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My Sunak 2022 exit bet is looking better – politicalbetting.com

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  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Cheers PB

    I finally found a lovely place to eat and drink in Izmir

  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Sentencing remarks in the Sabina Nessa case:

    https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/R-v-Koci-Selmaj-sentencing-remarks-080422.pdf

    Not once did the judge address the subject of a whole life tariff. That really ought to have at least been a consideration in this case.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    It
    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ON topic, has anyone ever been to Pergamom? Is it worth a major effort to see?

    I have

    It depends if you like Greek cities with acropolises and such - it's a very fine example, magnificent stonework. I am biased in that I am a Galen specialist and it's where the bloviating windbag came from, but it is pretty special.

    Aphrodisias prob even better if it's realistic alternative. Or Tlos.
    ooh. Ta

    Will look now

    i do love classical ruins. I love all the tiny things about them. The crunch of the little pebbles under your boots as you tread the ancient roads, in the hot sun, knowing that in about three hours you will have absorbed all this beauty and you will be downing a cold beer in the shade of the green green cypress trees. Glorious
    It was good, but agree Aphrodisias, with its hippodrome, impressed me more. Also the Temple of Zeus at Magnesia (Aydin).
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    Cookie said:

    Johnson has been just as terrible as Corbyn would have been

    No he isn't.
    The Boris haters are being a tad hysterical.
    He is a poor PM. Not a disastrous one.
    Imagine Corbyn being in charge for covid. Imagine Corbyn being in charge for Ukraine.
    Corbyn would have been several orders of magnitude worse. The only positive being that he might not have lasted long as PM.
    “ Corbyn would have been several orders of magnitude worse “. Absolutely true!

    But can Tories put that on leaflets and win elections, maintain and add voters with that line on leaflets now, or the days of Corbyn winning them elections long gone?
    Oh, it's completely irrelevant to the next general election, withich will be either Boris v SKS or A.N.Other v SKS, and won and lost on its merits.

    But its's notable that here it's a lefty who brought the comparison up in the first place.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    Farooq said:

    Applicant said:

    Farooq said:

    Applicant said:

    .

    Jonathan said:

    Johnson in London
    Le Pen in Paris
    Trump in Washington
    Putin smiling in Moscow

    What a total shitshow lurks on the horizon.

    But that democracy for three of those nations. And try as you might, you should not include Trump, Johnson and Le Pen in the same class as Putin. Putin has invaded a neighbour, killed thousands of people (including his own troops), overseen war crimes, launched chemical weapons attacks across the globe. What did Trump do (in office)? Started the process of pulling out of Afghanistan. Confused the hell out of Rocketman in North Korea. Avoided blowing up the world by accident. What of Johnson? He pushed through a form of brexit that many don't like and probably isn't going to work or last in the long term - another government will correct that. He tried his best in the pandemic, and got some things right and some things wrong. He broke his own laws over socialising and was wrong to do so, but he didn't invade France. And Le Pen - what are her policies? Invading Germany? Or is it just that she is of the right that you don't like her?

    Trump and Johnson have both used their time in power to weaken democratic norms.
    And they aren't the only ones. "Not My President".
    People were saying that when Obama was in power. And when Bush was in power. It's a pretty meaningless howl of disapproval.
    Rather more intensely with each successive president, though.
    Well, social media has grown.
    Famous commentators like Sean Hannity (who said it about Obama) have helped to normalise it.
    Oh, indeed. With Bush it was a few nutters on the Internet. With Obama it was TV pundits. With Trump it was elected politicians.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,876

    Jonathan said:

    Johnson in London
    Le Pen in Paris
    Trump in Washington
    Putin smiling in Moscow

    What a total shitshow lurks on the horizon.

    But that democracy for three of those nations. And try as you might, you should not include Trump, Johnson and Le Pen in the same class as Putin. Putin has invaded a neighbour, killed thousands of people (including his own troops), overseen war crimes, launched chemical weapons attacks across the globe. What did Trump do (in office)? Started the process of pulling out of Afghanistan. Confused the hell out of Rocketman in North Korea. Avoided blowing up the world by accident. What of Johnson? He pushed through a form of brexit that many don't like and probably isn't going to work or last in the long term - another government will correct that. He tried his best in the pandemic, and got some things right and some things wrong. He broke his own laws over socialising and was wrong to do so, but he didn't invade France. And Le Pen - what are her policies? Invading Germany? Or is it just that she is of the right that you don't like her?

    Trump and Johnson have both used their time in power to weaken democratic norms. There is little doubt that a professed admirer of Orban and Putin would seek to do the same in France. That's the start of the journey. It's one that is a little further down the line in both Hungary and Poland. It's one that ends with what Putin is now doing in Ukraine.
    If one of the most important democratic norms is respecting the outcome of elections, then arguably more damage was done by those opponents of Trump and Johnson/Brexit who tried to delegitimise them by discrediting the elections and alleging that the results were unreliable due to 'Russian interference'.

