Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

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

1235

Comments

  • Read the room.




    Jane Merrick
    @janemerrick23
    ·
    1h
    Why are ABBA dressed like a climbing wall?
  • Good England performance tonight. No apparent hangover from the Euro 2020 final.

    Well, apart from racist thugs of Hungary are still around.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    External Link please to back up the allegation as the only thing I can see is that their foundation has subsidised the first 100 million shots produced there so they are sold for $3 each.
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html
    Yeah, that fails the credibly source hurdle by about 200 million miles. No link. Just a line on a webpage that no-one's heard of.
    I know you feel that in some libertarian sort of way that anyone should be able to post anything here, but I really feel that posting stuff at this level of implausibility should be grounds for a suspension , at the least
    It seeds crazy lies into what is seen as a much more credible source (someone somewhere will quote hyufd/pb as a 'reliable source' on this) and derails sensible discussion to an unreasonable extent. /rant
    I don't like banning people for being idiots. But those kind of unsubstituted claims can get us into real trouble.
  • eek said:

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

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

    Agree 100% with this.

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

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

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

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

    I've now got a meeting request from the TUC where that suggestion is likely to become their policy as it's an easier fix than they current fix (which is banning umbrella firms outright).
    The problem is that if you are in an existing contract and that is transferred inside IR35 then it is done without any increase in cost to the client. That means inevitably that the additional costs of Employers NI, holiday and sick pay and of course an additional fee taken by the agency will all come out of the existing contract value. So without paying any more tax personally or by your own limited company, you are substantially worse off because you are paying all the costs which would normally be paid by an employer or which previously weren't paid at all (a day rater really isn't interested in holiday or sick pay)
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598

    We need to get on with it now. Booster jabs asap. Or we are up to 1,000 deaths a day by Oct. Sort it out Sajid.
    Do you ever tire of making hyperbolic predictions? Your track record is beyond shit, worse even than Pagel’s.
    Hope I'm wrong. But it's rising everywhere. Time to take extra care 👿
    What is rising? Covid positives are actually falling slightly.

    But really that’s not the point. The point is that you keep making these attention-seeking predictions, despite the fact that thus far none of your hysterical forecasts have materialised.

  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited September 2021

    eek said:

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

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

    Agree 100% with this.

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

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

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

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

    I've now got a meeting request from the TUC where that suggestion is likely to become their policy as it's an easier fix than they current fix (which is banning umbrella firms outright).
    The problem is that if you are in an existing contract and that is transferred inside IR35 then it is done without any increase in cost to the client. That means inevitably that the additional costs of Employers NI, holiday and sick pay and of course an additional fee taken by the agency will all come out of the existing contract value. So without paying any more tax personally or by your own limited company, you are substantially worse off because you are paying all the costs which would normally be paid by an employer or which previously weren't paid at all (a day rater really isn't interested in holiday or sick pay)
    Oh in that case I would have ran away (which has been the advice I've been given for years).

    Because continuing inside IR35 opens you up to something very similar to the GlaxoSmithKline contractor tax grab that HMRC did on the contractors at GSK a couple of years back.

    And the simple question you need to ask yourself is why did you think the contract was outside IR35 when your client thought it was inside IR35. What information did they have that you didn't and what support would the client give you if HMRC starts asking about your 2020-21 outside IR35 determination... Do you have a paper trail that demostrates why you believe the work was outside and are they significant differences between how things were doing pre and post April 2021.

    I should point out I'm not trying to scare you here but this is a subject I know an awful lot about....
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2021

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

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

    I never once said I supported Fascism, I said Franco did keep the Communists out, something Epping's own former Tory MP Churchill even backed him on as I posted earlier.

    I did however say too I would also have supported the Communists over Hitler, as Churchill also did
  • We need to get on with it now. Booster jabs asap. Or we are up to 1,000 deaths a day by Oct. Sort it out Sajid.
    Do you ever tire of making hyperbolic predictions? Your track record is beyond shit, worse even than Pagel’s.
    Hope I'm wrong. But it's rising everywhere. Time to take extra care 👿
    What is rising? Covid positives are actually falling slightly.

    But really that’s not the point. The point is that you keep making these attention-seeking predictions, despite the fact that thus far none of your hysterical forecasts have materialised.

    1000 deaths a day is > 5 x what we have now - with only twenty eight days to go.

    Seems highly unlikely.

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    So, I've spent the last half hour trying to track this down, and I can't find any evidence to support this claim.

    Please post a link, or remove the comment and issue an apology. This claim is potentially libellous, and could result in both the site and you having to pay out very substantial damages.
    Take it up with CDAN then if you disagree as it is publicly available on the web as a claim there
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html

    Or the Diplomat in India
    https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/why-are-indians-so-angry-at-bill-gates/
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
  • Good England performance tonight. No apparent hangover from the Euro 2020 final.

    Well, apart from racist thugs of Hungary are still around.
    EU member-state Hungary....
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,262
    edited September 2021
    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    Er no, those on high salaries do not pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance.

    If you are on £50k you pay approx 10% of your salary in NI.

    Earnings above £50k only attract 2% NI. So a really high earner on say, £550k pa will be paying < 3% of their salary in NI.

    Edited to get rid of the <3 emoticon!
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    So, I've spent the last half hour trying to track this down, and I can't find any evidence to support this claim.

    Please post a link, or remove the comment and issue an apology. This claim is potentially libellous, and could result in both the site and you having to pay out very substantial damages.
    Take it up with CDAN then if you disagree as it is publicly availalble on the web as a claim there
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html
    Um, you posted it on this site without initially providing any citation to the source material - so that doesn't wash.

    Not that that actually matters in the UK where it's been shown by multiple court cases that just retweeting a tweet made by someone else is libel.

    And you didn't just retweet something you posted a serious libel without any thought to the consequences of that libel.
  • We need to get on with it now. Booster jabs asap. Or we are up to 1,000 deaths a day by Oct. Sort it out Sajid.
    Do you ever tire of making hyperbolic predictions? Your track record is beyond shit, worse even than Pagel’s.
    Hope I'm wrong. But it's rising everywhere. Time to take extra care 👿
    What is rising? Covid positives are actually falling slightly.

    But really that’s not the point. The point is that you keep making these attention-seeking predictions, despite the fact that thus far none of your hysterical forecasts have materialised.

    Warning. Just because some people want to be COVID-deniers doesn't mean the situation isn't getting worse.

    Take extra care. And/or get on with the boosters.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    So, I've spent the last half hour trying to track this down, and I can't find any evidence to support this claim.

    Please post a link, or remove the comment and issue an apology. This claim is potentially libellous, and could result in both the site and you having to pay out very substantial damages.
    Take it up with CDAN then if you disagree as it is publicly available on the web as a claim there
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html

    Or the Diplomat in India
    https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/why-are-indians-so-angry-at-bill-gates/
    You are mad.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2021
    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    So, I've spent the last half hour trying to track this down, and I can't find any evidence to support this claim.

    Please post a link, or remove the comment and issue an apology. This claim is potentially libellous, and could result in both the site and you having to pay out very substantial damages.
    Take it up with CDAN then if you disagree as it is publicly availalble on the web as a claim there
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html
    Um, you posted it on this site without initially providing any citation to the source material - so that doesn't wash.

    Not that that actually matters in the UK where it's been shown by multiple court cases that just retweeting a tweet made by someone else is libel.

    And you didn't just retweet something you posted a serious libel without any thought to the consequences of that libel.
    No I provided the link

    See also the claims made in New Republic, if Gates wants to sue those publications that is his affair.

