax, NIC and UC withdrawal then that combines to almost 90% marginal tax on everything they earn from picking up extra shifts or extra work.

    That's easy to laugh away or ignore if you're not in that situation. For those that are it is absolutely serious. Facing nearly 90% marginal tax is not "pointless".
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Roger said:

    OT. Just seen a chink of light for Labour on Ch4 News. Andrew Bridgen reminding those of us who had forgotten why underneath we've always loathed Tories.

    After some horrific clips of Yemen reminding why getting more vaccines than the wicked Europeans isn't everything Bridgen explained why charity begins at home.

    Lisa Nandy-though not the most articulate MP in parliament-reminded us that at least Labour aren't c*nts.

    OTOH Bridgen is a marginal backbench figure, hardly anyone is going to be watching C4 News on a Saturday night, and 99.875% of those who do will be Guardian readers.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,282
    Floater said:
    What are cases like in Idaho?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:



    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.

    From t'internet. Wealth taxes in Europe:

    Net Wealth Taxes
    Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on individuals’ wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€152,000 or US $170,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax dates to 1892. Under COVID-19-related measures, individual business owners and shareholders who realize a loss in 2020 are eligible for a one-year deferred payment of the wealth tax.

    Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 3.75 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($784,000; lower in some regions), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while nonresidents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain.

    Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. The Swiss net wealth tax was first implemented in 1840.
    Yes, I never met anyone in Switzerland who thought the wealth tax unreasonable. Come to that, I've never met anyone who hated IHT, though I know there's a widespread belief to that effect. When I inherited from my mother, it was a nice windfall, and paying the tax just made it a smaller windfall, but still very welcome. It never occurred to me to grumble, any more than I mutter about VAT when I buy something - and VAT is far more significant as it hits you every day, rather than a couple of times in your life.

    We all extrapolate from our personal feelings and those of oyr friends. But I'm quite sure that people get used to whatever the tax arrangements are. What they really do hate is volatility, the sort of thing you see in populist states where a tax is suddenly doubled.
    It's also worth noting how carefully IHT has been fine tuned not to affect approved Tory families and approved Tory voters - sixtysomethings who are children of conventional families. I dealt with the issue when doing the probate of a relative last year and it was quite striking how it has changed since I previously did it - nuclear family, conventionally married couples, direct children, living in SE or in better enclaves elsewhere, were considerably privileged. Tough shite if you are a gay uncle who wants to leave his home to his dearly loved nieces and nephews.

    And of course it's not just charities but approved political parties which benefit from tax relief on donations. It's quite clear from demographics which party will benefit most. I think that is outrageous, not because of that, but because nobody should be allowed a voice in politics after death (when one's vote expires, except in Scotland in 1978, but that is another story).
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Andy_JS said:

    Floater said:
    What are cases like in Idaho?
    Flat. Will this help that remain the case?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    edited March 2021
    kinabalu said:

    Not to relitigate but there is at the very least a strong case that private schools are incompatible with equal opportunities in education. To call that argument outdated bollocks is er ... bollocks. If that's the level of your thinking on the topic you are wise to not engage.

    What disappoints me @kinabalu is your lack of ambition.

    You are arguing that private schools are a priori better than publicly funded schools

    Bollocks to that! Let’s make publicly funded schools so good that not many people feel the need to pay extra for private education (there will always be a few, such as Eton, which will have demand for their brand, but most private schools are not in that category)
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited March 2021
    Fat 50s getting done now....still.can't give the government any credit though.

    https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1368279901262995466?s=19
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,837
    Roger said:

    Charles said:

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    That’s what I struggle with. She’s had a good career in her own right. I can understand a split of current assets and support for the kids. But why a percentage of future earnings for her?
    That's the way it works. While he was philandering she was supporting the family and very possibly sacrificing her career and best years for his . Now he's set up time for him to do his bit. A marriage is seen by the law as being joint partners in an enterprise.

    A pity she didn't completely take him to the cleaners.
    He'd only set up a charity to pay the laundry bill had she done so.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,088
    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    kinabalu said:

    MattW said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Fishing said:

    kinabalu said:

    Fishing said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    It's crystal clear to me what Labour's line should be. Balance the books, yes, but this time the broadest shoulders really should bear the burden. Tax the arse off those who can afford to pay. Details tbc.

    The problem here is the media narrative would be Tories give you free stuff, Labour just take away your hard earned. It's a difficult conundrum to beat.
    It's difficult for Labour because they don't know what the Tory theme will be. But whatever it is, I think Labour should be positioning to the fiscal left of it. This sounds obvious but it's less so in these days of cross dressing economic populism.

    But first of all, mirror the Tories on "sound money". If the Tories are abandoning that principle, Labour should too. It would be an electoral own goal to embrace hairshirt voluntarily. And if the Tories are sticking to it, to sound money, Labour should too, and to the same extent. Goal is to remove that "Labour equals feckless deficits, Tories are the grown ups" talking point.

    Then within that framework Labour should be offering higher spending and higher tax to fund it, compared with the Tories. And make a virtue of this. Make sure the spending is on wildly popular things, and the tax is hitting the better off, personal and corporate, hard. I think the time is right for this. I know there's a danger, "Labour's tax bombshell bla bla" but I think it's a risk worth taking.

    TLDR: Fight right populism with left populism.
    The trouble with that theory is voters instinctively know it doesn't make sense and that the extra tax will have of necessity have to be levied on the basic rate payers too.