    I think your argument is more theological than political. You see some ideas as fundamentally sinful and that it is only a matter of degrees between anything vaguely on the right and Nazism.

    There is a journey that begins with constraining democracy, then taking it over then destroying it. When you legislate as a government to make it harder to vote, to take control of the Electoral Commission, to criminalise peaceful protest and to prevent the courts from scrutinising your actions, all while substantially reducing the role of Parliament and putting your supporters in charge of the media, you are starting on the path.
    So the 'journey' to wars of aggression begins with questioning the role of New Labour-era institutions?

    No - it begins with people turning a blind eye to the erosion of democracy because it does not affect them. That said, New Labour did not introduce voting or decriminalise peaceful protest.

  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Off topic.

    https://twitter.com/cyclefree2/status/1512410320605749249?s=21&t=bP5fav9Fi8v7s4961VRwzg

    I am available at an enormous fee to design the gardens of the Sunak's many homes.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    Leon said:

    Cheers PB

    I finally found a lovely place to eat and drink in Izmir

    Presumably that should be 'I have found the only lovely place to eat and drink in Izmir' based on your previous posts?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    Applicant said:

    Cookie said:

    Johnson has been just as terrible as Corbyn would have been

    No he isn't.
    The Boris haters are being a tad hysterical.
    He is a poor PM. Not a disastrous one.
    Imagine Corbyn being in charge for covid. Imagine Corbyn being in charge for Ukraine.
    Corbyn would have been several orders of magnitude worse. The only positive being that he might not have lasted long as PM.
    “ Corbyn would have been several orders of magnitude worse “. Absolutely true!

    But can Tories put that on leaflets and win elections, maintain and add voters with that line on leaflets now, or the days of Corbyn winning them elections long gone?
    Oh, it's completely irrelevant to the next general election, withich will be either Boris v SKS or A.N.Other v SKS, and won and lost on its merits.

    But its's notable that here it's a lefty who brought the comparison up in the first place.
    It was! And you would think it’s behind glass in emergency when all else fails to quell the question time audience for Tories.

    Rioting mob.
    “But you know Corbyn would have been worse, right?”
    It all goes quiet, everyone sits back down. ‘Yeah. That’s true.”
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    I have decided to resume my search for the five pocket fleece, far harder than Jason's quest for the golden fleece (he at least knew where it bloody was) tomorrow.

    Good day, everyone.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950



    Most countries require ID to vote. You can argue it makes it harder to vote, but I would have a system of either (a) Present your polling card or (b) some form of ID. Voting is incredibly important and you should have to prove you are the person you say you are.

    Peaceful protest must be protected. Is what extinction rebellion do peaceful protest? Do they have the right to stop someone visiting a dying relative in hospital? Does that Stop Brexit idiot have the right to harass politicians? Hopefully a more moderate version of the proposed bill will evolve.

    With no written constitution who is right about the courts and parliamentary sovereignty?

    The thing about ID is that nearly everyone else has ID cards which people carry as routinely as we carry credit cards, so asking people to show it is no big deal at all. Lots of people in Britain don't routinely carry phot ID, so they need to remember to dig it out before they go to vote. It's a minor hassle and some won't bother or will forget.

    Insofar as we have a loophole, it must be family influencing each other for postal votes. The problem of people turning up and pretending to be someone else is virtually non-existent. People can barely be arsed to turn up as themselves.

    I agree about protest, though.
    In 2019 I turned up to the polling booth and was told I had already voted.

    Cock up or conspiracy I have no idea save that to start with the polling booth staff thought it hilariously funny until I made noises about illegality and the police at which point they got onto their supervisor and then allowed me to vote. No idea if there was any follow up on what had actually happened. I strongly suspect cock up but who knows.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Applicant said:

    Farooq said:

    Applicant said:

    Farooq said:

    Applicant said:

    .

    Jonathan said:

    Johnson in London
    Le Pen in Paris
    Trump in Washington
    Putin smiling in Moscow

    What a total shitshow lurks on the horizon.

    But that democracy for three of those nations. And try as you might, you should not include Trump, Johnson and Le Pen in the same class as Putin. Putin has invaded a neighbour, killed thousands of people (including his own troops), overseen war crimes, launched chemical weapons attacks across the globe. What did Trump do (in office)? Started the process of pulling out of Afghanistan. Confused the hell out of Rocketman in North Korea. Avoided blowing up the world by accident. What of Johnson? He pushed through a form of brexit that many don't like and probably isn't going to work or last in the long term - another government will correct that. He tried his best in the pandemic, and got some things right and some things wrong. He broke his own laws over socialising and was wrong to do so, but he didn't invade France. And Le Pen - what are her policies? Invading Germany? Or is it just that she is of the right that you don't like her?