    If he wins then fair enough he will have proved his case in court but as far as I can see he hasn't yet
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines
  • We have wasted all summer. Could have got kids done in the summer holidays and now be rolling out jabs to oldies...instead we will wait another month pissing about, meaning that some old people won't be getting their booster protection well into November.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    Er no, those on high salaries, do not pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance.

    If you are on £50k you pay approx 10% of your salary in NI.

    Earnings above £50k only attract 2% NI. So a really high earner on say, £550k pa will be paying
    It is the employer NI rate that is the issue on high salaries. As I understand it there is no upper limit on the 13.8% rate. So the employers NI bill for the £550k earner would be 13.8% of the total salary. That is inevitably going to be passed to the employee in the level at which their pay is set.
  • HYUFD said:

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

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

    I never once said I supported Fascism, I said Franco did keep the Communists out, something Epping's own former Tory MP Churchill even backed him on as I posted earlier
    Meanwhile some of his fellow Britons joined the International Brigade to fight Franco and his Fascists.

    I know where my sympathies lie. I don't think I'd have had the guts to join them.

    I also know that you cheer on the successor party to the Falange. The party whose goons drag grannies out of polling stations and imprison their political opponents.

  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    So, I've spent the last half hour trying to track this down, and I can't find any evidence to support this claim.

    Please post a link, or remove the comment and issue an apology. This claim is potentially libellous, and could result in both the site and you having to pay out very substantial damages.
    Take it up with CDAN then if you disagree as it is publicly availalble on the web as a claim there
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html
    Um, you posted it on this site without initially providing any citation to the source material - so that doesn't wash.

    Not that that actually matters in the UK where it's been shown by multiple court cases that just retweeting a tweet made by someone else is libel.

    And you didn't just retweet something you posted a serious libel without any thought to the consequences of that libel.
    No I provided the link

    See also the claims made in New Republic, if Gates wants to sue those publications that is his affair.

    If he wins then fair enough he will have proved his case in court but as far as I can see he hasn't yet
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines
    You don't know how UK libel works do you - Bill Gates could just go after this site and you personally.
  • Alistair said:

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

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


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

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

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

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

    Give it was only a 0.5% difference half a month ago between England and Scotland it doesn't seem like England is in a massively superior state to Scotland in that regard to explain away the lack of surge. And why not a mass surge in Wales if it's all about anti-body prevalence.
    Aren’t the error bars on Scotland & Wales substantially greater than England?

    What’s your hypothesis?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,262
    eek said:

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
    Roll NI into Income Tax and the problem is solved.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    So, I've spent the last half hour trying to track this down, and I can't find any evidence to support this claim.

    Please post a link, or remove the comment and issue an apology. This claim is potentially libellous, and could result in both the site and you having to pay out very substantial damages.
    Take it up with CDAN then if you disagree as it is publicly available on the web as a claim there
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html

    Or the Diplomat in India
    https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/why-are-indians-so-angry-at-bill-gates/
    OK.

    This has gone too far.

    The article you have posted literally says the opposite. It says the Serum Insitite of India recieved money from the Gates Foundation!

    "All three private and for-profit vaccine manufacturers have been beneficiaries of world’s largest COVID-19 vaccination program by the government of India. SII has been receiving BMGF grants since November 2012. It received an additional grant amount of $4 million in October 2020. Bharat Biotech received funding of $19 million from the BMGF in November 2019. Biological-E Limited has been Ba MGF grantee since 2013. It received funding of #37 million dollars in April 2021 from BMGF."

    BMGF being "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation".

    I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to put you in time out. You can't post libellous claims.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    gealbhan said:

    So how does Boris plan differ from May’s Dementia Tax? The 60K cap rather than 100K? What does that mean in practice when 60K needs to be found for care from your means tested assets before the tax rise, 2p says Javid, steps in and helps?

    The salient point probably isn’t the tax rise but how a cap works? The original report said 50k, Later May said 100K, the smaller figure helps those in care, the larger the government coffers?

    These details trailed to the press don’t seem to be supported/defended by anyone posting here.

    They did this weeks ago, to luke warm response, and delayed it. How many times can they keep doing that?
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    eek said:

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
    If I start a 1 man business (As many LTD companies effectively are), earn 50k, pay 8k as salary and take 42k as dividends (after corporation tax is deducted), then the dividends are just renumeration - effectively linked to employment.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021

    eek said:

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
    Roll NI into Income Tax and the problem is solved.
    Osborne had the real chance to do this back in 2010/2011 and bottled it.

    The only group I think that needs some consideration is the oldies, but for working people, NI + IC rolled up seems perfectly sensible (combined with a bit of shifting around the banding etc).
  • Good England performance tonight. No apparent hangover from the Euro 2020 final.

    Well, apart from racist thugs of Hungary are still around.
    Another country run by a Fascist.

    Is Orban's outfit another sister party of the Conservatives?
  • We need to get on with it now. Booster jabs asap. Or we are up to 1,000 deaths a day by Oct. Sort it out Sajid.
    Do you ever tire of making hyperbolic predictions? Your track record is beyond shit, worse even than Pagel’s.
    Hope I'm wrong. But it's rising everywhere. Time to take extra care 👿
    What is rising? Covid positives are actually falling slightly.

    But really that’s not the point. The point is that you keep making these attention-seeking predictions, despite the fact that thus far none of your hysterical forecasts have materialised.

    Warning. Just because some people want to be COVID-deniers doesn't mean the situation isn't getting worse.

    Take extra care. And/or get on with the boosters.
    How is it getting worse?
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited September 2021
    gealbhan said:

    gealbhan said:

    So how does Boris plan differ from May’s Dementia Tax? The 60K cap rather than 100K? What does that mean in practice when 60K needs to be found for care from your means tested assets before the tax rise, 2p says Javid, steps in and helps?

    The salient point probably isn’t the tax rise but how a cap works? The original report said 50k, Later May said 100K, the smaller figure helps those in care, the larger the government coffers?

    These details trailed to the press don’t seem to be supported/defended by anyone posting here.

    They did this weeks ago, to luke warm response, and delayed it. How many times can they keep doing that?
    I've already tonight seen a number of tweets that point out that because it's on NI not income tax this is another generational tax grab where younger people are being expected to pay for older people.

    That is going to hurt Boris as much as the dementia tax hurt May.

    The only solution to this problem was to kick it into the long ish grass via a Royal commission with the end result to be reported on and implemented at the beginning of the next Parliament after the next General Election.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    So, I've spent the last half hour trying to track this down, and I can't find any evidence to support this claim.

    Please post a link, or remove the comment and issue an apology. This claim is potentially libellous, and could result in both the site and you having to pay out very substantial damages.
    Take it up with CDAN then if you disagree as it is publicly availalble on the web as a claim there
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html
    Um, you posted it on this site without initially providing any citation to the source material - so that doesn't wash.

    Not that that actually matters in the UK where it's been shown by multiple court cases that just retweeting a tweet made by someone else is libel.

    And you didn't just retweet something you posted a serious libel without any thought to the consequences of that libel.
    No I provided the link

    See also the claims made in New Republic, if Gates wants to sue those publications that is his affair.

    If he wins then fair enough he will have proved his case in court but as far as I can see he hasn't yet
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines
    I realise I am posting to a banned user. But again, you are posting a story that directly contradicts your earlier claims.

    The New Republic article is about the Gates Foundation's obsession with intellectual property rights. It makes no allegation whatsoever about him personally (or his foundation) somehow recieving money from Covid doses distributed in India.
  • We need to get on with it now. Booster jabs asap. Or we are up to 1,000 deaths a day by Oct. Sort it out Sajid.
    Do you ever tire of making hyperbolic predictions? Your track record is beyond shit, worse even than Pagel’s.
    Hope I'm wrong. But it's rising everywhere. Time to take extra care 👿
    What is rising? Covid positives are actually falling slightly.

