These dates were all before private school fees blew up on the doorsteps.
Have we done this poll?
Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if some private schools have to close because they cannot afford to operate if their VAT tax breaks are withdrawn? The public are divided:
Well I'd say it's a bad thing if they fail as it reduces choice, but I still support the VAT on private schools policy. They are businesses. They should stand or fall on their business model.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
You address this to lefties but surely it is righties who have reduced the country to this bloody mess in the last 14 years they have been running the show.
Fair. The Tories are equally to blame. Indeed MORE to blame in some ways - especially the isane immigration of the last 3 years. That’s entirely on them. That’s what they CHOSE
So I agree and it why I’m not voting Tory
Nonetheless as a society we need to ask these questions. Other countries are now competing hard for clever hard working people like @Casino_Royale who pays a LOT of tax. Why should he linger in Britain which does its best to sneer at him and say he a toxic white male?
I am so old I remember when that Sean Thomas used to encourage traitorous Remainers to emigrate.
Said we could cope without their taxes.
Whatever happened to him?
He caught syphilis which explained his dribblings.
I remember in 1997 any number of "wealthy" people claiming they would leave the country if Blair and Labour won - not sure how many of them did.
Is it an idle threat designed to scare people into voting Conservative?
@Casino_Royale may feel the change of Government will be economically disadvantageous to him and his family and he may wish to emigrate - that's his right. As to the claims it's easier to work abroad from @Malmesbury, this may come as a surprise but a lot of people don't earn £100k or more a year and simply want to be able to work and have a decent life here on the money they earn instead of having to struggle.
The old "the rich pay a lot of tax" meme also gets wheeled out along with the flat tax idea. The rich pay a lot of tax because they earn a lot more - 40% of £1 million is a lot more than 20% of £25k for example so yes, proportionally, the wealthy pay more tax. Even after that, however, they still have more disposible income and since the cost of things is not wholly related to your income, a millionaire pays the same for a pint of milk as I do.
More money allows you to buy more and better things, no question, and you can argue the quality of what you can afford is directly related to the income you have though I sometimes wonder whether it's more about knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Consumption and the quality of that consumption is a personal choice if you have the money, it's less so if you don't but that's not to say the choices the poor make are often informed - look at how much is spent on ultra-processed food.
The other point is we are moving into a period of under-employment in many key sectors, both professional and in the public sector. The only ways to resolve that are to upskill those who are here (the better solution) or import skilled people to fill the gap (and that's another issue or series of issues).
Yvette Cooper refusing to put a target on net migration can hardly be jumped on by the Tories . Given they’ve overseen the largest ever figures and every target they’ve set has been missed .
This is the answer to every criticism of Labour, isn't it? "The Tories", "14 years". Etc.
You are standing for office for 5 years.
You have questions to answer about what you'd do. You don't get to not answer them.
She told LK what she’d do . She refused to answer about a target because putting targets on net migration is a fools game.
Any figure she gives will be jumped on .
It's not just that - it will also be seized upon by the OBR, fed into their casio calculator (or whatever they use to churn out their inaccurate prognostications) and result in them cutting headroom for tax cuts (and one would like to assume spending commitments) to zero.
I was thinking Brexit where Leave went 14/1 30 mins after the polls closed after Farage conceded.
Fair point, but that had a lot to do with misinformation and a febrile atmosphere.
I can't recall a duller election than this one.
There are a number of interesting features of this election when compared say with 2001, 2005, 1987.
There is a high chance of a change of government. This is intrinsically interesting.
Electoral Calculus suggests that the Tories are set to get between 37 and 225 seats. This is fascinating both WRT the politics - what happens if Tories lose almost 90% of their 2019 seats, it's as significant as the Corn Laws episode - and the range of possibilities numerically.
There is even a chance of a chaotic result - where no government is viable, though that possibility is receding.
Politically there are big expectations of a new Labour government, but they start with minus £2trillion in the bank. This is fascinating.
The LDs could get 20 seats. They could get 80. This is interesting, especially as their leader is Harry Worth.
There are lots of betting opportunities, which as usual I shall miss.
Overall this is a great election, and could turn out to be the most significant since 1945.
I first came to PB because I had this idea that the markets would be better informed, whether by insider trading or otherwise, and could give you a better idea of the likely outcome than portentous pundits in their own echo chamber. I still think that has proven to be true, particularly in respect of outcomes I don't like where there is an inevitable temptation to read the pundits who share your view, but I am a lot less persuaded that they have any special insight.