    Giving you an example 50 billion extra spending in the budget
    Top 10% of earners is about 5 million people
    To balance the extra spending you need to take an average of 10,000 pounds of extra tax off each one every year. Bear in mind that the income for the top decile doesn't cross 100,000 until about you being in the top 2 to 3% and to make that average of 10000 you will need to be taking eye watering sums off about 500,000 people

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax

    Labour budgets that propose such a paltry sum as a mere 50billion are as rare as rocking horse poo.Hell that wouldn't even cover the waspi women from the 2019 manifesto
    Yes, it's dishonest to pretend everything can be funded by taxing the affluent. But you can skew it heavily in that direction. There's plenty of scope.

    A wealth tax should imo be part of this if we were being purely rational but the politics of that is toxic. The one we have now - IHT - is as popular as a cup of sick even with people who will not in a million years be subject to it.

    The peculiar attachment to privilege we have developed these days (also see private schools) is a great handicap to any party of the left here. This is why a GE win for Labour in a sense counts more than one for the Cons. It's a greater achievement.
    I think "the left" has a problem with voters with these issues because a lot of people recognise that a large amount of lefties motivation is so often hypocritical and/or based on envy and sometimes complete irrationality. I am obviously a little more to the right of you, but I see no difference between wanting the best advantage for your children (private schooling) and choosing a holiday to the Maldives, or an expensive dinner out that average person can't afford. A lot of people who do not choose private schools understand this. Left wingers froth about it though, often while they are booking their green offset holiday to the said Maldives!
    That's not a great comparison. The schooling feeds through to prospects in a way that fancy holidays etc don't.
    It is an illustration of how people should be allowed to spend (or waste if that is your view) their money how they choose. And why is wanting better prospects for your own kids a bad thing? Many well off left wingers just do it differently. They simply buy a house in the right catchment or buy private tuition. In many respects these virtue signallers (particularly the very well off ones) are simply denying places in the best schools to people who cant compete with them for housing. The left's obsession with private schooling is one of their worst hypocrisies
    Yawn. People always reduce and personalize like that on this issue because they can't make the macro argument that private schools are compatible with any semblance of equal opportunities. They can't make that argument because it is palpably ludicrous.

    There is an honest case for private schools and it goes like this -

    Yes, they violate in grievous fashion the principle of equal opportunities and allow the affluent to purchase further and significant advantage for their already advantaged offspring. And yes, this hard codes and propagates inequality down the generations.

    BUT, it's a fundamental right of people to spend their own money how they choose. And it's intrinsic to human nature, and a good thing on the micro level, for people to want to give their kids the best start in life they can. Which is what they are doing when they fork out for school fees.

    And the second outweighs the first. The contribution of the private opt out in education to inequality is not sufficient to justify the serious infringement of personal liberty involved in removing it.

    That is a powerful argument.

    But all of this "lefty hypocrisy" and "but you'd still have selection by house price" and "we should make state schools so good that nobody wants to go private" bla bla bla is just a way of avoiding the issue or trying to nitpick out of addressing it.

    It's all utter hogwash, Nigel, is my point. So please don't torture me with it.
    Actually I don't think private schools are incompatible with equality of oportunity PROVIDED that the government establishes a decent number of scholarships so that poor but gifted children can get into them. That was grammar-school-educated Mrs Thatcher's policy - the Assisted Places Scheme - that public schoolbody Blair abolished in a huge victory for elitism.
    So some poor kids get into an elite public school by being very bright and beating off loads of competition but rich kids take the majority of places through parental wealth?

    That may be a benign bit of tinkering but it hardly transforms things.
    There's no point in the taxpayer paying for a first rate academic education to children who can't benefit from it, whether they are rich or poor. If parents want to do it that's their business. But providing poor kids can pass the entrance exams, the government should pay their fees.
    Ok. But you offered it as a transformational change that would make our elite private schools compatible with equal opportunities. It hardly does that,
    As one that grew up poor I will try and put it simply..,

    The biggest bar to social mobility is people with your attitude. People telling us constantly "Don't bother, it won't make a difference. The system is rigged against you. It isnt your fault". Too many believe you and do give up which makes it self fulfilling. This is why I have so much bile against that sort of thinking
    I also grew up poor. And, yes, I get that point but - deep breath and one more time - that is NOT what I think or am saying! WTF are you imputing that to me?

    I would never say to a child "don't bother, the system is rigged against you." Of course I wouldn't. The desire to see a system that is not so rigged against poor children does not mean you are right now wanting to give them carte blanche to not try because the system is rigged.

    Surely you can see how absurd that inference is? If you can't, I give up.

    Look, rather than talking to me, you seem to be talking to some generic "leftist bogeyman" onto which you wish to unload some stuff. It's kind of fascinating in a way but I've had enough now. Catch you another time.
    One thing I have observed is that credentialism works against those who have started out at a disadvantage.

    You can't get a job as an office junior without a degree now. No more barrow boys in the City....

    And it is ranked credentialism - for many places, Russell Group 2.1 or 1st will get you in. Other degrees, not so much.
    It's a weird situation because the jobs we're recruiting don't require a degree as we have the "or equivalent experience" but in reality to get the "or equivalent experience" you will have needed a degree to get into the industry in the first place.

    Definitely think people don't need a degree to do my job. I mean I did a chemistry degree which has been virtually worthless ever since I graduated except to meet the "degree or equivalent experience required" at the very start of my career.
    When I was at Goldman Sachs in the late 90s, the average age of someone who came in at graduate training level (i.e. pre-MBA) was 27 or 28. Almost no-one joined straight from University, usually spending three or four years working elsewhere.