    But really that’s not the point. The point is that you keep making these attention-seeking predictions, despite the fact that thus far none of your hysterical forecasts have materialised.

    Warning. Just because some people want to be COVID-deniers doesn't mean the situation isn't getting worse.

    Take extra care. And/or get on with the boosters.
    How is it getting worse?
    Look at the figures. Cases up everywhere. Deaths up to 200 a day. All projections are for further increases. Vaccines are very good but we know the level of protection is fading which will push hospitalisations and deaths up further.

    Time for boosters to get us through the winter
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
    If I start a 1 man business (As many LTD companies effectively are), earn 50k, pay 8k as salary and take 42k as dividends (after corporation tax is deducted), then the dividends are just renumeration - effectively linked to employment.
    In which case 19% tax is paid on the profit and 7.5% on the dividends.

    That total actually ends up being almost identical to the rate someone on PAYE would being across both income tax and employee NI.

    The only tax that HMRC is losing in that circumstance is actually the 13.8% from Employer NI which is why IR35 is such a big issue for HMT nowadays.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    edited September 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

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

    Doesn't ballistic refer to the method of getting the payload to the target, not to the payload itself? So, does that even make sense?
    Yes, given the size of the payload - a 3 tonne conventional warhead is equivalent to a (very) small nuke.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited September 2021
    Hah.

    Remember this from Scott this morning, about the disastrous, catastophic, world ending £2bn fall in food exports to the EU in first 6 months of 2021 this morning? (Said Henny Penny)
    Scott_xP said:

    Exclusive: The food & drink industry is £2bn worse off after a "disastrous" fall in EU sales this year

    The new @Foodanddrinkfed report, shared with
    @politicshome, said meat & dairy exports were hit hardest in first 6 months of 2021


    Full figures here... https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/post-brexit-trade-down-2-biliion-fall-eu-sales-food-drink-federation-report

    (To be fair he was only quoting somebody else's headline.)

    Here is an article in the Guardian dated 21 June, lamenting the £2bn fall in food and drink exports to the EU in 2021 Q1.

    British food and drink exports to the EU fell by £2bn in the first three months of 2021, with sales of dairy products plummeting by 90%, according to an analysis of HMRC data.
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/18/british-food-and-drink-exports-to-eu-fall-by-2bn-in-first-quarter-of-2021

    For both numbers to be true, it means that Q2 is completely back to normal...
  • Hold the front page!

    Epping Examiner: "Local Conservative councillor BANNED from popular politics blog"

    Good night all.
  • Hold the front page!

    Epping Examiner: "Local Conservative councillor BANNED from popular politics blog"

    Good night all.

    Did he suggest that Radiohead were a bit shit?
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Hold the front page!

    Epping Examiner: "Local Conservative councillor BANNED from popular politics blog"

    Good night all.

    Did he suggest that Radiohead were a bit shit?
    Given that @rcs1000 described his ban as a timeout rather than permanent I don't think so.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    eek said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
    If I start a 1 man business (As many LTD companies effectively are), earn 50k, pay 8k as salary and take 42k as dividends (after corporation tax is deducted), then the dividends are just renumeration - effectively linked to employment.
    In which case 19% tax is paid on the profit and 7.5% on the dividends.

    That total actually ends up being almost identical to the rate someone on PAYE would being across both income tax and employee NI.

    The only tax that HMRC is losing in that circumstance is actually the 13.8% from Employer NI which is why IR35 is such a big issue for HMT nowadays.
    I think that is the point that goes to the heart of the matter. The 13.8% that would have been paid as NI effectively goes to the employee. So you basically get paid about 15% more being self employed than you were if you were employed. And in addition, you have multiple opportunities to take money out of your company in a tax efficient way that are not open to permanent employees, ie through business expenses, company cars and so on.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    eek said:

    gealbhan said:

    gealbhan said:

    So how does Boris plan differ from May’s Dementia Tax? The 60K cap rather than 100K? What does that mean in practice when 60K needs to be found for care from your means tested assets before the tax rise, 2p says Javid, steps in and helps?

    The salient point probably isn’t the tax rise but how a cap works? The original report said 50k, Later May said 100K, the smaller figure helps those in care, the larger the government coffers?

    These details trailed to the press don’t seem to be supported/defended by anyone posting here.

    They did this weeks ago, to luke warm response, and delayed it. How many times can they keep doing that?
    I've already tonight seen a number of tweets that point out that because it's on NI not income tax this is another generational tax grab where younger people are being expected to pay for older people.

    That is going to hurt Boris as much as the dementia tax hurt May.

    The only solution to this problem was to kick it into the long ish grass via a Royal commission with the end result to be reported on and implemented at the beginning of the next Parliament after the next General Election.
    Maybe they still will kick it into the long grass. But doesn’t the do nothing towards what was long time promised option still come with political damage?
  • eek said:

    Hold the front page!

    Epping Examiner: "Local Conservative councillor BANNED from popular politics blog"

    Good night all.

    Did he suggest that Radiohead were a bit shit?
    Given that @rcs1000 described his ban as a timeout rather than permanent I don't think so.
    So just that their live performances can be a bit sub par and self indulgent then....
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Hold the front page!

    Epping Examiner: "Local Conservative councillor BANNED from popular politics blog"

    Good night all.

    Did he suggest that Radiohead were a bit shit?
    No - his microchip malfunctioned and caused him to post rude things about Mr Gates.


    😝
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited September 2021
    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
    If I start a 1 man business (As many LTD companies effectively are), earn 50k, pay 8k as salary and take 42k as dividends (after corporation tax is deducted), then the dividends are just renumeration - effectively linked to employment.
    In which case 19% tax is paid on the profit and 7.5% on the dividends.

    That total actually ends up being almost identical to the rate someone on PAYE would being across both income tax and employee NI.

    The only tax that HMRC is losing in that circumstance is actually the 13.8% from Employer NI which is why IR35 is such a big issue for HMT nowadays.
    I think that is the point that goes to the heart of the matter. The 13.8% that would have been paid as NI effectively goes to the employee. So you basically get paid about 15% more being self employed than you were if you were employed. And in addition, you have multiple opportunities to take money out of your company in a tax efficient way that are not open to permanent employees, ie through business expenses, company cars and so on.
    The April 2021 IR35 changes fixes that for contractors who are deemed by their clients to be inside IR35 as @Richard_Tyndall was complaining about below earlier.

    What you are then left with are either people who have been judged by their end clients to be outside IR35 and so in business of their own account or people who have taken a significant risk and created their own business who probably have multiple clients / customers.

    In both those latter cases, surely there should be some tax incentive for taking personal risk...

    Also how does a company car work out you still need to pay the appropriate level of tax on the benefit in kind a company car gives you (which only works out for electric cars really). And many firms will allow you to salary sacrifice for an electric car as that saves them heaps of Employer NI contributions.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Blimey what an evening to miss on PB.

    I think @HYUFD got himself down a wormhole but we all know he is a fundamentally decent person and god knows replied politely to all and sundry tonight when they were at his throat.

    And there was also an unwelcome element of bullying. Something which other posters would not attract, as observed earlier today funnily enough. He won't hit back so people feel emboldened to attack him

    I look forward to reading his posts again once he has reminded himself of the site's potential legal exposure.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

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

    Doesn't ballistic refer to the method of getting the payload to the target, not to the payload itself? So, does that even make sense?
    Yes, given the size of the payload - a 3 tonne conventional warhead is equivalent to a (very) small nuke.
    Though I think the point is more that such a large payload cab be traded for range - they are developing the capability to have an independent deterrent should it become necessary, and this is a step along the way.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    TOPPING said:

    Blimey what an evening to miss on PB.

