This morning’s front pages are, in the main, positive for Sunak – politicalbetting.com

System · October 2021

This morning’s front pages are, in the main, positive for Sunak – politicalbetting.com

Inevitably the budget totally dominates the from pages and next PM betting favourite Sunak will probably feel pleased with the coverage. His position in the betting has not changed.

Read the full story here

SeaShantyIrish2 · October 2021

Bet you that Sunak said NONE of the 26 words (one for every letter of the alphabet) that I said he would not say.

From "aardvark" to "zither" with stops at "dingleberry", "flint dildo" and "toaster oven"

DecrepiterJohnL · October 2021

SeaShantyIrish2 said:
Bet you that Sunak said NONE of the 26 words (one for every letter of the alphabet) that I said he would not say.

From "aardvark" to "zither" with stops at "dingleberry", "flint dildo" and "toaster oven"

Here is the budget speech in Hansard. Let us know how you got on.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-10-27/debates/0B8990CB-67B6-403F-BD6D-838F5985D368/FinancialStatement

DecrepiterJohnL · October 2021

Superficially good front pages but I wonder if Rishi would want cheap booze to be the main point, though he'd be forgiven a wry smile that the Guardian cut Boris out of the bar photo.

tlg86 · October 2021

FPT:

rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.

Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?

IanB2 · October 2021

As PT I reckon his claims on wine are going to get uncorked.

rcs1000 · October 2021

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?

OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.

IanB2 · October 2021

rcs1000 said:

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.

Which reminds me of my demographics course, long ago at university. Family size through history, and in different societies around the world, can, and often is, analysed as principally an economic decision.

Most obviously, children in most agricultural societies are your workforce.

ping · October 2021

The European country with the fastest internet?

The answer is somewhat surprising;

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/qgvc4n/average_fixed_internet_speed_in_european/

DecrepiterJohnL · October 2021

So far as I can see, I'm not directly affected by the budget at all. Teetotal, no income, no travel.

DecrepiterJohnL · October 2021

ping said:
The European country with the fastest internet?

The answer is somewhat surprising;

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/qgvc4n/average_fixed_internet_speed_in_european/

It's not Britain! Half the speed of France; as slow as Russia.

DecrepiterJohnL · October 2021

Youtube has just shown me an anti-drink drive advert. Coincidence or budget-inspired PR from breweries, sensitive to charges they are beneficiaries of Rishi's largesse?

Cicero · October 2021

I´m not sure we should be looking to the UK media as a touchstone of truth on this budget. Murdoch, Barclay, Rothermere and Lord Lebedev- two thirds of the UK press- are biased witnesses that either entirely or generally favour the Tories. So it would take a total meltdown before the Mail or the Telegraph would comment negatively.

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC. Agriculture & Fisheries are in meltdown, Small busineses have lost up to 80% of their previous export markets. All sectors are facing unsolvable labour shortages and investment is simply not available to even begin to tackle the problem. Meanwhile infrastucture decays and energy price spikes are leading to yet another supply shock. The forecast inflation rate of above 5%, if anything, looks too low. The Bank of England is putting off the inevitible rate rises in the face of political pressure.

Its a lethal combination.

This budget cut the price of champagne and that is a metaphor for the entire "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" attitude that Johnson and Sunak display. We need major structural reform, we are getting a disastrous Tax and Spend joke.

So sure the Tory propaganda sheets can gloat all they want, but it is whistling in the dark, because the truth doesnt really care what bullshit gloss the OpEd writers are putting on this.

DecrepiterJohnL · October 2021

HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about

UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence

And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?

rcs1000 · October 2021

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?

You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?

MarqueeMark · October 2021

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?

Read the small print. If you want an account at Citibank, you have to consent to the snip....

Heathener · October 2021

Cicero said:
I´m not sure we should be looking to the UK media as a touchstone of truth on this budget. Murdoch, Barclay, Rothermere and Lord Lebedev- two thirds of the UK press- are biased witnesses that either entirely or generally favour the Tories. So it would take a total meltdown before the Mail or the Telegraph would comment negatively.