    Trump and Johnson have both used their time in power to weaken democratic norms.
    And they aren't the only ones. "Not My President".
    People were saying that when Obama was in power. And when Bush was in power. It's a pretty meaningless howl of disapproval.
    Rather more intensely with each successive president, though.
    Well, social media has grown.
    Famous commentators like Sean Hannity (who said it about Obama) have helped to normalise it.
    Oh, indeed. With Bush it was a few nutters on the Internet. With Obama it was TV pundits. With Trump it was elected politicians.
    And with Biden, his defeated opponent tried to do a coup.
    Just to finish your thought, you know. Don't want to miss the actually important bit where someone tried to turn their bitterness into an insurrection.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    edited April 2022
    TimT said:
    Wow. That’s not good. Tho it would be nice (suffering aside) if the virus *potentially enhanced* in a Chinese lab came back to bite the CCP and removed Xi from power

    I am not expecting it, but it would be the final triumph of my Second Rule of Covid: the Virus always comes back to haunt anyone that gloated about their handling of it. This rule has verified repeatedly throughout the two years of the pandemic

    China is the last major hold-out. It’s just the Kiwis apart from them. And one has to wonder what 2 years of total global isolation have done to a lot of people in NZ
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    Farooq said:

    Johnson has been just as terrible as Corbyn would have been

    The Tories have been performing very well in real elections though under Johnson such as last night's by election in High Peak where the Conservatives trounced Labour.

    The Tories could do well at the local elections and tie with Labour like in 2018. Labour aren't even certain to gain any London councils.
    The Conservatives lost all the seats that they contested yesterday, apart from that one, which looks better for them then you think because it was a by election in a multi-member seat. In which they finished first last time.

    You need better evidence than that for your claim.
    High Peak is 5th on the Labour target list. They really should have won the seat last night on UNS.

    The Tory losses went to the LDs not Labour.

    Labour certainly will need to do better in May than they did last night to suggest Starmer is heading for No 10
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    TimT said:

    It

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ON topic, has anyone ever been to Pergamom? Is it worth a major effort to see?

    I have

    It depends if you like Greek cities with acropolises and such - it's a very fine example, magnificent stonework. I am biased in that I am a Galen specialist and it's where the bloviating windbag came from, but it is pretty special.

    Aphrodisias prob even better if it's realistic alternative. Or Tlos.
    ooh. Ta

    Will look now

    i do love classical ruins. I love all the tiny things about them. The crunch of the little pebbles under your boots as you tread the ancient roads, in the hot sun, knowing that in about three hours you will have absorbed all this beauty and you will be downing a cold beer in the shade of the green green cypress trees. Glorious
    It was good, but agree Aphrodisias, with its hippodrome, impressed me more. Also the Temple of Zeus at Magnesia (Aydin).
    Sorry, that may be the wrong Temple of Zeus. Looking for the one I remember.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,590

    Mr. B, yeah, I was tempted by the evens bet I mention but the time frame puts me off.

    Edited extra bit: my old fleece's zip is utterly done so I need a new one. It seems five pocket fleeces are some sort of mythical beast that were hunted to extinction in the last decade or two. *sighs*

    You can get a new zip sewn in.

    My local dry cleaner/repair people managed to replace the zip on a camera bag for me, Did an incredible job of getting it to work round corners - the zip kind of allows the bag (semi rigid) to dismantle.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891

    Roger said:

    MattW said:

    Can you catch covid from farts?

    Been there; done that.

    TL:DR - the other person wearing pants/panties helps you not catch it.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7716952/

    A recent study has also suggested post-flush toilet plume to be a potential route of transmission through ‘aerosolized feces’. Another aspect of probable transmission could be through flatulence by infected patients, although no such published data has been found. But, according to several existing investigations, farts do have the tendency to carry micro-particles which have the capacity to spread bacteria (55). However, additional research is still warranted to estimate the intensity of such infections; presence of undergarments/ clothing would however, lower the risk of transmission through this passage. The same was claimed by the Chinese Centres of Disease Control and Prevention that pants do act as a hindrance in the transmission of disease via flatulence that contains the SARS-CoV-2 virus (56).
    Flipping eck. I had £25 on no. I was about to post some people are thick and ask for my money, but it looks like I have lost.

    You can catch covid from farts 🤭 But bum masks help to some degree.

    They need to stick naked mice farting on each other and bum pant mice farting on each other in bowl for more info.
    I read your post about your father's thoughts on Rishi. A man grounded in the Nothern heartlands who thought Rishis budget would prove to be a masterstroke and the Tories were now the serious party on their way up....