    I think @HYUFD got himself down a wormhole but we all know he is a fundamentally decent person and god knows replied politely to all and sundry tonight when they were at his throat.

    And there was also an unwelcome element of bullying. Something which other posters would not attract, as observed earlier today funnily enough. He won't hit back so people feel emboldened to attack him

    I look forward to reading his posts again once he has reminded himself of the site's potential legal exposure.

    I would disagree on your point that HYUFD is a fundamentally decent person...
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080

    Hold the front page!

    Epping Examiner: "Local Conservative councillor BANNED from popular politics blog"

    Good night all.

    I thought Stu from Stockholm had told you how obscure we are about 258 times.
  • darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
    If I start a 1 man business (As many LTD companies effectively are), earn 50k, pay 8k as salary and take 42k as dividends (after corporation tax is deducted), then the dividends are just renumeration - effectively linked to employment.
    In which case 19% tax is paid on the profit and 7.5% on the dividends.

    That total actually ends up being almost identical to the rate someone on PAYE would being across both income tax and employee NI.

    The only tax that HMRC is losing in that circumstance is actually the 13.8% from Employer NI which is why IR35 is such a big issue for HMT nowadays.
    I think that is the point that goes to the heart of the matter. The 13.8% that would have been paid as NI effectively goes to the employee. So you basically get paid about 15% more being self employed than you were if you were employed. And in addition, you have multiple opportunities to take money out of your company in a tax efficient way that are not open to permanent employees, ie through business expenses, company cars and so on.
    The trouble is that those of us who were honest (or rather ethical as those things you mention are not illegal) about it took none of those benefits but we are now getting hit. It actually doesn't pay to be a good citizen and pay your dues without trying to screw one out of the Government because in the end that just makes you an easy target. Now personally I can't behave any other way as it is tied up with my personal beliefs and code. But it does make me bitter because you know the less ethical ones are already lined up taking advantage of the next loophole.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

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

    Doesn't ballistic refer to the method of getting the payload to the target, not to the payload itself? So, does that even make sense?
    Yes, given the size of the payload - a 3 tonne conventional warhead is equivalent to a (very) small nuke.
    Though I think the point is more that such a large payload cab be traded for range - they are developing the capability to have an independent deterrent should it become necessary, and this is a step along the way.
    Do payload cabs come with Albanian taxi drivers?
  • Well quite,

    Dominic Raab has hit back at his cabinet colleague Ben Wallace’s assertion that he knew the “game was up” in Afghanistan by July, escalating the tensions over intelligence failures between the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.
    The defence secretary made several pointed comments in an interview on Thursday, where he contrasted his department’s handling of the Afghanistan crisis with that of Raab’s embattled Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
    Labour called for an end to “unseemly infighting at the top of government” and said ministers should be less focused on trying to hang on to their jobs.


    https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/02/raab-hits-back-defence-minister-afghanistan-remarks?__twitter_impression=true
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    gealbhan said:

    eek said:

    gealbhan said:

    gealbhan said:

    So how does Boris plan differ from May’s Dementia Tax? The 60K cap rather than 100K? What does that mean in practice when 60K needs to be found for care from your means tested assets before the tax rise, 2p says Javid, steps in and helps?

    The salient point probably isn’t the tax rise but how a cap works? The original report said 50k, Later May said 100K, the smaller figure helps those in care, the larger the government coffers?

    These details trailed to the press don’t seem to be supported/defended by anyone posting here.

    They did this weeks ago, to luke warm response, and delayed it. How many times can they keep doing that?
    I've already tonight seen a number of tweets that point out that because it's on NI not income tax this is another generational tax grab where younger people are being expected to pay for older people.

    That is going to hurt Boris as much as the dementia tax hurt May.

    The only solution to this problem was to kick it into the long ish grass via a Royal commission with the end result to be reported on and implemented at the beginning of the next Parliament after the next General Election.
    Maybe they still will kick it into the long grass. But doesn’t the do nothing towards what was long time promised option still come with political damage?
    Less damaging than 1% on National insurance paid by young people to fund a cap on the amount of money wealthy pensioners need to pay for their own care.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    eek said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
    If I start a 1 man business (As many LTD companies effectively are), earn 50k, pay 8k as salary and take 42k as dividends (after corporation tax is deducted), then the dividends are just renumeration - effectively linked to employment.
    In which case 19% tax is paid on the profit and 7.5% on the dividends.

    That total actually ends up being almost identical to the rate someone on PAYE would being across both income tax and employee NI.

    The only tax that HMRC is losing in that circumstance is actually the 13.8% from Employer NI which is why IR35 is such a big issue for HMT nowadays.
    I think that is the point that goes to the heart of the matter. The 13.8% that would have been paid as NI effectively goes to the employee. So you basically get paid about 15% more being self employed than you were if you were employed. And in addition, you have multiple opportunities to take money out of your company in a tax efficient way that are not open to permanent employees, ie through business expenses, company cars and so on.
    The April 2021 IR35 changes fixes that for contractors who are deemed by their clients to be inside IR35 as @Richard_Tyndall was complaining about below earlier.

    What you are then left with are either people who have been judged by their end clients to be outside IR35 and so in business of their own account or people who have taken a significant risk and created their own business who probably have multiple clients / customers.

    In both those latter cases, surely there should be some tax incentive for taking personal risk...
    I just don't know if I agree, in the end; even though I am potentially one of the beneficiaries of the current tax regime.

    Limited companies are not difficult to set up, they operate across a vast range of areas, some companies are very low cost and the personal risk in setting them up is negligible (Arguably the fact that the company is limited mitigates further the level of personal risk involved).

    I can see a case for tax breaks for people who employ other people, rent actual offices or shops, or manufacture physical goods - but not necessarily all limited companies.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited September 2021
    eek said:

    TOPPING said:

    Blimey what an evening to miss on PB.

    I think @HYUFD got himself down a wormhole but we all know he is a fundamentally decent person and god knows replied politely to all and sundry tonight when they were at his throat.

    And there was also an unwelcome element of bullying. Something which other posters would not attract, as observed earlier today funnily enough. He won't hit back so people feel emboldened to attack him

    I look forward to reading his posts again once he has reminded himself of the site's potential legal exposure.

    I would disagree on your point that HYUFD is a fundamentally decent person...
    Then I don't believe you understand him. Goodness knows I have had my run ins with him and he can be frustrating beyond compare But he has his own beliefs and political beliefs and people often take against him quite violently because they disagree with those beliefs.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    TOPPING said:

    Blimey what an evening to miss on PB.

    I think @HYUFD got himself down a wormhole but we all know he is a fundamentally decent person and god knows replied politely to all and sundry tonight when they were at his throat.

    And there was also an unwelcome element of bullying. Something which other posters would not attract, as observed earlier today funnily enough. He won't hit back so people feel emboldened to attack him

    I look forward to reading his posts again once he has reminded himself of the site's potential legal exposure.

    Just for the avoidance of doubt, I banned him (temporarily) because he posted an allegation about Bill Gates. It was an allegation at first without any support, and then that was supported by a single line on a site.

    I told him how he could post stories like that, without getting himself or the site into legal trouble.

    He then compounded the issue by posting links to reputable news sources that he said supported the allegations, but which in fact did not. (Indeed, one said the polar opposite - that the foundation was paying for jabs!)
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,706

    Hold the front page!

    Epping Examiner: "Local Conservative councillor BANNED from popular politics blog"

    Good night all.

    How do you mean popular
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited September 2021

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
    If I start a 1 man business (As many LTD companies effectively are), earn 50k, pay 8k as salary and take 42k as dividends (after corporation tax is deducted), then the dividends are just renumeration - effectively linked to employment.
    In which case 19% tax is paid on the profit and 7.5% on the dividends.