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC. Agriculture & Fisheries are in meltdown, Small busineses have lost up to 80% of their previous export markets. All sectors are facing unsolvable labour shortages and investment is simply not available to even begin to tackle the problem. Meanwhile infrastucture decays and energy price spikes are leading to yet another supply shock. The forecast inflation rate of above 5%, if anything, looks too low. The Bank of England is putting off the inevitible rate rises in the face of political pressure.

Its a lethal combination.

This budget cut the price of champagne and that is a metaphor for the entire "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" attitude that Johnson and Sunak display. We need major structural reform, we are getting a disastrous Tax and Spend joke.

So sure the Tory propaganda sheets can gloat all they want, but it is whistling in the dark, because the truth doesnt really care what bullshit gloss the OpEd writers are putting on this.

Great post

rcs1000 · October 2021

MarqueeMark said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
Read the small print. If you want an account at Citibank, you have to consent to the snip....

That didn't stop my wife getting pregnant...

ydoethur · October 2021

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?

What about the likes of me and @Sunil_Prasannan who don't have any children?

noneoftheabove · October 2021

rcs1000 said:

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.

Now I understand why the French have more affairs, or at least are far more open about them.

DecrepiterJohnL · October 2021

Cicero said:
I´m not sure we should be looking to the UK media as a touchstone of truth on this budget. Murdoch, Barclay, Rothermere and Lord Lebedev- two thirds of the UK press- are biased witnesses that either entirely or generally favour the Tories. So it would take a total meltdown before the Mail or the Telegraph would comment negatively.

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC. Agriculture & Fisheries are in meltdown, Small busineses have lost up to 80% of their previous export markets. All sectors are facing unsolvable labour shortages and investment is simply not available to even begin to tackle the problem. Meanwhile infrastucture decays and energy price spikes are leading to yet another supply shock. The forecast inflation rate of above 5%, if anything, looks too low. The Bank of England is putting off the inevitible rate rises in the face of political pressure.

Its a lethal combination.

This budget cut the price of champagne and that is a metaphor for the entire "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" attitude that Johnson and Sunak display. We need major structural reform, we are getting a disastrous Tax and Spend joke.

So sure the Tory propaganda sheets can gloat all they want, but it is whistling in the dark, because the truth doesnt really care what bullshit gloss the OpEd writers are putting on this.

Actually, the Telegraph for one is underwhelmed.

Households face squeeze from inflation and flat wages
The Tories' nightmare conversion to Brownism will end in catastrophe
Inflation may yet scupper Sunak
The Tories are in serious danger of misreading the national mood
Forget Sunak's Thatherite rhetoric – his Budget us a smash-and-grab raid on our money
https://www.telegraph.co.uk (£££)

Dura_Ace · October 2021

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.

The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.

ydoethur · October 2021

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?

That CR question would be difficult for me. Credit card is easy - 2008. But mobile phone could be last year, when I switched provider, 2007, when I got my current number, 2002 when I took out my first contract that I paid for, or 1999 when I first got a mobile phone.

OldKingCole · October 2021

noneoftheabove said:

rcs1000 said:

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.
Now I understand why the French have more affairs, or at least are far more open about them.

Was it the national 'tendency' that gave rise to the tax system or the other way round?

And Good Morning one and all!

It is to be hoped that after today I shall see a strong prospect of a reduction in one of the discomforts of old age!

Selebian · October 2021

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?

You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would

DecrepiterJohnL · October 2021

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.

What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.

ydoethur · October 2021

OldKingCole said:

noneoftheabove said:

rcs1000 said:

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.
Now I understand why the French have more affairs, or at least are far more open about them.
Was it the national 'tendency' that gave rise to the tax system or the other way round?

And Good Morning one and all!

It is to be hoped that after today I shall see a strong prospect of a reduction in one of the discomforts of old age!

Are you getting an electric corkscrew?

(This was gentle humour. Hope whatever it is that you're doing/having done goes well.)

ydoethur · October 2021

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.

1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.