    My reputation as the worst tipster on here was hard earned but I have to admit you're giving me a good run for my money
    Where your post was wrong, in many ways the budget was smart not to use all the ammo now in populist media loving splurge. What you are playing on is how you say something to applause when your stock is high, politicians same message not listened to when stock is low. But if someone brings out a decent forward looking budget at a difficult time, next month outed as peadophile, it doesn’t change how the budget should be understood and received, should it? We can be more gown up in our analysis on this blog than that Roger.

    Also wrong, and a bit rude, in your overdoing it as Northern Heartlands. My Dad has been a moderate remain voting Tory in same place in Yorkshire since birth. It’s a Tory constituency. Truth is his consistent views no longer majority in his local party let alone the whole North, nor the whole North Labour before Boris came along.

    Plenty of poor judgement in your post Roger you need to defend. You should be grown up enough to concede at least some of this.

    What’s going on in your avatar? Is it date rape?
    The budget could only be described as smart if it had been ghosted by Rachel Reeves. I don't know how long you've been a Lib Dem but I'd keep it under your hat if I were you or people might mistake you for a fifth columnist
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    HYUFD said:

    Farooq said:

    Johnson has been just as terrible as Corbyn would have been

    The Tories have been performing very well in real elections though under Johnson such as last night's by election in High Peak where the Conservatives trounced Labour.

    The Tories could do well at the local elections and tie with Labour like in 2018. Labour aren't even certain to gain any London councils.
    The Conservatives lost all the seats that they contested yesterday, apart from that one, which looks better for them then you think because it was a by election in a multi-member seat. In which they finished first last time.

    You need better evidence than that for your claim.
    High Peak is 5th on the Labour target list. They really should have won the seat last night on UNS.

    The Tory losses went to the LDs not Labour.

    Labour certainly will need to do better in May than they did last night to suggest Starmer is heading for No 10
    So if May is good set of results, suggesting Starmer not yet on way to number ten, will number ten realise This June is the best month for them to win an election in what remains of this parliamentary term, so call that election?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706

    HYUFD said:

    Farooq said:

    Johnson has been just as terrible as Corbyn would have been

    The Tories have been performing very well in real elections though under Johnson such as last night's by election in High Peak where the Conservatives trounced Labour.

    The Tories could do well at the local elections and tie with Labour like in 2018. Labour aren't even certain to gain any London councils.
    The Conservatives lost all the seats that they contested yesterday, apart from that one, which looks better for them then you think because it was a by election in a multi-member seat. In which they finished first last time.

    You need better evidence than that for your claim.
    High Peak is 5th on the Labour target list. They really should have won the seat last night on UNS.

    The Tory losses went to the LDs not Labour.

    Labour certainly will need to do better in May than they did last night to suggest Starmer is heading for No 10
    So if May is good set of results, suggesting Starmer not yet on way to number ten, will number ten realise This June is the best month for them to win an election in what remains of this parliamentary term, so call that election?
    Unlikely unless the Tories had a big lead on NEV as May's Tories did in the 2017 local elections
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    HYUFD said:

    Farooq said:

    Johnson has been just as terrible as Corbyn would have been

    The Tories have been performing very well in real elections though under Johnson such as last night's by election in High Peak where the Conservatives trounced Labour.

    The Tories could do well at the local elections and tie with Labour like in 2018. Labour aren't even certain to gain any London councils.
    The Conservatives lost all the seats that they contested yesterday, apart from that one, which looks better for them then you think because it was a by election in a multi-member seat. In which they finished first last time.

    You need better evidence than that for your claim.
    High Peak is 5th on the Labour target list. They really should have won the seat last night on UNS.

    The Tory losses went to the LDs not Labour.

    Labour certainly will need to do better in May than they did last night to suggest Starmer is heading for No 10
    Yes, but as we've established time and again, UNS is a fiction.
    Also, there was at least one Green victory last night.

    It's not really strong evidence for the claim "Tories have been performing very well in real elections", is it?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,590
    Leon said:

    TimT said:
    Wow. That’s not good. Tho it would be nice (suffering aside) if the virus *potentially enhanced* in a Chinese lab came back to bite the CCP and removed Xi from power

    I am not expecting it, but it would be the final triumph of my Second Rule of Covid: the Virus always comes back to haunt anyone that gloated about their handling of it. This rule has verified repeatedly throughout the two years of the pandemic

    China is the last major hold-out. It’s just the Kiwis apart from them. And one has to wonder what 2 years of total global isolation have done to a lot of people in NZ
    NZ has done quite well, despise the arrival and breakout of Omicron, due to an effective campaign to get the vaccine rolled out.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    TimT said:

    TimT said:

    It

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ON topic, has anyone ever been to Pergamom? Is it worth a major effort to see?

    I have

    It depends if you like Greek cities with acropolises and such - it's a very fine example, magnificent stonework. I am biased in that I am a Galen specialist and it's where the bloviating windbag came from, but it is pretty special.