    That total actually ends up being almost identical to the rate someone on PAYE would being across both income tax and employee NI.

    The only tax that HMRC is losing in that circumstance is actually the 13.8% from Employer NI which is why IR35 is such a big issue for HMT nowadays.
    I think that is the point that goes to the heart of the matter. The 13.8% that would have been paid as NI effectively goes to the employee. So you basically get paid about 15% more being self employed than you were if you were employed. And in addition, you have multiple opportunities to take money out of your company in a tax efficient way that are not open to permanent employees, ie through business expenses, company cars and so on.
    The trouble is that those of us who were honest (or rather ethical as those things you mention are not illegal) about it took none of those benefits but we are now getting hit. It actually doesn't pay to be a good citizen and pay your dues without trying to screw one out of the Government because in the end that just makes you an easy target. Now personally I can't behave any other way as it is tied up with my personal beliefs and code. But it does make me bitter because you know the less ethical ones are already lined up taking advantage of the next loophole.
    What loopholes?

    From a different conversation earlier today - HMRC really do need to be explicit that people are personally responsible for paying their own tax bills. Which means for a contractor that HMRC will look at the amount the agency reports it has paid the umbrella you work through and will chase you up if the figures don't very closely match.

    The simple fact is that there are actually very few tax loopholes that exist in ways a mere mortal can use... Anyone promising you a loophole is actually just outright lying to you.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    Blimey what an evening to miss on PB.

    I think @HYUFD got himself down a wormhole but we all know he is a fundamentally decent person and god knows replied politely to all and sundry tonight when they were at his throat.

    And there was also an unwelcome element of bullying. Something which other posters would not attract, as observed earlier today funnily enough. He won't hit back so people feel emboldened to attack him

    I look forward to reading his posts again once he has reminded himself of the site's potential legal exposure.

    Just for the avoidance of doubt, I banned him (temporarily) because he posted an allegation about Bill Gates. It was an allegation at first without any support, and then that was supported by a single line on a site.

    I told him how he could post stories like that, without getting himself or the site into legal trouble.

    He then compounded the issue by posting links to reputable news sources that he said supported the allegations, but which in fact did not. (Indeed, one said the polar opposite - that the foundation was paying for jabs!)
    Yes I absolutely appreciate that hence my final paragraph.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Charles said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

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

    Doesn't ballistic refer to the method of getting the payload to the target, not to the payload itself? So, does that even make sense?
    Yes, given the size of the payload - a 3 tonne conventional warhead is equivalent to a (very) small nuke.
    Though I think the point is more that such a large payload cab be traded for range - they are developing the capability to have an independent deterrent should it become necessary, and this is a step along the way.
    Do payload cabs come with Albanian taxi drivers?
    Yes, and they used to be professional football players in Italy.
  • We need to get on with it now. Booster jabs asap. Or we are up to 1,000 deaths a day by Oct. Sort it out Sajid.
    This is inplausible. Currently cases are fairly static at about 30k per day, and a bit over 100 deaths - call it 150, which is a bit of round up.

    If we assume a constant CFR of 0.5% (150 deaths to 30k cases), to have 1000 daily deaths we'd expect 200k daily infections.

    To get from 30k daily infections to 200k is about 3.25 doublings. There are only 8 weeks till the end of October, and deaths lag cases by about 2 weeks... So 3.25 doublings in 6 weeks.

    Starting from a base of no restrictions and cases having been fairly static for several weeks.

    No, I don't think I'm buying it.
  • eek said:

    eek said:

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

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

    Agree 100% with this.

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

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

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

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

    I've now got a meeting request from the TUC where that suggestion is likely to become their policy as it's an easier fix than they current fix (which is banning umbrella firms outright).
    The problem is that if you are in an existing contract and that is transferred inside IR35 then it is done without any increase in cost to the client. That means inevitably that the additional costs of Employers NI, holiday and sick pay and of course an additional fee taken by the agency will all come out of the existing contract value. So without paying any more tax personally or by your own limited company, you are substantially worse off because you are paying all the costs which would normally be paid by an employer or which previously weren't paid at all (a day rater really isn't interested in holiday or sick pay)
    Oh in that case I would have ran away (which has been the advice I've been given for years).

    Because continuing inside IR35 opens you up to something very similar to the GlaxoSmithKline contractor tax grab that HMRC did on the contractors at GSK a couple of years back.

    And the simple question you need to ask yourself is why did you think the contract was outside IR35 when your client thought it was inside IR35. What information did they have that you didn't and what support would the client give you if HMRC starts asking about your 2020-21 outside IR35 determination... Do you have a paper trail that demostrates why you believe the work was outside and are they significant differences between how things were doing pre and post April 2021.

    I should point out I'm not trying to scare you here but this is a subject I know an awful lot about....
    I have been advised by both my accountant and HMRC during an investigation that I was clearly outside IR35. I have no issue with that.

    Companies are doing this because - contrary to the guidance from HMRC - they are using blanket IR35 decisions on all consultants irrespective of their individual circumstances. They are afraid that they might end up being liable if they get something wrong and have someone outside IR35 when they should have been inside. The converse has no risk so that is what most companies are doing. Simply saying that they will have no consultants outside IR35.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    TOPPING said:

    eek said:

    TOPPING said:

    Blimey what an evening to miss on PB.

    I think @HYUFD got himself down a wormhole but we all know he is a fundamentally decent person and god knows replied politely to all and sundry tonight when they were at his throat.

    And there was also an unwelcome element of bullying. Something which other posters would not attract, as observed earlier today funnily enough. He won't hit back so people feel emboldened to attack him

    I look forward to reading his posts again once he has reminded himself of the site's potential legal exposure.

    I would disagree on your point that HYUFD is a fundamentally decent person...
    Then I don't believe you understand him. Goodness knows I have had my run ins with him and he can be frustrating beyond compare But he has his own beliefs and political beliefs and people often take against him quite violently because they disagree with those beliefs.

    What believes does he have beyond the fact that the leader of the party that wears a blue rosette is 100% correct regardless of any 180 degree changes in attitude.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    edited September 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    So, I've spent the last half hour trying to track this down, and I can't find any evidence to support this claim.

    Please post a link, or remove the comment and issue an apology. This claim is potentially libellous, and could result in both the site and you having to pay out very substantial damages.
    Take it up with CDAN then if you disagree as it is publicly availalble on the web as a claim there
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html
    Um, you posted it on this site without initially providing any citation to the source material - so that doesn't wash.

    Not that that actually matters in the UK where it's been shown by multiple court cases that just retweeting a tweet made by someone else is libel.

    And you didn't just retweet something you posted a serious libel without any thought to the consequences of that libel.
    No I provided the link

    See also the claims made in New Republic, if Gates wants to sue those publications that is his affair.

    If he wins then fair enough he will have proved his case in court but as far as I can see he hasn't yet
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines
    I realise I am posting to a banned user. But again, you are posting a story that directly contradicts your earlier claims.

    The New Republic article is about the Gates Foundation's obsession with intellectual property rights. It makes no allegation whatsoever about him personally (or his foundation) somehow recieving money from Covid doses distributed in India.
    It’s also a fairly incoherent, and light on facts rant.
    Written by someone who appears equally and oppositely obsessed with intellectual property.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    eek said:

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

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

    Agree 100% with this.

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

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

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

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

    I've now got a meeting request from the TUC where that suggestion is likely to become their policy as it's an easier fix than they current fix (which is banning umbrella firms outright).
    The problem is that if you are in an existing contract and that is transferred inside IR35 then it is done without any increase in cost to the client. That means inevitably that the additional costs of Employers NI, holiday and sick pay and of course an additional fee taken by the agency will all come out of the existing contract value. So without paying any more tax personally or by your own limited company, you are substantially worse off because you are paying all the costs which would normally be paid by an employer or which previously weren't paid at all (a day rater really isn't interested in holiday or sick pay)
    Oh in that case I would have ran away (which has been the advice I've been given for years).