OldKingCole · October 2021

ydoethur said:

OldKingCole said:

noneoftheabove said:

rcs1000 said:

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.
Now I understand why the French have more affairs, or at least are far more open about them.
Was it the national 'tendency' that gave rise to the tax system or the other way round?

And Good Morning one and all!

It is to be hoped that after today I shall see a strong prospect of a reduction in one of the discomforts of old age!
Are you getting an electric corkscrew?

(This was gentle humour. Hope whatever it is that you're doing/having done goes well.)

Thank you. Hope you are enjoying your half-term!

noneoftheabove · October 2021

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would

We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.

Selebian · October 2021

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.

You don't need much defence spending if all you want from the armed forces is the ability to park your tanks on Labour's lawn

ydoethur · October 2021

OldKingCole said:

ydoethur said:

OldKingCole said:

noneoftheabove said:

rcs1000 said:

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.
Now I understand why the French have more affairs, or at least are far more open about them.
Was it the national 'tendency' that gave rise to the tax system or the other way round?

And Good Morning one and all!

It is to be hoped that after today I shall see a strong prospect of a reduction in one of the discomforts of old age!
Are you getting an electric corkscrew?

(This was gentle humour. Hope whatever it is that you're doing/having done goes well.)
Thank you. Hope you are enjoying your half-term!

Thank you! I have spent most of it cycling around the Norfolk coast AONB taking advantage of the unseasonably fine weather, but I am heading home today.

ydoethur · October 2021

Selebian said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
You don't need much defence spending if all you want from the armed forces is the ability to park your tanks on Labour's lawn

Although if Hyufd becomes SoS for Scotland spending on tanks will have to go up dramatically.

noneoftheabove · October 2021

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.

It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.

Selebian · October 2021

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.

Elon Musk's most recent child's name is in principle cryptographically secure - unlikely to come up in dictionary attacks! Public domain though, as you say.

I guess the (alleged) French approach of making sure your most recent child is not public knowledge also makes sense here.

philiph · October 2021

Food for thought.
Year I was born Global Population 2.7 billion people
The Global Population 2020 7.8 billion people.
Why are we shocked at shortages and global destruction?

OnlyLivingBoy · October 2021

rcs1000 said:

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.

Sounds like a great system (but then I have 3 kids so I would say that).

Selebian · October 2021

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?

You might conclude that, in using this question, citibank are presumably after people who are notbonkers, any more

OnlyLivingBoy · October 2021

Selebian said:

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
Elon Musk's most recent child's name is in principle cryptographically secure - unlikely to come up in dictionary attacks! Public domain though, as you say.

I guess the (alleged) French approach of making sure your most recent child is not public knowledge also makes sense here.

Is Boris Johnson French?

Selebian · October 2021

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
Read the small print. If you want an account at Citibank, you have to consent to the snip....
That didn't stop my wife getting pregnant...

I hate to ask, but does she have any male French friends?

Jonathan · October 2021

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?

This is known in the trade as the Boris filter.

BlancheLivermore · October 2021

Extreme Tebbit Testing?

BBC News (World)
@BBCWorld
India arrests Muslims for cheering Pakistan cricket team during ICC T20 World Cup
bbc.com
ICC T20 World Cup: India arrests Muslims for cheering Pakistan cricket team
Several people have been arrested for supporting Pakistan during Sunday's T20 World Cup cricket game.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-59059494
https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/1453606731334967298

Scott_xP · October 2021

...

DavidL · October 2021

BlancheLivermore said:
Extreme Tebbit Testing?

BBC News (World)
@BBCWorld
India arrests Muslims for cheering Pakistan cricket team during ICC T20 World Cup
bbc.com
ICC T20 World Cup: India arrests Muslims for cheering Pakistan cricket team
Several people have been arrested for supporting Pakistan during Sunday's T20 World Cup cricket game.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-59059494
https://twitter.com/BBCWorld/status/1453606731334967298

I really like my cricket but... come on guys, its a game.

ydoethur · October 2021

Jonathan said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
This is known in the trade as the Boris filter.