    I mention this because - by and large - what a lot of firms want is someone who's had a couple of years to mature and get into working habits, and have something other than their degree to talk about.
    Yes, that was the same experience for me at Barclays, I already had significant experience elsewhere but my first job at Sony required a degree or equivalent experience to be a junior developer.

    However, loads of firms have got graduate programmes, we shut ours down a year or so before I joined and apparently the company has no intention of bringing it back mainly for the reasons you say.
    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.
    Not to relitigate but there is at the very least a strong case that private schools are incompatible with equal opportunities in education. To call that argument outdated bollocks is er ... bollocks. If that's the level of your thinking on the topic you are wise to not engage.
    Nope.

    But another day maybe. I have time travel on the Box tonight, so not needed here.
    Good call. I've over-contributed today on this. Still, hadn't done it for ages.

    But, yep, another time, and I would ask you to do the work. Your mission should you choose to accept it is to make the case that our elite private schools (with access based on ability to pay the fees) are NOT an impediment to equal opportunities for children.

    Good luck with it.
    Happy to take it on, but I will deal with Independent Schooling - which is far more than say the Top 50.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    edited March 2021
    Roger said:

    OT. Just seen a chink of light for Labour on Ch4 News. Andrew Bridgen reminding those of us who had forgotten why underneath we've always loathed Tories.

    After some horrific clips of Yemen reminding us why getting more vaccines than the wicked Europeans isn't everything Bridgen explained why charity begins at home.

    Lisa Nandy-though not the most articulate MP in parliament-reminded us that at least Labour aren't c*nts.

    Yes indeed, Rogerdamus, banging on endlessly about the Middle East proved very successful for PM Corbyn last time...
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,088
    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:



    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.

    From t'internet. Wealth taxes in Europe:

    Net Wealth Taxes
    Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on individuals’ wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€152,000 or US $170,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax dates to 1892. Under COVID-19-related measures, individual business owners and shareholders who realize a loss in 2020 are eligible for a one-year deferred payment of the wealth tax.

    Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 3.75 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($784,000; lower in some regions), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while nonresidents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain.

    Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. The Swiss net wealth tax was first implemented in 1840.
    Yes, I never met anyone in Switzerland who thought the wealth tax unreasonable. Come to that, I've never met anyone who hated IHT, though I know there's a widespread belief to that effect. When I inherited from my mother, it was a nice windfall, and paying the tax just made it a smaller windfall, but still very welcome. It never occurred to me to grumble, any more than I mutter about VAT when I buy something - and VAT is far more significant as it hits you every day, rather than a couple of times in your life.

    We all extrapolate from our personal feelings and those of oyr friends. But I'm quite sure that people get used to whatever the tax arrangements are. What they really do hate is volatility, the sort of thing you see in populist states where a tax is suddenly doubled.
    It's also worth noting how carefully IHT has been fine tuned not to affect approved Tory families and approved Tory voters - sixtysomethings who are children of conventional families. I dealt with the issue when doing the probate of a relative last year and it was quite striking how it has changed since I previously did it - nuclear family, conventionally married couples, direct children, living in SE or in better enclaves elsewhere, were considerably privileged. Tough shite if you are a gay uncle who wants to leave his home to his dearly loved nieces and nephews.

    And of course it's not just charities but approved political parties which benefit from tax relief on donations. It's quite clear from demographics which party will benefit most. I think that is outrageous, not because of that, but because nobody should be allowed a voice in politics after death (when one's vote expires, except in Scotland in 1978, but that is another story).
    (Cough)

    Obviously not an approved Tory family here...
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,785
    The dip in Pfizer efficacy against symptomatic disease perhaps foretells where the Hospitalisations curve might follow in a few weeks. It does look like 12 weeks might be a stretch for second Pfizet doses, and I hope the ability to pivot a little and foreshorten that gap specifically for Pfizer is something the vaccination campaign organisers are alive to.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,088
    edited March 2021

    Charles said:

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    That’s what I struggle with. She’s had a good career in her own right. I can understand a split of current assets and support for the kids. But why a percentage of future earnings for her?
    I think because he really hadn't contributed much towards the mortgage(s).

    Plus there's this, from The Sunday Times

    Word in legal circles is that Johnson was by then desperate to finalise the divorce, because Symonds was pregnant and he was determined not to announce the pregnancy until Wheeler, and their children, had been placated.

    That gave his soon-to-be-ex-wife considerable leverage in the protracted negotiations, leading to what one QC who professes familiarity with the details describes as “one of the most devastatingly one-sided divorces in British legal history”.


    I suspect his kids were pissed off by how much he hurt their mother.
    I think that Princess Di perhaps did better.

    Her logic was:

    "If you don't give me what I want (ie 17 million and my jewels and 400k a year) I will make you wait the full 5 years - 3 more - so you can divorce me without my consent, I will live off selling my jewels and you will be horribly embarrassed before the whoel world."

    He borrowed several millions from HRH and she got her package.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited March 2021
    What about the Reform Party or whatever UKIP 3.0 is called?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Roger said:

    Charles said:

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    That’s what I struggle with. She’s had a good career in her own right. I can understand a split of current assets and support for the kids. But why a percentage of future earnings for her?
    That's the way it works. While he was philandering she was supporting the family and very possibly sacrificing her career and best years for his . Now he's set up time for him to do his bit. A marriage is seen by the law as being joint partners in an enterprise.

    A pity she didn't completely take him to the cleaners.
    I get that normally.

    But she focused enough time and attention on her career to become a QC
  • Carnyx said:
    I only post the article as it is interesting if true
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited March 2021
    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:



    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.