    Because continuing inside IR35 opens you up to something very similar to the GlaxoSmithKline contractor tax grab that HMRC did on the contractors at GSK a couple of years back.

    And the simple question you need to ask yourself is why did you think the contract was outside IR35 when your client thought it was inside IR35. What information did they have that you didn't and what support would the client give you if HMRC starts asking about your 2020-21 outside IR35 determination... Do you have a paper trail that demostrates why you believe the work was outside and are they significant differences between how things were doing pre and post April 2021.

    I should point out I'm not trying to scare you here but this is a subject I know an awful lot about....
    I have been advised by both my accountant and HMRC during an investigation that I was clearly outside IR35. I have no issue with that.

    Companies are doing this because - contrary to the guidance from HMRC - they are using blanket IR35 decisions on all consultants irrespective of their individual circumstances. They are afraid that they might end up being liable if they get something wrong and have someone outside IR35 when they should have been inside. The converse has no risk so that is what most companies are doing. Simply saying that they will have no consultants outside IR35.
    Yep Blanket bans are the sanest approach for a lot of firms, as senior management know that more junior managers will treat staff as employees rather than external consultants.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    theProle said:

    We need to get on with it now. Booster jabs asap. Or we are up to 1,000 deaths a day by Oct. Sort it out Sajid.
    This is inplausible. Currently cases are fairly static at about 30k per day, and a bit over 100 deaths - call it 150, which is a bit of round up.

    If we assume a constant CFR of 0.5% (150 deaths to 30k cases), to have 1000 daily deaths we'd expect 200k daily infections.

    To get from 30k daily infections to 200k is about 3.25 doublings. There are only 8 weeks till the end of October, and deaths lag cases by about 2 weeks... So 3.25 doublings in 6 weeks.

    Starting from a base of no restrictions and cases having been fairly static for several weeks.

    No, I don't think I'm buying it.
    While @londonpubman is probably too pessimistic, schools are going back. And with the mixing of the children comes the sharing of the Delta.

    It should burn out relatively quickly, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a pretty miserable September and first half of October. (See Scotland.)
  • eek said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
    If I start a 1 man business (As many LTD companies effectively are), earn 50k, pay 8k as salary and take 42k as dividends (after corporation tax is deducted), then the dividends are just renumeration - effectively linked to employment.
    In which case 19% tax is paid on the profit and 7.5% on the dividends.

    That total actually ends up being almost identical to the rate someone on PAYE would being across both income tax and employee NI.

    The only tax that HMRC is losing in that circumstance is actually the 13.8% from Employer NI which is why IR35 is such a big issue for HMT nowadays.
    I think that is the point that goes to the heart of the matter. The 13.8% that would have been paid as NI effectively goes to the employee. So you basically get paid about 15% more being self employed than you were if you were employed. And in addition, you have multiple opportunities to take money out of your company in a tax efficient way that are not open to permanent employees, ie through business expenses, company cars and so on.
    The trouble is that those of us who were honest (or rather ethical as those things you mention are not illegal) about it took none of those benefits but we are now getting hit. It actually doesn't pay to be a good citizen and pay your dues without trying to screw one out of the Government because in the end that just makes you an easy target. Now personally I can't behave any other way as it is tied up with my personal beliefs and code. But it does make me bitter because you know the less ethical ones are already lined up taking advantage of the next loophole.
    What loopholes?

    From a different conversation earlier today - HMRC really do need to be explicit that people are personally responsible for paying their own tax bills. Which means for a contractor that HMRC will look at the amount the agency reports it has paid the umbrella you work through and will chase you up if the figures don't very closely match.

    The simple fact is that there are actually very few tax loopholes that exist in ways a mere mortal can use... Anyone promising you a loophole is actually just outright lying to you.
    I have received no promises as I am not interested. Sadly I would suggest that I am in a minority and that avoidance both legal and illegal (I know they have different names but I forget them) is still common place.

    I actually understand what HMRC are trying to do but I just think they have given the End User Companies too much leeway to abuse the new rules to their own advantage.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

    eek said:

    darkage said:

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

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

    Hard to disagree with this - at present the system is disproportionately punitive towards those on high salaries, who pay a disproportionate amount of National Insurance. However, applying it to all income is not the solution, that would mean all capital gains, so lots of irrelevant stuff.

    National Insurance should really be payable on all income derived from employment, including income paid through dividends where this is linked to employment, including self employment.
    how are dividends linked to employment? They aren't they are linked to the success of the business that generated the profit from which the dividends were taken.
    If I start a 1 man business (As many LTD companies effectively are), earn 50k, pay 8k as salary and take 42k as dividends (after corporation tax is deducted), then the dividends are just renumeration - effectively linked to employment.
    In which case 19% tax is paid on the profit and 7.5% on the dividends.

    That total actually ends up being almost identical to the rate someone on PAYE would being across both income tax and employee NI.

    The only tax that HMRC is losing in that circumstance is actually the 13.8% from Employer NI which is why IR35 is such a big issue for HMT nowadays.
    I think that is the point that goes to the heart of the matter. The 13.8% that would have been paid as NI effectively goes to the employee. So you basically get paid about 15% more being self employed than you were if you were employed. And in addition, you have multiple opportunities to take money out of your company in a tax efficient way that are not open to permanent employees, ie through business expenses, company cars and so on.
    The trouble is that those of us who were honest (or rather ethical as those things you mention are not illegal) about it took none of those benefits but we are now getting hit. It actually doesn't pay to be a good citizen and pay your dues without trying to screw one out of the Government because in the end that just makes you an easy target. Now personally I can't behave any other way as it is tied up with my personal beliefs and code. But it does make me bitter because you know the less ethical ones are already lined up taking advantage of the next loophole.
    What loopholes?

    From a different conversation earlier today - HMRC really do need to be explicit that people are personally responsible for paying their own tax bills. Which means for a contractor that HMRC will look at the amount the agency reports it has paid the umbrella you work through and will chase you up if the figures don't very closely match.

    The simple fact is that there are actually very few tax loopholes that exist in ways a mere mortal can use... Anyone promising you a loophole is actually just outright lying to you.
    I have received no promises as I am not interested. Sadly I would suggest that I am in a minority and that avoidance both legal and illegal (I know they have different names but I forget them) is still common place.

    I actually understand what HMRC are trying to do but I just think they have given the End User Companies too much leeway to abuse the new rules to their own advantage.
    But that was my point - Given the Agency Reporting Regulations HMRC know exactly how much money has been paid to the worker so know exactly how much tax should be being paid and they are now using it to alert umbrella workers to issues (granted it takes HMRC up to 6 months to do so but 4 months of that delay is due to the timescales built into Agency reportings quarterly reporting requirement).
  • rcs1000 said:

    theProle said:

    We need to get on with it now. Booster jabs asap. Or we are up to 1,000 deaths a day by Oct. Sort it out Sajid.
    This is inplausible. Currently cases are fairly static at about 30k per day, and a bit over 100 deaths - call it 150, which is a bit of round up.

    If we assume a constant CFR of 0.5% (150 deaths to 30k cases), to have 1000 daily deaths we'd expect 200k daily infections.

    To get from 30k daily infections to 200k is about 3.25 doublings. There are only 8 weeks till the end of October, and deaths lag cases by about 2 weeks... So 3.25 doublings in 6 weeks.

    Starting from a base of no restrictions and cases having been fairly static for several weeks.