I wonder how many firms have 'Cripes, I don't know' as his youngest child.

Charles · October 2021

You’ve doubled up the quote in the header

(And starting your graphic with the Morning Star… anyone who have thought you were struggling to find a negative headline…)

Fishing · October 2021

noneoftheabove said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.

They were in office for 29 of the last 42 years, but I wouldn't say that Major 1992-7, May 2017-19 or even Cameron (in coaliation 2010-5, then with a tiny majority) were in power.

DavidL · October 2021

rcs1000 said:

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.

This would have been fantastic for us. As it is, with me as the main wage earner, we paid almost twice as much tax as we would have done had we earned the same split equally between us. It is grossly unfair on our economic unit and, as you point out, it doesn't make having children any easier.

MarqueeMark · October 2021

Scott_xP said:
...

Except, Rishi might well win an election.....

noneoftheabove · October 2021

Fishing said:

noneoftheabove said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
They were in office for 29 of the last 42 years, but I wouldn't say that Major 1992-7, May 2017-19 or even Cameron (in coaliation 2010-5, then with a tiny majority) were in power.

Typical Labour, forcing the Tories to put banging on about Europe ahead of governing the country.

eek · October 2021

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.

Question 3 is really easy to answer if you use MoneySavingExpert or CreditNoodle to check your credit references (I pick those as they are free).

And they will be asking for easily available information like the limit on a card so should be easy to get into.

MarqueeMark · October 2021

noneoftheabove said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.

But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.

"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.

ydoethur · October 2021

eek said:

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
Question 3 is really easy to answer if you use MoneySavingExpert or CreditNoodle to check your credit references (I pick those as they are free).

And they will be asking for easily available information like the limit on a card so should be easy to get into.

In itself doesn't that make it unsuitable as a security question as using the same tools anyone could find that information out?

noneoftheabove · October 2021

MarqueeMark said:

noneoftheabove said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.

"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.

Look, I am pretty non partisan despite my dislike of the current lot. I have voted for both Labour and Tories over that time period and am likely to do so again. Blaming the other party rather than acknowledging both make mistakes and events are often beyond their control anyway is pretty childish imo.

OldKingCole · October 2021

OnlyLivingBoy said:

rcs1000 said:

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.
Sounds like a great system (but then I have 3 kids so I would say that).

What happens when the children grow up and leave home? Does one's tax go up again?

squareroot2 · October 2021

DecrepiterJohnL said:
Superficially good front pages but I wonder if Rishi would want cheap booze to be the main point, though he'd be forgiven a wry smile that the Guardian cut Boris out of the bar photo.

It is unsurprising as the Guardian is anti Boris. Why would it permit any chance of reflected glory?

Charles · October 2021

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.

My youngest child is called Ds4&zy!P

Foxy · October 2021

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
Read the small print. If you want an account at Citibank, you have to consent to the snip....
That didn't stop my wife getting pregnant...

Perhaps the milkman is with another bank?

Fishing · October 2021

noneoftheabove said:

Fishing said:

noneoftheabove said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
They were in office for 29 of the last 42 years, but I wouldn't say that Major 1992-7, May 2017-19 or even Cameron (in coaliation 2010-5, then with a tiny majority) were in power.
Typical Labour, forcing the Tories to put banging on about Europe ahead of governing the country.

If it hadn't been Europe, it'd have been something else. Our system simply doesn't work when you have a government without a working majority. See Labour in the mid 60s and again in the 70s. That the SNP and NI parties make it much more difficult for a UK government to get an overall majority is one of the best arguments for Scottish and NI indepedence.

DavidL · October 2021

MarqueeMark said:

noneoftheabove said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.

"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.

The strategic problem with this analysis, with which I have some sympathy, is that it turned out that there was a lot more money than we realised; that it was possible to print it without Weimar consequences; that borrowing could proceed on a truly huge scale that most would have regarded as completely irresponsible without at least short term disaster (interest rates and gilt yields have not gone up as we would have expected). The envelope has proven bigger than most would have believed which adds fuel to the accusations that austerity was not necessary (I still think it was).