    Aphrodisias prob even better if it's realistic alternative. Or Tlos.
    ooh. Ta

    Will look now

    i do love classical ruins. I love all the tiny things about them. The crunch of the little pebbles under your boots as you tread the ancient roads, in the hot sun, knowing that in about three hours you will have absorbed all this beauty and you will be downing a cold beer in the shade of the green green cypress trees. Glorious
    It was good, but agree Aphrodisias, with its hippodrome, impressed me more. Also the Temple of Zeus at Magnesia (Aydin).
    Sorry, that may be the wrong Temple of Zeus. Looking for the one I remember.
    This was the one I remember liking: Temple of Zeus Lepsynos

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromus, near Milas
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 6,760
    Cyclefree said:

    Off topic.

    https://twitter.com/cyclefree2/status/1512410320605749249?s=21&t=bP5fav9Fi8v7s4961VRwzg

    I am available at an enormous fee to design the gardens of the Sunak's many homes.

    Lovely. It must be really great to see the renewal of life after the last 24 months
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Leon said:

    TimT said:
    Wow. That’s not good. Tho it would be nice (suffering aside) if the virus *potentially enhanced* in a Chinese lab came back to bite the CCP and removed Xi from power

    I am not expecting it, but it would be the final triumph of my Second Rule of Covid: the Virus always comes back to haunt anyone that gloated about their handling of it. This rule has verified repeatedly throughout the two years of the pandemic

    China is the last major hold-out. It’s just the Kiwis apart from them. And one has to wonder what 2 years of total global isolation have done to a lot of people in NZ
    Rule #1: Hubris will be punished.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,456
    TOPPING said:



    Most countries require ID to vote. You can argue it makes it harder to vote, but I would have a system of either (a) Present your polling card or (b) some form of ID. Voting is incredibly important and you should have to prove you are the person you say you are.

    Peaceful protest must be protected. Is what extinction rebellion do peaceful protest? Do they have the right to stop someone visiting a dying relative in hospital? Does that Stop Brexit idiot have the right to harass politicians? Hopefully a more moderate version of the proposed bill will evolve.

    With no written constitution who is right about the courts and parliamentary sovereignty?

    The thing about ID is that nearly everyone else has ID cards which people carry as routinely as we carry credit cards, so asking people to show it is no big deal at all. Lots of people in Britain don't routinely carry phot ID, so they need to remember to dig it out before they go to vote. It's a minor hassle and some won't bother or will forget.

    Insofar as we have a loophole, it must be family influencing each other for postal votes. The problem of people turning up and pretending to be someone else is virtually non-existent. People can barely be arsed to turn up as themselves.

    I agree about protest, though.
    In 2019 I turned up to the polling booth and was told I had already voted.

    Cock up or conspiracy I have no idea save that to start with the polling booth staff thought it hilariously funny until I made noises about illegality and the police at which point they got onto their supervisor and then allowed me to vote. No idea if there was any follow up on what had actually happened. I strongly suspect cock up but who knows.
    Must be easy to put a line through the one above or below on the sheet so I suspect cockup. However I have never come across it and I don't know how they will handle it.
  • theProletheProle Posts: 948

    kjh said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    kjh said:

    Sandpit said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    1. She is a non-Dom which is a perfectly legitimate category but which arouses some suspicion of tax dodging/one rule for them.
    2. She is very, very wealthy.
    3. She is married to the CotE.
    4. Does she owe tax in the UK according to the law? It's complicated.
    5. Is she legitmately a "non-Dom"? See Pt.1.

    If you put all those factors into a bowl and stir you come to the conclusion that it was a hugely idiotic move politically by Sunak to do anything other than have himself and his family pay as much tax as possible as might ever be suggested by the tax authorities.

    Complicated dividend payments held offshore? Nope. Non-dom status for your spouse? Nope. Even ISAs could be used against you, so ISAs? Nope.

    It was a political blunder.

    The really, really stoopid thing is that Rishi could have turned it into a positive: I publicly renounce capitalism and all its works (for a defined period while keeping all that lovely capital) just so I can serve our wonderful country.

    Amateur hour.
    Particularly after the example set by Boris Johnson - he arranged to pay full PAYE tax on his earning from the Telegraph column. Before the expenses scandal broke.

    He didn't announce it, either. Just waited until Ken Livingstone walked into the elephant trap he had dug.

    Cost BJ something like high 6 figures in extra tax over the years, probably.
    That implies he was organised enough in the first place. Butd he certainly took advantage of it.
    When writing for papers like that, everyone else in politics used a personal company, dividends, pay yourself minimum wage etc etc. Ken Livingstone did.

    This is why Ken Livingstone went on the attack with it, without checking the facts.