    From t'internet. Wealth taxes in Europe:

    Net Wealth Taxes
    Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on individuals’ wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€152,000 or US $170,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax dates to 1892. Under COVID-19-related measures, individual business owners and shareholders who realize a loss in 2020 are eligible for a one-year deferred payment of the wealth tax.

    Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 3.75 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($784,000; lower in some regions), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while nonresidents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain.

    Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. The Swiss net wealth tax was first implemented in 1840.
    Yes, I never met anyone in Switzerland who thought the wealth tax unreasonable. Come to that, I've never met anyone who hated IHT, though I know there's a widespread belief to that effect. When I inherited from my mother, it was a nice windfall, and paying the tax just made it a smaller windfall, but still very welcome. It never occurred to me to grumble, any more than I mutter about VAT when I buy something - and VAT is far more significant as it hits you every day, rather than a couple of times in your life.

    We all extrapolate from our personal feelings and those of oyr friends. But I'm quite sure that people get used to whatever the tax arrangements are. What they really do hate is volatility, the sort of thing you see in populist states where a tax is suddenly doubled.
    It's also worth noting how carefully IHT has been fine tuned not to affect approved Tory families and approved Tory voters - sixtysomethings who are children of conventional families. I dealt with the issue when doing the probate of a relative last year and it was quite striking how it has changed since I previously did it - nuclear family, conventionally married couples, direct children, living in SE or in better enclaves elsewhere, were considerably privileged. Tough shite if you are a gay uncle who wants to leave his home to his dearly loved nieces and nephews.

    And of course it's not just charities but approved political parties which benefit from tax relief on donations. It's quite clear from demographics which party will benefit most. I think that is outrageous, not because of that, but because nobody should be allowed a voice in politics after death (when one's vote expires, except in Scotland in 1978, but that is another story).
    (Cough)

    Obviously not an approved Tory family here...
    Didn't make that much difference actually, but the change in the rules since I did it last, a decade or so back, was very striking. (The relative did not live in SE England ...).
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited March 2021

    Carnyx said:
    I only post the article as it is interesting if true
    So it is!

    I've been keeping an eye on Pesky Fish evening emails - so far we've been OK with the existing fish van but some of the offers such as farmed halibut are tempting.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408

    What about the Reform Party or whatever UKIP 3.0 is called?
    Wasn't that pretty much just anti-lockdown stuff and throw in some vague talk of 'reform'? With the government getting a shot in the arm and readying to relax things, they probably wouldn't have a big impact, so little chance of the locals putting pressure on the Tories from that direction at least.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    What about the Reform Party or whatever UKIP 3.0 is called?
    There is no way he gets elected without PR like there was for the EP. FPTP will see him poling lower than Lord Buckethead.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:



    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.

    From t'internet. Wealth taxes in Europe:

    Net Wealth Taxes
    Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on individuals’ wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€152,000 or US $170,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax dates to 1892. Under COVID-19-related measures, individual business owners and shareholders who realize a loss in 2020 are eligible for a one-year deferred payment of the wealth tax.

    Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 3.75 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($784,000; lower in some regions), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while nonresidents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain.

    Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. The Swiss net wealth tax was first implemented in 1840.
    Yes, I never met anyone in Switzerland who thought the wealth tax unreasonable. Come to that, I've never met anyone who hated IHT, though I know there's a widespread belief to that effect. When I inherited from my mother, it was a nice windfall, and paying the tax just made it a smaller windfall, but still very welcome. It never occurred to me to grumble, any more than I mutter about VAT when I buy something - and VAT is far more significant as it hits you every day, rather than a couple of times in your life.

    We all extrapolate from our personal feelings and those of oyr friends. But I'm quite sure that people get used to whatever the tax arrangements are. What they really do hate is volatility, the sort of thing you see in populist states where a tax is suddenly doubled.
    It's also worth noting how carefully IHT has been fine tuned not to affect approved Tory families and approved Tory voters - sixtysomethings who are children of conventional families. I dealt with the issue when doing the probate of a relative last year and it was quite striking how it has changed since I previously did it - nuclear family, conventionally married couples, direct children, living in SE or in better enclaves elsewhere, were considerably privileged. Tough shite if you are a gay uncle who wants to leave his home to his dearly loved nieces and nephews.

    And of course it's not just charities but approved political parties which benefit from tax relief on donations. It's quite clear from demographics which party will benefit most. I think that is outrageous, not because of that, but because nobody should be allowed a voice in politics after death (when one's vote expires, except in Scotland in 1978, but that is another story).
    (Cough)

    Obviously not an approved Tory family here...
    If it makes you feel better when we Dad died we didn’t owe any inheritance tax (and hadn’t done anything exotic to avoid it)
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:



    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.

    From t'internet. Wealth taxes in Europe:

    Net Wealth Taxes
    Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on individuals’ wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€152,000 or US $170,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax dates to 1892. Under COVID-19-related measures, individual business owners and shareholders who realize a loss in 2020 are eligible for a one-year deferred payment of the wealth tax.

    Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 3.75 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($784,000; lower in some regions), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while nonresidents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain.

    Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. The Swiss net wealth tax was first implemented in 1840.
    Yes, I never met anyone in Switzerland who thought the wealth tax unreasonable. Come to that, I've never met anyone who hated IHT, though I know there's a widespread belief to that effect. When I inherited from my mother, it was a nice windfall, and paying the tax just made it a smaller windfall, but still very welcome. It never occurred to me to grumble, any more than I mutter about VAT when I buy something - and VAT is far more significant as it hits you every day, rather than a couple of times in your life.