A future Conservative campaign focused on irresponsible spending promises by Labour just might run into some difficulties when their own Chancellor can announce £150bn of extra spending in a single budget package.

DavidL · October 2021

Charles said:

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
My youngest child is called Ds4&zy!P

Did you ask Siri for suggestions?

Charles · October 2021

DavidL said:

Charles said:

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
My youngest child is called Ds4&zy!P
Did you ask Siri for suggestions?

No need - we figured out how to procreate without help

squareroot2 · October 2021

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.

Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.

Charles · October 2021

squareroot2 said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.

Why shameful?

It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself

paulyork64 · October 2021

ping said:
The European country with the fastest internet?

The answer is somewhat surprising;

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/qgvc4n/average_fixed_internet_speed_in_european/

I would have guessed that but only because of an article I read a few months ago highlighting why that country is the location for so many live sex chat rooms needing plenty of bandwidth.

Cookie · October 2021

Charles said:

DavidL said:

Charles said:

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
My youngest child is called Ds4&zy!P
Did you ask Siri for suggestions?
No need - we figured out how to procreate without help

On a similar note, some insurance company (Liverpool Victoria?) asked me for my mother's maiden name - but then told me it must have at least six characters.

Malmesbury · October 2021

Charles said:

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
My youngest child is called Ds4&zy!P

Slacker

"Robert'); DROP TABLE students;--"

Now, that's a proper name.

MarqueeMark · October 2021

noneoftheabove said:

MarqueeMark said:

noneoftheabove said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.

"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
Look, I am pretty non partisan despite my dislike of the current lot. I have voted for both Labour and Tories over that time period and am likely to do so again. Blaming the other party rather than acknowledging both make mistakes and events are often beyond their control anyway is pretty childish imo.

In 1974, Harold Wilson inherited the mess of the Heath-Barber years. Pretty hard to defend that.

But in 1979, Thatcher inherited the mess of Jim "Crisis? What crisis? Callaghan after the IMF had been called in to salvage the economy.

In 1997, Gordon Brown walked into the golden inheritance of Ken Clarke's stewardship, admittedly after the debacle of the exit from the ERM. Brown was VERY touchy on his good fortune on this. He reportedly said "What do you want me to do, write him a fucking thank you?"

In 2010, the Coalition inherited the mess of the international sub-prime fiasco - but exacerbated by the failings of one Gordon Brown - failings which he had been warned about by the Conservatives.

And every Labour Government has left office with employment lower than they inherited.

What about this assessment is "childish"?

ydoethur · October 2021

Brexit must have wider ramifications than I thought:

China rations diesel amid fuel shortages
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59059093

Taz · October 2021

MarqueeMark said:

noneoftheabove said:

MarqueeMark said:

noneoftheabove said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.

"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
Look, I am pretty non partisan despite my dislike of the current lot. I have voted for both Labour and Tories over that time period and am likely to do so again. Blaming the other party rather than acknowledging both make mistakes and events are often beyond their control anyway is pretty childish imo.
In 1974, Harold Wilson inherited the mess of the Heath-Barber years. Pretty hard to defend that.

But in 1979, Thatcher inherited the mess of Jim "Crisis? What crisis? Callaghan after the IMF had been called in to salvage the economy.

In 1997, Gordon Brown walked into the golden inheritance of Ken Clarke's stewardship, admittedly after the debacle of the exit from the ERM. Brown was VERY touchy on his good fortune on this. He reportedly said "What do you want me to do, write him a fucking thank you?"

In 2010, the Coalition inherited the mess of the international sub-prime fiasco - but exacerbated by the failings of one Gordon Brown - failings which he had been warned about by the Conservatives.

And every Labour Government has left office with employment lower than they inherited.

What about this assessment is "childish"?

It is not childish but remember the IMF may have been called in but we never took any money from them. The damage was caused by calling them in,

Gardenwalker · October 2021

Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.

Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.

I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.

Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.

Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.

squareroot2 · October 2021

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?

It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself

We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.