Fortunately, I have found a lot else on PB to amuse me.
It was an idea people were pursuing in the mid-late 2000s: just get people to bet their beliefs. It relies on mugs like most of us to keep funding the payoffs for the winners, like wagering on cards. And a real superpredictor can probably make money on stocks or plain betting. So you are left with paying people to reveal their inside information.
These dates were all before private school fees blew up on the doorsteps.
Have we done this poll?
Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if some private schools have to close because they cannot afford to operate if their VAT tax breaks are withdrawn? The public are divided:
I'm amazed that a question phrased like that only had 28% support. Is it a good thing or a bad thing if ANYTHING couldn't afford to operate anymore because their tax breaks were being withdrawn? We're a compassionate nation. We don't like people being forced into penury. Had it asked "Should private schooling lose their tax breaks" I suggest you'd have a very different answer
I think Labour will ultimately drop this policy or amend it dramatically. Reasons are in my mind as follows.
1. It upsets a few people a lot but the majority dont really care 2. It breaks EC law (kids education should not be taxed) 3. It wont raise a lot of money. (Many people will put their kids school through their company and claim back the VAT) 4. Some schools will close and this will look terrible in the press 5. There are technical difficulties with this.
In the UK, the provision of education by an “eligible body” is an “exempt” supply for VAT purposes. This means that goods and services that are closely related to education are also exempt from VAT, such as catering, transport, school trips, and boarding accommodation. So lets say an Oxford College such as New College also runs a choir school. Would it be an eligible or non eligible body?
They can implement it without all those dificulties by simply making it 5% rather than 20%. Then they can say they have done it. (Actually, now we are out of the EU, they can pick any number.)
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
Lucky the main impact of 14 years of Tory rules makes it harder for people to easily leave the country.
It’s actually easier for people to move countries for jobs than 10 years ago. I am continually astonished by how many places work is conducted in English. To the point of apologising if there is one English speaker in the room and someone starts talking in French or whatever.
At 6 figure job levels, the visa stuff is sorted out for you by the company hiring, very often. For example, the big banks in New York. No Green Card lottery. Same for Germany and France.
Same with Switzerland, if they want you they will sort the permits etc. They are always looking for good quality of staff, work mostly in English if an international company and a good quality of life.
Whilst you don’t get the buzz and range that London gives you can just jump in the car and go skiing for the day or drive off to multiple other countries easily which makes up for it.
As we saw in the London Mayoral election, there is a hyper sensitivity to "rumour" and "gossip" put out as tweets. We had some journo on the Thursday evening claiming "a source at CCHQ was very confident Hall had won". No evidence, just speculation and to be fair CCHQ quickly stamped that out.
A lot of it was in my view mischief-making by those opposed to Khan - whether there was an active attmept to manipulate the markets I don't know but of course we had no exit poll as we will have after the GE. 1992 tells us exit polls aren't foolproof but they are a good indication of the direction of travel and the scale of the victory/defeat.
It's also helpful for those playing the Next Conservative Leader market - you might be looking at a different set of runners and riders if 50 MPs survive rather than 100, 150 or 200.
Will the debates move the markets significantly? Recent experience suggests not.
The London market was quite illiquid. The GE will have loads more money piling into it. That should reduce volatility.
Yet again the Brexit referendum vote where the odds went to 14-1.
That is the perfect example of a liquid market with incorrect information driving it
I'm not sure a market with more liquidity reduces volatility - I think it depends on the herd mentality. IF we got an exit poll, as we did in 2017, which suggested something outside the range of many of the immediate pre-election polls, you would see everyone rushing to protect/enhance their positions and that would ramifications through the associated markets.
The first results might not help as they would be in strong Labour areas - remember how the swing in Sunderland South in 1997 was much smaller than the polls were suggesting but within an hour we were seeing an 18% swing in Crosby. Until we get a better idea of who will be declaring and when it'll be difficult to judge the point at which we'll be seeing the wood for the trees.
The new boundaries will create a degree of uncertainty too. I asked a while ago for suggestions of seats which might declare early, have minimal boundary changes and be good pointers to what will follow. I had some good responses too, which I should collate somewhere.
Here's the list of constituencies with unchanged boundaries.