    We all extrapolate from our personal feelings and those of oyr friends. But I'm quite sure that people get used to whatever the tax arrangements are. What they really do hate is volatility, the sort of thing you see in populist states where a tax is suddenly doubled.
    It's also worth noting how carefully IHT has been fine tuned not to affect approved Tory families and approved Tory voters - sixtysomethings who are children of conventional families. I dealt with the issue when doing the probate of a relative last year and it was quite striking how it has changed since I previously did it - nuclear family, conventionally married couples, direct children, living in SE or in better enclaves elsewhere, were considerably privileged. Tough shite if you are a gay uncle who wants to leave his home to his dearly loved nieces and nephews.

    And of course it's not just charities but approved political parties which benefit from tax relief on donations. It's quite clear from demographics which party will benefit most. I think that is outrageous, not because of that, but because nobody should be allowed a voice in politics after death (when one's vote expires, except in Scotland in 1978, but that is another story).
    I'm not sure I understand this. If you're married then the IHT threshold is effectively doubled to £650000. Not sure what else you are getting at - although IHT isn't a strong point of mine
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Good riddance.

    Kind of inevitable after British MEPs were kicked out of Brussels.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Charles said:

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    That’s what I struggle with. She’s had a good career in her own right. I can understand a split of current assets and support for the kids. But why a percentage of future earnings for her?
    Make him experience what it’s like to be screwed for once ?
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    Andy_JS said:

    Floater said:
    What are cases like in Idaho?
    Rolling 7-day case average: 265
    Population of Idaho: 1.8 million

    I make that a weekly case rate of 103 per 100k, which is just over half the US average but about 40% greater than that for the UK.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,003
    edited March 2021
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:
    I only post the article as it is interesting if true
    So it is!

    I've been keeping an eye on Pesky Fish evening emails - so far we've been OK with the existing fish van but some of the offers such as farmed halibut are tempting.
    Halibut is a fabulous fish

    I recall sailing on SS St Clair from Aberdeen to and from Lerwick in the late 1950's and seeing huge halibut in the hold and to be honest I have never forgotten the experience
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    He’s one of the greatest quitters in recent political history.

    He’s quit so often that even UKIP lost count.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited March 2021

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:



    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.

    From t'internet. Wealth taxes in Europe:

    Net Wealth Taxes
    Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on individuals’ wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€152,000 or US $170,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax dates to 1892. Under COVID-19-related measures, individual business owners and shareholders who realize a loss in 2020 are eligible for a one-year deferred payment of the wealth tax.

    Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 3.75 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($784,000; lower in some regions), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while nonresidents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain.

    Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. The Swiss net wealth tax was first implemented in 1840.
    Yes, I never met anyone in Switzerland who thought the wealth tax unreasonable. Come to that, I've never met anyone who hated IHT, though I know there's a widespread belief to that effect. When I inherited from my mother, it was a nice windfall, and paying the tax just made it a smaller windfall, but still very welcome. It never occurred to me to grumble, any more than I mutter about VAT when I buy something - and VAT is far more significant as it hits you every day, rather than a couple of times in your life.

    We all extrapolate from our personal feelings and those of oyr friends. But I'm quite sure that people get used to whatever the tax arrangements are. What they really do hate is volatility, the sort of thing you see in populist states where a tax is suddenly doubled.
    It's also worth noting how carefully IHT has been fine tuned not to affect approved Tory families and approved Tory voters - sixtysomethings who are children of conventional families. I dealt with the issue when doing the probate of a relative last year and it was quite striking how it has changed since I previously did it - nuclear family, conventionally married couples, direct children, living in SE or in better enclaves elsewhere, were considerably privileged. Tough shite if you are a gay uncle who wants to leave his home to his dearly loved nieces and nephews.

    And of course it's not just charities but approved political parties which benefit from tax relief on donations. It's quite clear from demographics which party will benefit most. I think that is outrageous, not because of that, but because nobody should be allowed a voice in politics after death (when one's vote expires, except in Scotland in 1978, but that is another story).
    I'm not sure I understand this. If you're married then the IHT threshold is effectively doubled to £650000. Not sure what else you are getting at - although IHT isn't a strong point of mine
    It is indeed. But there is also asn extra allowance where the family home goes to direct children. [Edit: Including proceeds from sale thereof etc.]
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Maybe Farage is going to become a full time YouTube influencer....I have no idea what he talks about as never watch his videos, but he seems to consistently do decent numbers.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    OT but relevant to a couple of threads back, The Sun video showing David Cameron in his expensively refurbished Downing Street flat and kitchen in 2015.
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9hqE5HVVQk
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    Nigelb said:

    I think Pfizer will remain the best out of the AZN but I believe they use the same methodology.

    I think J&J might turn out to be the best one as it only requires on jab.

    Although I fully expect regardless of the brand we'll all require annual jabs.

    But I'm glad I got the Pfizer one, I mean has AZN ever come up with a tablet like viagra, that's two humanity altering game changers from one company.

    Pfizer, of course, tried to buy AZN back in 2014.
    Just as well they didn’t succeed.
    And what's happened since, coupled with the more hawkish stance towards China, might have wider implications in future. You wonder if the Government might find reasons to block any future attempts to swallow up AstraZeneca? Wouldn't be a complete surprise if the takeover of ARM gets kiboshed as well.
    ARM is currently owned by Softbank of Japan. Moving its ownership to Nvidia of the US isn't that big a change.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,088
    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    The other difference for Boris Johnson is that from Cherie Blair onwards the PM's other half has earned decent money whilst the spouse was PM, Symonds doesn't bring anything to the table money wise, so that's not helping.