Gardenwalker · October 2021

noneoftheabove said:

MarqueeMark said:

noneoftheabove said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.

"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
Look, I am pretty non partisan despite my dislike of the current lot. I have voted for both Labour and Tories over that time period and am likely to do so again. Blaming the other party rather than acknowledging both make mistakes and events are often beyond their control anyway is pretty childish imo.

But this is Marquee Mark.

He don’t do “adult”, unless expressly commanded to do so by Tory HQ.

Gallowgate · October 2021

squareroot2 said:

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?

It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.

Call the army in to help?

Gardenwalker · October 2021

ydoethur said:
Brexit must have wider ramifications than I thought:

China rations diesel amid fuel shortages
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59059093

I think that joke got old about six months ago.

There’s a global supply shock. Brexit makes it worse.

OnlyLivingBoy · October 2021

OldKingCole said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

rcs1000 said:

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.
Sounds like a great system (but then I have 3 kids so I would say that).
What happens when the children grow up and leave home? Does one's tax go up again?

Don't worry, in Tory Britain they'll never be able to afford to move out.

Gardenwalker · October 2021

Cookie said:

Charles said:

DavidL said:

Charles said:

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
My youngest child is called Ds4&zy!P
Did you ask Siri for suggestions?
No need - we figured out how to procreate without help
On a similar note, some insurance company (Liverpool Victoria?) asked me for my mother's maiden name - but then told me it must have at least six characters.

No special character?

And if so, would the apostrophe in, for example, “O’Connor” count?

Charles · October 2021

squareroot2 said:

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?

It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.

That’s bad planning and should be criticised

I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful

eek · October 2021

Gardenwalker said:
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.

Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.

I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.

Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.

Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.

Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels
Surestart restarting under another name

Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.

Gardenwalker · October 2021

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?

It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised

I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful

I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.

How many breaches is that now?

Malmesbury · October 2021

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?

It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised

I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful

The RN having manpower shortages goes back to before CVA-01

IIRC the Americans offered us some Essex class carriers as a stop gap during the CVA-01 comedy. The issue was finding x * 1000 sailors to man them.

IanB2 · October 2021

squareroot2 said:

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?

It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.

Last I heard, half the crew were below deck with buckets, dealing with the leaks. Hopefully this got sorted out before it sailed off to war with China?

IanB2 · October 2021

OldKingCole said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

rcs1000 said:

tlg86 said:
FPT:
rcs1000 said:

londonpubman said:

MikeL said:
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:

Single person, 2 children:

Gross salary £40,000
Rent £150/week
Child care £100/week
Pension contributions £1,200/year
Council Tax £1,200/year

Gets £155.57 UC per week

(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)

It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.

NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36

The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79

Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.

That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.

If you want children you should pay for them yourself!

Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...

Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.

Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.

All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.

So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.

The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.

Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.

If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.

What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.
Sounds like a great system (but then I have 3 kids so I would say that).
What happens when the children grow up and leave home? Does one's tax go up again?

Yes, but Magically you are still better off.

Gardenwalker · October 2021

eek said:

Gardenwalker said:
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.

Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.

I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.

Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.

Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels
Surestart restarting under another name

Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.

Well I guess it depends what austerity means.
Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.

Not sure about defence anymore.

Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.

On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.

Dura_Ace · October 2021

squareroot2 said:

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?

It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.

It's not just men.

The broader point is that the capability doesn't arrive fully formed when the ship goes in the sea. There are alot of other supporting elements and resources that have to be generated. The full Carrier Enabled Power Projection capability isn't scheduled to be declared until the end of 2026.

Ideally, it wouldn't take 27 years to do these things but here we are. The replacement project should already have been started but rather conspicuously hasn't.

NickPalmer · October 2021

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.

Some of the security questions are oddly demanding. I was asked for the month when I set up a phone contract, 5-6 years ago. I had genuinely no clue. Another asked for a spending limit on a credit card that I rarely use (and therefore don't get statements for). In general, systems assume that we are all really well-organised and have all our bank statements, credit card statements an dphone contracts neatly assembled, going back years into the past. I'm reasonably good at that, but not perfect, and I know people who shred their old bank statements after a few months.