    To pay the extra tax like that took a special arrangement and a deliberate instruction to whoever did the taxes for Boris Johnson. Unless you think that BJ did his taxes himself, rather than using an accountant.
    It’s the other way around IMHO.

    The Telegraph asked him who to make the cheque out to, and he said he didn’t have a company so just make it to Boris Johnson. Then, at the end of the year his accountant looked up the payments and paid the tax bill on it - one hour of the accountant’s time.

    Actually setting up and running a company, with quarterly returns, payroll, VAT etc is way more complicated, and required deliberate actions - although I’m sure the accountant would have suggested it!
    I agree. I am surprised Boris didn't set up a company and credit to him for not doing so. Although the savings aren't as huge as people think re setting up a company, particularly if the earnings are high and he needed the funds so would have taken them rather than keeping them in the company. It is comparing Income tax on earnings and NI to corporation tax and tax on dividends. Obviously having a company does allow you to manipulate when the dividend tax is paid, but that wouldn't apply if he needed the money.

    I didn't know Boris had done this and I am surprised. Dying to know if he was being a good egg or just bumbled his way into PAYE.
    IIRC Private Eye said that he had previously used such a personal company, but stopped using it before he got the big column at the Telegraph.

    The savings *used* to be huge - before Osborne's war on personal companies.

    I knew people pulling in the kind of money that BJ was getting for the Telegraph column, working in consultancy. It was something like halving your tax bill - depending how aggressive you were in declaring stuff as expenses etc.

    There were (and are) plenty of accountants and companies offering to setup and run such personal companies for you, for quite small fees. Most of the contractors I knew went that route - a couple did it all themselves.
    How could it be huge? There is practically no difference between expenses on self employed compared to a company. Obviously if you are on a payroll the allowed expenses is very limited, but if you are writing opinion type articles that should be a pretty limited difference.

    I'm sure if you really work at it you can find all sorts of schemes that are borderline avoidance/evasion and save heaps, but I think you need to really go at it to benefit to that extent.

    I had a limited company from 1993. I had it because it made my life a lot easier and I knew how to do it all myself, so I didn't have the headache and cost of an accountant. Yes I used the system to avoid paying too much tax because I didn't need to take money out of the company to live on so I was flexible in how I paid myself, but the saving wouldn't have been huge and that option would be limited to anyone who needs to take the money out to live on.

    Those halving their tax bill in the past sound like they must have been pushing the bounds of legality.
    Isn't the difference between dividend tax and income tax (even at the standard rate) quite substantial?
    Yes but it is more complicated than that as @Malmesbury says. Firstly if you have a company you will pay corporation tax which more than wipes that out. But you do save on NI. The biggest gain (assuming you are not trying it on with some dubious scheme) is the flexibility on when you pay dividends and therefore attract dividend tax.
    And yet hundreds of thousands of contractors howled to the heavens when they were cut off by IR35.

    They weren't doing it just for the NI savings.
    IR35 is a stupid and iniquitous peice of legislation.
    I don't have employees, only subbies, which suits all of us nicely. They don't just work for me, although they do more work for me than they do for anyone else. They are free to do as much outside work as they like, and can do as much or little for me as they like.
    The farce we have to go through to maintain this arrangement (with which we are all perfectly happy) without getting dragged into the IR35 net is ridiculous.
    It's not even really about tax - it's more the admin, having to run a payroll, having to do employee pensions, having to keep track of holiday...
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    🇩🇪 received far more and clearer warning about its feckless reliance on 🇷🇺 gas than 🇬🇷 ever did about its pre-crisis borrowing. Yet it seems as if 🇩🇪 ‘s famous eagerness to treat economic policy as a morality play applies only to other countries.

    https://twitter.com/benjaminhaddad/status/1512399136414478338
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    HYUFD said:

    Farooq said:

    Johnson has been just as terrible as Corbyn would have been

    The Tories have been performing very well in real elections though under Johnson such as last night's by election in High Peak where the Conservatives trounced Labour.

    The Tories could do well at the local elections and tie with Labour like in 2018. Labour aren't even certain to gain any London councils.
    The Conservatives lost all the seats that they contested yesterday, apart from that one, which looks better for them then you think because it was a by election in a multi-member seat. In which they finished first last time.

    You need better evidence than that for your claim.
    High Peak is 5th on the Labour target list. They really should have won the seat last night on UNS.

    The Tory losses went to the LDs not Labour.

    Labour certainly will need to do better in May than they did last night to suggest Starmer is heading for No 10
    One Con seat loss was a Green win IIRC.
    But I agree, Labour should be doing better.
    Although I really would like to see some percentage turnout figures.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    Cyclefree said:

    Off topic.

    https://twitter.com/cyclefree2/status/1512410320605749249?s=21&t=bP5fav9Fi8v7s4961VRwzg

    I am available at an enormous fee to design the gardens of the Sunak's many homes.