    When he was married to Marina Wheeler, she brought the salary commensurate with a QC.

    That’s what I struggle with. She’s had a good career in her own right. I can understand a split of current assets and support for the kids. But why a percentage of future earnings for her?
    Make him experience what it’s like to be screwed for once ?
    Is such an agreement enforcible were he to question it in Court?

    I though inequitable settlements could be reopened these days.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587

    Fat 50s getting done now....still.can't give the government any credit though.

    https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1368279901262995466?s=19

    13% Conservative lead in the opinion polls suggests to me the Government are getting plenty of credit.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    kle4 said:

    What about the Reform Party or whatever UKIP 3.0 is called?
    Wasn't that pretty much just anti-lockdown stuff and throw in some vague talk of 'reform'? With the government getting a shot in the arm and readying to relax things, they probably wouldn't have a big impact, so little chance of the locals putting pressure on the Tories from that direction at least.
    Who's going to break it to poor contrarian?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    I think Pfizer will remain the best out of the AZN but I believe they use the same methodology.

    I think J&J might turn out to be the best one as it only requires on jab.

    Although I fully expect regardless of the brand we'll all require annual jabs.

    But I'm glad I got the Pfizer one, I mean has AZN ever come up with a tablet like viagra, that's two humanity altering game changers from one company.

    Pfizer, of course, tried to buy AZN back in 2014.
    Just as well they didn’t succeed.
    And what's happened since, coupled with the more hawkish stance towards China, might have wider implications in future. You wonder if the Government might find reasons to block any future attempts to swallow up AstraZeneca? Wouldn't be a complete surprise if the takeover of ARM gets kiboshed as well.
    ARM is currently owned by Softbank of Japan. Moving its ownership to Nvidia of the US isn't that big a change.
    It is in terms of motivation of their owners.
  • Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    ydoethur said:

    He’s one of the greatest quitters in recent political history.

    He’s quit so often that even UKIP lost count.
    Yes.

    OTOH: Is Nigel Farage the most consequential British political figure since Thatcher? Discuss.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408

    Maybe Farage is going to become a full time YouTube influencer....I have no idea what he talks about as never watch his videos, but he seems to consistently do decent numbers.

    Plenty of youtubes may talk about anything that takes their fancy and do decently - if they are coming for the particular personality it will be easier not to be pigeonholed into specific subjects.
  • BournvilleBournville Posts: 303
    A fun anecdote about Shaun Bailey - I was once in a strategy meeting with some Bailey campaign staffers talking about local campaign issues in different London boroughs, when Shaun came into the room to listen in. Eventually, he piped up to ask us if we'd heard of the Low Emissions Zone, and spent a few minutes showing us where the M25 was on a big map of London they had in the office.

    Cheers Shaun!
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    edited March 2021

    ydoethur said:

    He’s one of the greatest quitters in recent political history.

    He’s quit so often that even UKIP lost count.
    Yes.

    OTOH: Is Nigel Farage the most consequential British political figure since Thatcher? Discuss.
    It's certainly true that on a personal electoral level he's not done great, nor his parties when trying to branch out from EU matters, and that he has been massively influential. We have fun mocking his many Westminster losses, because it is fun, but he couldn't even work up a grumble about the Xmas Brexit deal, so he's clearly content with life.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408

    kle4 said:

    What about the Reform Party or whatever UKIP 3.0 is called?
    Wasn't that pretty much just anti-lockdown stuff and throw in some vague talk of 'reform'? With the government getting a shot in the arm and readying to relax things, they probably wouldn't have a big impact, so little chance of the locals putting pressure on the Tories from that direction at least.
    Who's going to break it to poor contrarian?
    On the contrary, ahem, if ReformUK do not put up large numbers of candidates we won't have had a proper test of such sentiment, and so whether they would have shown a significant (though still minority) level of support is therefore unknowable. Perfect result.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,242

    So The Sunday Times have done a piece on Boris Johnson's finances, he really is a shit negotiator.

    Johnson’s biggest likely outlay is the result of what one Old Etonian school friend describes as “his pecker problem”. The friend recalls: “Boris has always had a problem keeping his pecker in his trousers. And that’s what so often has led him into trouble.”

    Six children — those are the ones that are known about — by three women, plus two divorces and an imminent third wedding to pay for don’t come cheap.

    Johnson is still believed to help support two of his four children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler, who are all now in their twenties after expensive private schools and universities.

    Stephanie, aged 11, is Johnson’s fifth child, through his affair with Helen Macintyre, an art consultant, and Wilfred will be one next month.

    Johnson’s first divorce, from Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1993, was not costly and they had no children. But his divorce last year from Wheeler, a human rights QC, after 25 years together, was a different matter. Having separated in the summer of 2018 after Johnson met Symonds, it took them until February 2020 to reach a financial settlement.

    Word in legal circles is that Johnson was by then desperate to finalise the divorce, because Symonds was pregnant and he was determined not to announce the pregnancy until Wheeler, and their children, had been placated.

    That gave his soon-to-be-ex-wife considerable leverage in the protracted negotiations, leading to what one QC who professes familiarity with the details describes as “one of the most devastatingly one-sided divorces in British legal history”.

    It even gave Wheeler a considerable percentage of Johnson’s future lucrative earnings after he leaves office. Might it be no wonder then that Boris needs a leg-up with the home decor?


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-is-boris-johnson-so-skint-5jvvbgdxg

    Was there once a time when journalism aspired to something a little better than rummaging through the PM's dustbins for detritus? Ah well, I suppose they have bills to pay too.