OnlyLivingBoy · October 2021

Farooq said:

Cookie said:

Charles said:

DavidL said:

Charles said:

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
My youngest child is called Ds4&zy!P
Did you ask Siri for suggestions?
No need - we figured out how to procreate without help
On a similar note, some insurance company (Liverpool Victoria?) asked me for my mother's maiden name - but then told me it must have at least six characters.
I've seen similar regarding home town being rejected because Ayr, Wem, or Cwm aren't 4 letters or longer.
Now I'm wondering, are there are 2-letter place names, or even 1?

Ae, in South West Scotland.

DavidL · October 2021

ydoethur said:
Brexit must have wider ramifications than I thought:

China rations diesel amid fuel shortages
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59059093

It seems to be one thing after another in China at the moment. Those supply shocks are going to just keep on coming.

Small example but I was bullied by the potential loss of a £400 credit on my phone contract into ordering a new phone from Vodaphone. I have been waiting 3 weeks now for them to deliver it.

OnlyLivingBoy · October 2021

Gardenwalker said:

eek said:

Gardenwalker said:
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.

Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.

I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.

Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.

Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels
Surestart restarting under another name

Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.

Well I guess it depends what austerity means.
Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.

Not sure about defence anymore.

Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.

On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.

As I recall I think it is hard to find hard evidence that Surestart was a cost effective policy intervention. On the other hand, there is plenty of anecdotal data that the programme really helped people. I'm reminded of the story in Freakonomics that the evidence suggests that reading to your kids has no effect on them - I simply don't believe it.

Big_G_NorthWales · October 2021

Gardenwalker said:
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.

Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.

I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.

Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.

Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.

I would just say 'put covid aside' would be great, but it is far too simplistic to ignore the biggest crisis since WW2 and the economic fracture that has occurred, not just in the UK, but worldwide

Gardenwalker · October 2021

Farooq said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Farooq said:

Cookie said:

Charles said:

DavidL said:

Charles said:

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
My youngest child is called Ds4&zy!P
Did you ask Siri for suggestions?
No need - we figured out how to procreate without help
On a similar note, some insurance company (Liverpool Victoria?) asked me for my mother's maiden name - but then told me it must have at least six characters.
I've seen similar regarding home town being rejected because Ayr, Wem, or Cwm aren't 4 letters or longer.
Now I'm wondering, are there are 2-letter place names, or even 1?
Ae, in South West Scotland.
Yes, just found that. And, apparently, Bu in Orkney. Excellent!

Apparently there is a river “O” in Devon.

DavidL · October 2021

Taz said:

MarqueeMark said:

noneoftheabove said:

MarqueeMark said:

noneoftheabove said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.

"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
Look, I am pretty non partisan despite my dislike of the current lot. I have voted for both Labour and Tories over that time period and am likely to do so again. Blaming the other party rather than acknowledging both make mistakes and events are often beyond their control anyway is pretty childish imo.
In 1974, Harold Wilson inherited the mess of the Heath-Barber years. Pretty hard to defend that.

But in 1979, Thatcher inherited the mess of Jim "Crisis? What crisis? Callaghan after the IMF had been called in to salvage the economy.

In 1997, Gordon Brown walked into the golden inheritance of Ken Clarke's stewardship, admittedly after the debacle of the exit from the ERM. Brown was VERY touchy on his good fortune on this. He reportedly said "What do you want me to do, write him a fucking thank you?"

In 2010, the Coalition inherited the mess of the international sub-prime fiasco - but exacerbated by the failings of one Gordon Brown - failings which he had been warned about by the Conservatives.

And every Labour Government has left office with employment lower than they inherited.

What about this assessment is "childish"?
It is not childish but remember the IMF may have been called in but we never took any money from them. The damage was caused by calling them in,

Quite so. The IMF was supposed to be there to help incompetent and very badly run third world countries who had allowed their economies to crash out of control. And it brought home to us that that is where we were. Thatcher was a part of the solution but North Sea oil was what kept the lights on.