    No, I don't think I'm buying it.
    While @londonpubman is probably too pessimistic, schools are going back. And with the mixing of the children comes the sharing of the Delta.

    It should burn out relatively quickly, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a pretty miserable September and first half of October. (See Scotland.)
    I'm expecting a rise, not least on a "the more you look the more you find" sort of basis as all the kids start doing piles of LFTs again. And probably a real increase in transmission due to the increased mixing in schools.

    If @londonpubman had made the claim for November or December, whilst I think it's unlikely, I could have understood the basis. But there just isn't plausibly time for that sort of acceleration of deaths between now and October.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    Blimey what an evening to miss on PB.

    I think @HYUFD got himself down a wormhole but we all know he is a fundamentally decent person and god knows replied politely to all and sundry tonight when they were at his throat.

    And there was also an unwelcome element of bullying. Something which other posters would not attract, as observed earlier today funnily enough. He won't hit back so people feel emboldened to attack him

    I look forward to reading his posts again once he has reminded himself of the site's potential legal exposure.

    Just for the avoidance of doubt, I banned him (temporarily) because he posted an allegation about Bill Gates. It was an allegation at first without any support, and then that was supported by a single line on a site.

    I told him how he could post stories like that, without getting himself or the site into legal trouble.

    He then compounded the issue by posting links to reputable news sources that he said supported the allegations, but which in fact did not. (Indeed, one said the polar opposite - that the foundation was paying for jabs!)
    How nice it is to have a site where moderation decisions are explained. Too many places on the internet mods are just trigger happy and want to be above scrutiny.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    Good England performance tonight. No apparent hangover from the Euro 2020 final.

    Well, apart from racist thugs of Hungary are still around.
    It was disgusting behaviour. They should be severely punished by FIFA.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    eek said:

    gealbhan said:

    eek said:

    gealbhan said:

    gealbhan said:

    So how does Boris plan differ from May’s Dementia Tax? The 60K cap rather than 100K? What does that mean in practice when 60K needs to be found for care from your means tested assets before the tax rise, 2p says Javid, steps in and helps?

    The salient point probably isn’t the tax rise but how a cap works? The original report said 50k, Later May said 100K, the smaller figure helps those in care, the larger the government coffers?

    These details trailed to the press don’t seem to be supported/defended by anyone posting here.

    They did this weeks ago, to luke warm response, and delayed it. How many times can they keep doing that?
    I've already tonight seen a number of tweets that point out that because it's on NI not income tax this is another generational tax grab where younger people are being expected to pay for older people.

    That is going to hurt Boris as much as the dementia tax hurt May.

    The only solution to this problem was to kick it into the long ish grass via a Royal commission with the end result to be reported on and implemented at the beginning of the next Parliament after the next General Election.
    Maybe they still will kick it into the long grass. But doesn’t the do nothing towards what was long time promised option still come with political damage?
    Less damaging than 1% on National insurance paid by young people to fund a cap on the amount of money wealthy pensioners need to pay for their own care.
    You are banging on that point of view, I don’t want to push a point of view I may not even subscribe to myself or actually disagree with you, but 1, those paying as they earn on progressive tax does has it merits as well as argument the retired done the same throughout their working lives, and 2, with a cap there are losers that end of the equation too, you concede, especially the higher it’s set at?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    "Australia Traded Away Too Much Liberty
    How long can a democracy maintain emergency restrictions and still call itself a free country?
    By Conor Friedersdorf"

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-australia-still-liberal-democracy/619940/


    Quote:

    "Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”"
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Andy_JS said:

    "Australia Traded Away Too Much Liberty
    How long can a democracy maintain emergency restrictions and still call itself a free country?
    By Conor Friedersdorf"

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-australia-still-liberal-democracy/619940/


    Quote:

    "Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”"

    It's a fascinating question, to which I don't know the answer.

    Imagine that there was no Covid vaccine. But normal life could return 85% of the time: no masks, no social distancing, etc.

    Here's the thing: when a case is discovered everything is locked down perhaps for weeks at a time. And it's a complete lockdown - no leaving the house for exercise, no going to the store, no traveling to a friend's or another city. You are - for one week every couple of months - a prisoner.

    But the rest of the time you're free.

    Which is better? Endless petty restrictions, or draconian but temporary ones?

    Fortunately, vaccines have offered us a way out. But if you were in Oz, and vaccine availability was ... modest ..., which would you choose?
  • Suga's not running, hope he read yesterday's thread and got some money on
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:

    Post debate poll in Germany:

    Infratest dimap / ARD: SPD 25 % (+4%) | CDU/CSU 20 % (-3%) | GRÜNE 16 % | FDP 13 % | AfD 12 % | DIE LINKE 6 % | Sonstige 8 %

    Changes with 19 August.

    https://twitter.com/Wahlrecht_de

    Another dire poll for Laschet

    Looks like an SPD led coalition on the way. A few days ago my fellow Essex Man was postulating a break up of the CDU/CSU alliance and a separate Bavaria within the EU. I wonder!!!!
    image

    This is according to one pollster. Yes ,their claimed 7.5% SPD lead is large.

    But look at the distribution - I don't think it's the CSU letting the side down*


    (*don't overthink it)
    On those results given the CSU will likely provide over half the remaining Union seats in the Bundestag hopefully they get more influence in selecting the chancellor candidate next time and Soder therefore gets the gig.

    Clearly it is Laschet and the CDU who will have lost it this time
    It's worth pointing out the CSU won all 46 constituencies in Bavaria in 2017 and many by huge margins. The most marginal seat is Nuremburg North (no giggling in the cheap seats) which the CSU won by 5.6 points in 2017. At the other extreme, Altoetting (I've told you once) was won by 41.4 points.
    Makes one wonder about Bavaria. Wasn't Wagner Bavarian?
    Of course the CSU won't have over half of the CDU/CSU seats in the Bundestag on those numbers, because of PR. (In reply to HYUFD above who is at least entertainingly consistent in his laughable ignorance of all things German).


    Wagner wasn't Bavarian though he spent his last years in Bayreuth. Ludwig II was a big fan.


  • Morning all! Something woke me up so may as well get on with it. Sky Broadband is down (seems to have been rolling nationwide issues) but unlimited mobile data says so what.

    Would never have guessed that the Essicks Massiv would get the ban hammer - albeit time limited - for posting paranoid delusions about Covid vaccines.

    Perhaps when he comes back he can advise which manufacturer had the Bill Gates nanobots in it so I can see if I got the right one. I have found my previously staunch dislike of Windows softening these last weeks so I am guessing his nanobots were in my Pfizer jabs.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Australia Traded Away Too Much Liberty
    How long can a democracy maintain emergency restrictions and still call itself a free country?
    By Conor Friedersdorf"

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-australia-still-liberal-democracy/619940/


    Quote:

    "Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”"

    It's a fascinating question, to which I don't know the answer.

    Imagine that there was no Covid vaccine. But normal life could return 85% of the time: no masks, no social distancing, etc.

    Here's the thing: when a case is discovered everything is locked down perhaps for weeks at a time. And it's a complete lockdown - no leaving the house for exercise, no going to the store, no traveling to a friend's or another city. You are - for one week every couple of months - a prisoner.

    But the rest of the time you're free.

    Which is better? Endless petty restrictions, or draconian but temporary ones?

    Fortunately, vaccines have offered us a way out. But if you were in Oz, and vaccine availability was ... modest ..., which would you choose?
    There are plenty of vaccines available in Oz. Just no one wants to take CSL/AZ
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    TOPPING said:

    Blimey what an evening to miss on PB.

    I think @HYUFD got himself down a wormhole but we all know he is a fundamentally decent person and god knows replied politely to all and sundry tonight when they were at his throat.