    As so often, however, the historical comparisons work out rather nicely in Boris' favour:

    http://www.andrewlownie.co.uk/authors/david-lough/books/no-more-champagne-churchill-and-his-money

    Lough uses Churchill’s own most private records, many never researched before, to chronicle his family’s chronic shortage of money, his own extravagance and his recurring losses from gambling or trading in shares and currencies. Churchill tried to keep himself afloat by borrowing to the hilt, putting off bills and writing ‘all over the place’; when all else failed, he had to ask family or friends to come to the rescue. This they did on no fewer than six occasions unearthed by Lough, the last when Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940. Yet within five years he had taken advantage of his worldwide celebrity to transform his private fortunes with the same ruthlessness as he waged war, reaching 1945 with today’s equivalent of £3 million in the bank. His lucrative war memoirs were still to come.
    Yeah, but Winston Churchill was a freaking genius.

    Boris Johnson? Not so much.

    Sheer folly, plus ego the size of Greenland, compels BJ to constantly compare himself against WSC.

    For he can NEVER measure up, only down.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959

    ydoethur said:

    He’s one of the greatest quitters in recent political history.

    He’s quit so often that even UKIP lost count.
    Yes.

    OTOH: Is Nigel Farage the most consequential British political figure since Thatcher? Discuss.
    No. Without Boris, a Farage-led Brexit would have died a death.

    Exhibit A: THAT poster.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:



    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.

    From t'internet. Wealth taxes in Europe:

    Net Wealth Taxes
    Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on individuals’ wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€152,000 or US $170,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax dates to 1892. Under COVID-19-related measures, individual business owners and shareholders who realize a loss in 2020 are eligible for a one-year deferred payment of the wealth tax.

    Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 3.75 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($784,000; lower in some regions), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while nonresidents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain.

    Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. The Swiss net wealth tax was first implemented in 1840.
    Yes, I never met anyone in Switzerland who thought the wealth tax unreasonable. Come to that, I've never met anyone who hated IHT, though I know there's a widespread belief to that effect. When I inherited from my mother, it was a nice windfall, and paying the tax just made it a smaller windfall, but still very welcome. It never occurred to me to grumble, any more than I mutter about VAT when I buy something - and VAT is far more significant as it hits you every day, rather than a couple of times in your life.

    We all extrapolate from our personal feelings and those of oyr friends. But I'm quite sure that people get used to whatever the tax arrangements are. What they really do hate is volatility, the sort of thing you see in populist states where a tax is suddenly doubled.
    It's also worth noting how carefully IHT has been fine tuned not to affect approved Tory families and approved Tory voters - sixtysomethings who are children of conventional families. I dealt with the issue when doing the probate of a relative last year and it was quite striking how it has changed since I previously did it - nuclear family, conventionally married couples, direct children, living in SE or in better enclaves elsewhere, were considerably privileged. Tough shite if you are a gay uncle who wants to leave his home to his dearly loved nieces and nephews.

    And of course it's not just charities but approved political parties which benefit from tax relief on donations. It's quite clear from demographics which party will benefit most. I think that is outrageous, not because of that, but because nobody should be allowed a voice in politics after death (when one's vote expires, except in Scotland in 1978, but that is another story).
    I'm not sure I understand this. If you're married then the IHT threshold is effectively doubled to £650000. Not sure what else you are getting at - although IHT isn't a strong point of mine
    It is indeed. But there is also asn extra allowance where the family home goes to direct children. [Edit: Including proceeds from sale thereof etc.]
    Iirc the extra allowance can be used to give money to stepchildren....too.....
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    kle4 said:

    What about the Reform Party or whatever UKIP 3.0 is called?
    Wasn't that pretty much just anti-lockdown stuff and throw in some vague talk of 'reform'? With the government getting a shot in the arm and readying to relax things, they probably wouldn't have a big impact, so little chance of the locals putting pressure on the Tories from that direction at least.
    Who's going to break it to poor contrarian?
    No worries, it is the shortest retirement in history

    https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1368293757179854856?s=19
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Foxy said:

    What about the Reform Party or whatever UKIP 3.0 is called?
    There is no way he gets elected without PR like there was for the EP. FPTP will see him poling lower than Lord Buckethead.
    Which was at least better than Count Binface (the 2017 Lord Buckethead)
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:



    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.

    From t'internet. Wealth taxes in Europe:

    Net Wealth Taxes
    Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on individuals’ wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€152,000 or US $170,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax dates to 1892. Under COVID-19-related measures, individual business owners and shareholders who realize a loss in 2020 are eligible for a one-year deferred payment of the wealth tax.

    Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 3.75 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($784,000; lower in some regions), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while nonresidents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain.

    Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. The Swiss net wealth tax was first implemented in 1840.
    Yes, I never met anyone in Switzerland who thought the wealth tax unreasonable. Come to that, I've never met anyone who hated IHT, though I know there's a widespread belief to that effect. When I inherited from my mother, it was a nice windfall, and paying the tax just made it a smaller windfall, but still very welcome. It never occurred to me to grumble, any more than I mutter about VAT when I buy something - and VAT is far more significant as it hits you every day, rather than a couple of times in your life.

    We all extrapolate from our personal feelings and those of oyr friends. But I'm quite sure that people get used to whatever the tax arrangements are. What they really do hate is volatility, the sort of thing you see in populist states where a tax is suddenly doubled.
    It's also worth noting how carefully IHT has been fine tuned not to affect approved Tory families and approved Tory voters - sixtysomethings who are children of conventional families. I dealt with the issue when doing the probate of a relative last year and it was quite striking how it has changed since I previously did it - nuclear family, conventionally married couples, direct children, living in SE or in better enclaves elsewhere, were considerably privileged. Tough shite if you are a gay uncle who wants to leave his home to his dearly loved nieces and nephews.