Malmesbury · October 2021

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Gardenwalker said:

eek said:

Gardenwalker said:
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.

Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.

I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.

Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.

Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels
Surestart restarting under another name

Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.

Well I guess it depends what austerity means.
Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.

Not sure about defence anymore.

Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.

On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.
As I recall I think it is hard to find hard evidence that Surestart was a cost effective policy intervention. On the other hand, there is plenty of anecdotal data that the programme really helped people. I'm reminded of the story in Freakonomics that the evidence suggests that reading to your kids has no effect on them - I simply don't believe it.

The suggestion was that reading without the rest of the learning culture wasn't effective, IIRC

i.e. reading to children is evidence of the learning culture in the home, not the cause of learning.

Surely it would be cheap to drop a complete set of Biff and Chip on x thousand homes, do some follow up and look at the results?

Fishing · October 2021

Gardenwalker said:

ydoethur said:
Brexit must have wider ramifications than I thought:

China rations diesel amid fuel shortages
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59059093
I think that joke got old about six months ago.

There’s a global supply shock. Brexit makes it worse.

Our shortages were caused by a big jump in demand, not by a significant shortfall in supply.

And personally I still find the joke funny, but senses of humour vary I suppose.

Taz · October 2021

Gardenwalker said:

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?

It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised

I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.

How many breaches is that now?

A beach in the Aegean, lovely, better weather than we are having in the North of England. Enjoy

squareroot2 · October 2021

Gardenwalker said:
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.

Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.

I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.

Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.

Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.

NickPalmer said:

noneoftheabove said:

Selebian said:

rcs1000 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-

Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.

Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:

"What is the name of your youngest child?"

How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?

Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
Some of the security questions are oddly demanding. I was asked for the month when I set up a phone contract, 5-6 years ago. I had genuinely no clue. Another asked for a spending limit on a credit card that I rarely use (and therefore don't get statements for). In general, systems assume that we are all really well-organised and have all our bank statements, credit card statements an dphone contracts neatly assembled, going back years into the past. I'm reasonably good at that, but not perfect, and I know people who shred their old bank statements after a few months.

All.my statements going back.yrs are available online. I have no hard copy at all.
I can print off anything I need eg when HMRC insisted on knowing about the £1.02 interest I earned in 2020/ 21...

Big_G_NorthWales · October 2021

eek said:

Gardenwalker said:
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.

Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.

I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.

Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.

Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels
Surestart restarting under another name

Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.

I think we have to accept that this conservative government has ditched the Cameron - Osborne years, and moved substantially onto labour's ground which in some ways happened to labour in Scotland with the SNP

Dura_Ace · October 2021

Gardenwalker said:

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

Charles said:

squareroot2 said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?

It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised

I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.

The budget numbers for defence...

2022-23 47.9bn
2023-24 48.0bn

There is no way that is going to meet the '0.5% above inflation' commitment in the manifesto.

OnlyLivingBoy · October 2021

MarqueeMark said:

noneoftheabove said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Dura_Ace said:

Cicero said:

In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.

The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.

"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.

People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.

Scott_xP · October 2021

If taxes have to go up because of a permanent 2% hit to the economy caused by COVID, what happens to taxes when Brexit causes a 4% permanent hit?
https://twitter.com/DavidGauke/status/1453623675077361668

Gardenwalker · October 2021

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Gardenwalker said:
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.

Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.

I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.

Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.

Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
I would just say 'put covid aside' would be great, but it is far too simplistic to ignore the biggest crisis since WW2 and the economic fracture that has occurred, not just in the UK, but worldwide

I put it aside because I am interested in the government’s longer term economic strategy.

Covid - albeit massive - is a one-off.

The U.K. has systemic productivity problems which have caused very long term wage suppression now. This is forecast to continue.

The budget does little to address that, or other long term issues.

The overall story is significant tax hikes.
Meanwhile, on Brexit, the government shows no signs of wanting to ameliorate a significant impediment to growth and productivity.

This morning’s front pages are, in the main, positive for Sunak – politicalbetting.com

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