    Offer him a for- cash discount.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    Farooq said:

    Applicant said:

    Farooq said:

    Applicant said:

    Farooq said:

    Applicant said:

    .

    Jonathan said:

    Johnson in London
    Le Pen in Paris
    Trump in Washington
    Putin smiling in Moscow

    What a total shitshow lurks on the horizon.

    But that democracy for three of those nations. And try as you might, you should not include Trump, Johnson and Le Pen in the same class as Putin. Putin has invaded a neighbour, killed thousands of people (including his own troops), overseen war crimes, launched chemical weapons attacks across the globe. What did Trump do (in office)? Started the process of pulling out of Afghanistan. Confused the hell out of Rocketman in North Korea. Avoided blowing up the world by accident. What of Johnson? He pushed through a form of brexit that many don't like and probably isn't going to work or last in the long term - another government will correct that. He tried his best in the pandemic, and got some things right and some things wrong. He broke his own laws over socialising and was wrong to do so, but he didn't invade France. And Le Pen - what are her policies? Invading Germany? Or is it just that she is of the right that you don't like her?

    Trump and Johnson have both used their time in power to weaken democratic norms.
    And they aren't the only ones. "Not My President".
    People were saying that when Obama was in power. And when Bush was in power. It's a pretty meaningless howl of disapproval.
    Rather more intensely with each successive president, though.
    Well, social media has grown.
    Famous commentators like Sean Hannity (who said it about Obama) have helped to normalise it.
    Oh, indeed. With Bush it was a few nutters on the Internet. With Obama it was TV pundits. With Trump it was elected politicians.
    And with Biden, his defeated opponent tried to do a coup.
    Just to finish your thought, you know. Don't want to miss the actually important bit where someone tried to turn their bitterness into an insurrection.
    Without the first three, the fourth one would never have happened in the first place, so...
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    kjh said:

    TOPPING said:



    Most countries require ID to vote. You can argue it makes it harder to vote, but I would have a system of either (a) Present your polling card or (b) some form of ID. Voting is incredibly important and you should have to prove you are the person you say you are.

    Peaceful protest must be protected. Is what extinction rebellion do peaceful protest? Do they have the right to stop someone visiting a dying relative in hospital? Does that Stop Brexit idiot have the right to harass politicians? Hopefully a more moderate version of the proposed bill will evolve.

    With no written constitution who is right about the courts and parliamentary sovereignty?

    The thing about ID is that nearly everyone else has ID cards which people carry as routinely as we carry credit cards, so asking people to show it is no big deal at all. Lots of people in Britain don't routinely carry phot ID, so they need to remember to dig it out before they go to vote. It's a minor hassle and some won't bother or will forget.

    Insofar as we have a loophole, it must be family influencing each other for postal votes. The problem of people turning up and pretending to be someone else is virtually non-existent. People can barely be arsed to turn up as themselves.

    I agree about protest, though.
    In 2019 I turned up to the polling booth and was told I had already voted.

    Cock up or conspiracy I have no idea save that to start with the polling booth staff thought it hilariously funny until I made noises about illegality and the police at which point they got onto their supervisor and then allowed me to vote. No idea if there was any follow up on what had actually happened. I strongly suspect cock up but who knows.
    Must be easy to put a line through the one above or below on the sheet so I suspect cockup. However I have never come across it and I don't know how they will handle it.
    Must admit that having been in on the count and walked round polling stations at three GE's and (I think 6 or so Locals, I've never come across such an occurrence.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    HYUFD said:

    Farooq said:

    Johnson has been just as terrible as Corbyn would have been

    The Tories have been performing very well in real elections though under Johnson such as last night's by election in High Peak where the Conservatives trounced Labour.

    The Tories could do well at the local elections and tie with Labour like in 2018. Labour aren't even certain to gain any London councils.
    The Conservatives lost all the seats that they contested yesterday, apart from that one, which looks better for them then you think because it was a by election in a multi-member seat. In which they finished first last time.

    You need better evidence than that for your claim.
    High Peak is 5th on the Labour target list. They really should have won the seat last night on UNS.

    The Tory losses went to the LDs not Labour.

    Labour certainly will need to do better in May than they did last night to suggest Starmer is heading for No 10
    So if May is good set of results, suggesting Starmer not yet on way to number ten, will number ten realise This June is the best month for them to win an election in what remains of this parliamentary term, so call that election?
    Not going to happen. They're not going to risk an 80 seat majority on boundaries from the year 2000.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    HYUFD said:

    Farooq said:

    Johnson has been just as terrible as Corbyn would have been

    The Tories have been performing very well in real elections though under Johnson such as last night's by election in High Peak where the Conservatives trounced Labour.