    And of course it's not just charities but approved political parties which benefit from tax relief on donations. It's quite clear from demographics which party will benefit most. I think that is outrageous, not because of that, but because nobody should be allowed a voice in politics after death (when one's vote expires, except in Scotland in 1978, but that is another story).
    I'm not sure I understand this. If you're married then the IHT threshold is effectively doubled to £650000. Not sure what else you are getting at - although IHT isn't a strong point of mine
    It is indeed. But there is also asn extra allowance where the family home goes to direct children. [Edit: Including proceeds from sale thereof etc.]
    Iirc the extra allowance can be used to give money to stepchildren....too.....
    Yeas, but not nephews etc.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MattW said:



    IHT is interesting. It is an ultra-focused wealth tax on only 25k estates per year, each of which pays an average of £200k. Even if multiplied up by 30 to allow for the length of a generation, that is only 700k people, or just over 1% of the population.

    Yet it is hated.

    So why do some think that very narrow Wealth Taxes will work, or be acceptable to the general populus?

    The only place afaik that raises genuinely significant amounts through a Wealth Tax is Switzerland, and that does it by application to a significant proportion of the population, and raises about 4% of tax revenue. All the narrow wealth taxes in Europe (France, Spain, Norway iirc) only raise around 1% of tax revenue at best.

    IHT raises £5bn a year, which is 0.7% of tax reveue. Ish.

    I won't engage with the "Independent Schools can't ever help Equality of Opportunity" bollocks, because it is even more bollocks currently than it has been in the past. Anyone thinking that first needs to move their head out of 1893. :smile:

    Have a nice evening.

    From t'internet. Wealth taxes in Europe:

    Net Wealth Taxes
    Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on individuals’ wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€152,000 or US $170,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax dates to 1892. Under COVID-19-related measures, individual business owners and shareholders who realize a loss in 2020 are eligible for a one-year deferred payment of the wealth tax.

    Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 3.75 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($784,000; lower in some regions), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while nonresidents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain.

    Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. The Swiss net wealth tax was first implemented in 1840.
    Yes, I never met anyone in Switzerland who thought the wealth tax unreasonable. Come to that, I've never met anyone who hated IHT, though I know there's a widespread belief to that effect. When I inherited from my mother, it was a nice windfall, and paying the tax just made it a smaller windfall, but still very welcome. It never occurred to me to grumble, any more than I mutter about VAT when I buy something - and VAT is far more significant as it hits you every day, rather than a couple of times in your life.

    We all extrapolate from our personal feelings and those of oyr friends. But I'm quite sure that people get used to whatever the tax arrangements are. What they really do hate is volatility, the sort of thing you see in populist states where a tax is suddenly doubled.
    It's also worth noting how carefully IHT has been fine tuned not to affect approved Tory families and approved Tory voters - sixtysomethings who are children of conventional families. I dealt with the issue when doing the probate of a relative last year and it was quite striking how it has changed since I previously did it - nuclear family, conventionally married couples, direct children, living in SE or in better enclaves elsewhere, were considerably privileged. Tough shite if you are a gay uncle who wants to leave his home to his dearly loved nieces and nephews.

    And of course it's not just charities but approved political parties which benefit from tax relief on donations. It's quite clear from demographics which party will benefit most. I think that is outrageous, not because of that, but because nobody should be allowed a voice in politics after death (when one's vote expires, except in Scotland in 1978, but that is another story).
    I'm not sure I understand this. If you're married then the IHT threshold is effectively doubled to £650000. Not sure what else you are getting at - although IHT isn't a strong point of mine
    It is indeed. But there is also asn extra allowance where the family home goes to direct children. [Edit: Including proceeds from sale thereof etc.]
    Iirc the extra allowance can be used to give money to stepchildren....too.....
    Yeas, but not nephews etc.
    That's unfortunate, my uncle has said he wants to leave me his house!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    Any news on when Carrie becomes an honest woman?

    Should be worth a bundle when they divorce...
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    What about the Reform Party or whatever UKIP 3.0 is called?
    Wasn't that pretty much just anti-lockdown stuff and throw in some vague talk of 'reform'? With the government getting a shot in the arm and readying to relax things, they probably wouldn't have a big impact, so little chance of the locals putting pressure on the Tories from that direction at least.
    Who's going to break it to poor contrarian?
    No worries, it is the shortest retirement in history

    https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1368293757179854856?s=19
    56.....56....kids drinking, smoking and taking no exercise....exhibit B....after exhibit A the PM.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    What about the Reform Party or whatever UKIP 3.0 is called?
    Wasn't that pretty much just anti-lockdown stuff and throw in some vague talk of 'reform'? With the government getting a shot in the arm and readying to relax things, they probably wouldn't have a big impact, so little chance of the locals putting pressure on the Tories from that direction at least.
    Who's going to break it to poor contrarian?
    No worries, it is the shortest retirement in history

    https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1368293757179854856?s=19
    If he shows the same grasp of Chinese influence over the world as he does over the schools they own, he will probably end by endorsing the Chinese annexation of Taiwan, Mongolia, Nepal and Vietnam.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,408
    Foxy said:

    Any news on when Carrie becomes an honest woman?

    Should be worth a bundle when they divorce...

    Nah, as the marriage will have been during his PM years, when his earnings are way down.
This discussion has been closed.