    And there was also an unwelcome element of bullying. Something which other posters would not attract, as observed earlier today funnily enough. He won't hit back so people feel emboldened to attack him

    I look forward to reading his posts again once he has reminded himself of the site's potential legal exposure.

    That is an interesting point about an “element of bullying”. It certainly wasn’t my intention, but looking at it again there is an element of piling on, which I joined in.
    One might argue that HYUFD brings it on himself, but that would be self serving. Thanks for bringing it up.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    Blimey what an evening to miss on PB.

    I think @HYUFD got himself down a wormhole but we all know he is a fundamentally decent person and god knows replied politely to all and sundry tonight when they were at his throat.

    And there was also an unwelcome element of bullying. Something which other posters would not attract, as observed earlier today funnily enough. He won't hit back so people feel emboldened to attack him

    I look forward to reading his posts again once he has reminded himself of the site's potential legal exposure.

    That is an interesting point about an “element of bullying”. It certainly wasn’t my intention, but looking at it again there is an element of piling on, which I joined in.
    One might argue that HYUFD brings it on himself, but that would be self serving. Thanks for bringing it up.
    Totally agree. He can be infuriating but the endless back-biting is really boring and does the site no good at all.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Councils hit by bin collection delays due to driver shortage
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58424343

    Pet peeve when recycling collections are delayed is passers by discarding general rubbish in recycling, which when the collection finally turns up isn’t collected, as it’s “not properly sorted”.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    The Zandvoort track looks rather narrow and twisty. Could be another Manaco in terms of overtaking.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KmFRx4r_-M
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461
    FPT. Probably already mentioned but Suga has offered to resign according to BBC.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    edited September 2021
    Charles said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Australia Traded Away Too Much Liberty
    How long can a democracy maintain emergency restrictions and still call itself a free country?
    By Conor Friedersdorf"

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-australia-still-liberal-democracy/619940/


    Quote:

    "Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”"

    It's a fascinating question, to which I don't know the answer.

    Imagine that there was no Covid vaccine. But normal life could return 85% of the time: no masks, no social distancing, etc.

    Here's the thing: when a case is discovered everything is locked down perhaps for weeks at a time. And it's a complete lockdown - no leaving the house for exercise, no going to the store, no traveling to a friend's or another city. You are - for one week every couple of months - a prisoner.

    But the rest of the time you're free.

    Which is better? Endless petty restrictions, or draconian but temporary ones?

    Fortunately, vaccines have offered us a way out. But if you were in Oz, and vaccine availability was ... modest ..., which would you choose?
    There are plenty of vaccines available in Oz. Just no one wants to take CSL/AZ
    AstraZeneca has an horrific reputation out there in the world. Their board must seriously regret ever getting involved with Oxford University. It is not as though vaccines was one of their core competencies, and now the brand has taken a hit.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    edited September 2021
    Yoshihide Suga to step down as Japan's prime minister

    There goes that Next G20 Leader to Leave market…

    So much for the “Francophone” tip. (“I think the other leaders are secure for the medium term and that’s why I think depending on your viewpoint you might choose Trudeau or Macron. I’d go for Macron.”)
  • The Express are not mincing their words:

    “Boris set to betray manifesto pledge with National Insurance hike to pay for social care”
  • felix said:

    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    Blimey what an evening to miss on PB.

    I think @HYUFD got himself down a wormhole but we all know he is a fundamentally decent person and god knows replied politely to all and sundry tonight when they were at his throat.

    And there was also an unwelcome element of bullying. Something which other posters would not attract, as observed earlier today funnily enough. He won't hit back so people feel emboldened to attack him

    I look forward to reading his posts again once he has reminded himself of the site's potential legal exposure.

    That is an interesting point about an “element of bullying”. It certainly wasn’t my intention, but looking at it again there is an element of piling on, which I joined in.
    One might argue that HYUFD brings it on himself, but that would be self serving. Thanks for bringing it up.
    Totally agree. He can be infuriating but the endless back-biting is really boring and does the site no good at all.
    Lets all be honest - its mutual with HYUFD. He does post some brilliant polling stuff. He also postas and reposts and reposts his opinions which insists are facts.

    Can cope with all that. WFT was he doing posting anti-vax conspiracy bullshit?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Alistair said:

    Everyone's favourite piece of shit scum bag family the Sacklers are being given complete immunity as part of the OxyContin settlement.

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/billionaire-sacklers-granted-lifetime-legal-immunity-in-opioid-settlement/

    I said prior to the election that i wondered if the deal was to generate feel good headlines for Trump dealing with the Opioid crisis and it does rather seem to be a hell of a weak settlement overall.

    A few years ago I was approached to become CFO of Mundipharma, their ex US business. Wasn’t comfortable with the risk and approach (Purdue had a shitty reputation in the industry). Glad I passed!
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Charles said:

    Alistair said:

    Everyone's favourite piece of shit scum bag family the Sacklers are being given complete immunity as part of the OxyContin settlement.

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/billionaire-sacklers-granted-lifetime-legal-immunity-in-opioid-settlement/

    I said prior to the election that i wondered if the deal was to generate feel good headlines for Trump dealing with the Opioid crisis and it does rather seem to be a hell of a weak settlement overall.

    A few years ago I was approached to become CFO of Mundipharma, their ex US business. Wasn’t comfortable with the risk and approach (Purdue had a shitty reputation in the industry). Glad I passed!
    I'm glad you did too!
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    He’s a Ditcher. A small but virulent strain of Toryism
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461

    Suga's not running, hope he read yesterday's thread and got some money on

    Think the market is down now.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    rcs1000 said:

    For the benefit of doubt, @HYUFD's ban is a temporary one.

    Please, please, please don't libel people on the board.

    Opinions, fine.
    Predictions, fine.
    Specific claims about individuals getting financial benefit from something (without proof), don't do it.
    Specific allegations about the exact number of children politicians have, leave it alone.

    As an aside I can’t recall ever seeing Crazy Days and Nights ever used as a source for anything other than z list US celeb tittle tattle. Similar to AGC.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    edited September 2021
    Yet another measure of Delta's superpowers: @JAMA_current study of blood supply estimates that, as of May 2021, 83% of U.S. population had antibodies, via vaccine or infection. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2784013… Pre-Delta, should have been enough to prevent a big surge. Now, not so much.

    https://twitter.com/Bob_Wachter/status/1433535769356890142?s=20

    The equivalent number in England (which is August vs May in the US) is 97.9% - or looked at the other way, in the US 17% didn’t, vs 2.1% in England - a factor of 8.
  • Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. 1000, *sighs and deletes lengthy and fascinating post regarding the parentage of the Heracles betrayed by Polyperchon to Cassander during the Diadochi era*
  • Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. 1000, *sighs and deletes lengthy and fascinating post regarding the parentage of the Heracles betrayed by Polyperchon to Cassander during the Diadochi era*

    You can’t libel the dead.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Note on the Texas litigation bounty - $10,000 is a minimum, not a fixed amount.
  • rcs1000 said:

    For the benefit of doubt, @HYUFD's ban is a temporary one.

    Please, please, please don't libel people on the board.

    Opinions, fine.
    Predictions, fine.
    Specific claims about individuals getting financial benefit from something (without proof), don't do it.
    Specific allegations about the exact number of children politicians have, leave it alone.

    On the latter even the man himself (and what a man, wo

    Suga's not running, hope he read yesterday's thread and got some money on

    Think the market is down now.
    Just like my Sky Broadband then...
  • Miss Vance, Alexander might be considered a god, so it's still a problem ;)
  • Australia says it has secured an extra four million doses of the Pfizer vaccine from the UK in a swap deal.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58431190.amp
  • I see the Tory party has decided to mollycoddle pensioners again at the expense of working people.

    My patience is being sorely tested.
This discussion has been closed.