    The Tories could do well at the local elections and tie with Labour like in 2018. Labour aren't even certain to gain any London councils.
    The Conservatives lost all the seats that they contested yesterday, apart from that one, which looks better for them then you think because it was a by election in a multi-member seat. In which they finished first last time.

    You need better evidence than that for your claim.
    High Peak is 5th on the Labour target list. They really should have won the seat last night on UNS.

    The Tory losses went to the LDs not Labour.

    Labour certainly will need to do better in May than they did last night to suggest Starmer is heading for No 10
    Didn't someone mention (Gary Burton?) that this seat was heavily redrawn and as such a Conservative shoo-in?
  • NEW THREAD

  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    TimT said:
    Wow. That’s not good. Tho it would be nice (suffering aside) if the virus *potentially enhanced* in a Chinese lab came back to bite the CCP and removed Xi from power

    I am not expecting it, but it would be the final triumph of my Second Rule of Covid: the Virus always comes back to haunt anyone that gloated about their handling of it. This rule has verified repeatedly throughout the two years of the pandemic

    China is the last major hold-out. It’s just the Kiwis apart from them. And one has to wonder what 2 years of total global isolation have done to a lot of people in NZ
    Rule #1: Hubris will be punished.
    Brutal cartoon on China's approach to COVID:

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPvprtAWQAI5jmK?format=jpg&name=large
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    Paul Goodnan on R4 - Sunak does probably realise toxicity of issue, but is sticking with it. Also doesn’t believe No.10 is behind briefing.

    I am not sure he was quite so unequivocal on your second point.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,080
    Applicant said:

    HYUFD said:

    Farooq said:

    Johnson has been just as terrible as Corbyn would have been

    The Tories have been performing very well in real elections though under Johnson such as last night's by election in High Peak where the Conservatives trounced Labour.

    The Tories could do well at the local elections and tie with Labour like in 2018. Labour aren't even certain to gain any London councils.
    The Conservatives lost all the seats that they contested yesterday, apart from that one, which looks better for them then you think because it was a by election in a multi-member seat. In which they finished first last time.

    You need better evidence than that for your claim.
    High Peak is 5th on the Labour target list. They really should have won the seat last night on UNS.

    The Tory losses went to the LDs not Labour.

    Labour certainly will need to do better in May than they did last night to suggest Starmer is heading for No 10
    So if May is good set of results, suggesting Starmer not yet on way to number ten, will number ten realise This June is the best month for them to win an election in what remains of this parliamentary term, so call that election?
    Not going to happen. They're not going to risk an 80 seat majority on boundaries from the year 2000.
    I can see @MoonRabbit 's logic; things look like going downhill for the government from here as we enter a time when there's too much month and not enough income.

    From the perspective of Autumn 2024, now might turn out to be the Conservative's last decent chance of a decent result, if they can't improve things before the deadline for the next election.

    After all, part of the thinking behind the 2017 election was to win, ram through Brexit, ride the inevitable bumps mid-term and be able to point to some sunlit uplands by 2022. Hey ho.

    But the polls aren't that good for the blue team- to go know would be to entertain the possibility that they will get worse. And even if you know it, that's not the sort of thing that people will want to believe.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ON topic, has anyone ever been to Pergamom? Is it worth a major effort to see?

    I have

    It depends if you like Greek cities with acropolises and such - it's a very fine example, magnificent stonework. I am biased in that I am a Galen specialist and it's where the bloviating windbag came from, but it is pretty special.

    Aphrodisias prob even better if it's realistic alternative. Or Tlos.
    This is not fair. Learn how to spell some Greek.

    Pergamom (actual: Pergamum or Pergamon) is half-way down TSEs favourite memes of stepmoms and dockyard hookers.

    And then it gets on to Aphrodisiás...
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,952
    TimT said:

    It

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    ON topic, has anyone ever been to Pergamom? Is it worth a major effort to see?

    I have

    It depends if you like Greek cities with acropolises and such - it's a very fine example, magnificent stonework. I am biased in that I am a Galen specialist and it's where the bloviating windbag came from, but it is pretty special.

    Aphrodisias prob even better if it's realistic alternative. Or Tlos.
    ooh. Ta

    Will look now

    i do love classical ruins. I love all the tiny things about them. The crunch of the little pebbles under your boots as you tread the ancient roads, in the hot sun, knowing that in about three hours you will have absorbed all this beauty and you will be downing a cold beer in the shade of the green green cypress trees. Glorious
    It was good, but agree Aphrodisias, with its hippodrome, impressed me more. Also the Temple of Zeus at Magnesia (Aydin).

    Jerash in Jordan is spectacular. The Oval Forum and Cardo Maximus as well as the colonnaded street make you wonder what else remains to be unearthed on this massive site, gradually being unearthed since the 1920's.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    Try

    Λ
This discussion has been closed.