Altrincham and Sale West, Bootle, Bradford West, Bromsgrove, Burton, Cannock Chase, Cheadle, Chesterfield, Coventry North West, Crawley, Derby North, Derby South, East Worthing and Shoreham, Epping Forest, Erewash, Forest of Dean, Gillingham and Rainham, Gosport, Gravesham, Great Yarmouth, Hartlepool, Havant, High Peak, Hove, Hyndburn, Ipswich, Islington North, Lincoln, Macclesfield, New Forest East, New Forest West, North Devon, North Warwickshire, Nuneaton, Oldham East and Saddleworth, Oldham West and Royton, Penistone and Stocksbridge, Portsmouth North, Portsmouth South, Scarborough and Whitby, South Holland and The Deepings, Southampton Itchen, Southampton Test, Spelthorne, St Helens North, Stalybridge and Hyde, Stretford and Urmston, Sunderland Central, Sutton Coldfield, Tooting, Tunbridge Wells, Walthamstow, West Lancashire, West Worcestershire, Wigan, Worcester, Wyre Forest, Wythenshawe and Sale East, Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Central Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Midlothian, North Ayrshire and Arran, Orkney and Shetland, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Ynys Môn
Four of them are unchanged but with expanded names. Burton will be Burton & Uttoxeter Hove will be Hove & Portslade North Warwickshire will be North Warwickshire & Bedworth Oldham West & Royton will be Oldham West, Chadderton & Royton
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might survive without you or CR if we have to.
You can survive if me and CR quit. You can’t survive if half a million of us quit. Britain will go bankrupt
And with digital nomad visas and remote working and computer translation and universal English it is now easier to work abroad than ever before. And other countries are vigorously TRYING to attract people like me and CR who pay a lot of tax
And yet you scoff and shrug it off. Madness. But up to you
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might survive without you or CR if we have to.
You can survive if me and CR quit. You can’t survive if half a million of us quit. Britain will go bankrupt
And with digital nomad visas and remote working and computer translation and universal English it is now easier to work abroad than ever before. And other countries are vigorously TRYING to attract people like me and CR who pay a lot of tax
And yet you scoff and shrug it off. Madness. But up to you
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might survive without you or CR if we have to.
Just thinking, last time the Tories et pals look like winning an election, we get lots of crap about lots of people leaving the country, but we don't get that in reality either do we?
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
And there it is. Why on earth should us white straight men stay in a country that despises us and wants fewer of us?
I think you're misreading my comment. Unless you're suggesting that the best person to do a job is always the straight white male (of which I'm one), then there's no despising involved.
If I had 100 vacancies to fill, and I filled them with 100 straight, white men, then it would be highly unlikely that I'd picked the 100 best candidates. It would be sub-optimal economically, so logically of one of those men leaving, could well be an opportunity.
It's the very opposite of being despised. It's a dispassionate argument suggesting you might, through no fault of your own, be a structural inefficiency in the UK economy.
VAT on private schools - why is it a bad thing? The state is very short of funds to pay the public services we need. Fact is, taxes need to go up. So now the question is, what taxes need to go up? Simples really…
Have you missed the debate on here the last few weeks?
It will reduce funds to the state, not increase them.
“Yvette Cooper refuses to rule out sending asylum seekers overseas if Labour win general election – Shadow home secretary says Labour would examine ‘offshore processing arrangements’”
I predicted EXACTLY THIS a few weeks ago. I said in the end Starmer will do a version of Rwanda because it is the only humane solution that might work. Labour will just tweak it and pretend it is something else
Hilarious
Morally, offshore processing is very different from the one way ticket. It doesn’t affect a refugee’s right to settle in the UK if their case is approved.
But behaviourally different too, I expect. If there’s any deterrent effect from Rwanda now (and there must presumably be some) there wouldn’t be with offshore processing.
I think it’s quite possible they will do something like that though they would be stupid to unless it’s significantly cheaper than doing so onshore.
These dates were all before private school fees blew up on the doorsteps.
Private school fees is no dementia tax.
It predominately hits Tories.
So thats all good.
It is by definition the epitome of a niche issue. 7% of the nation's children go to private schools. Maybe a few more had some private schooling. Most people just don't care - not out of vindictiveness towards those affected but because it just doesn't affect them. It's smallest violin stuff.
It just receives outsized attention because the limited number of people who are angry about it are some of the best connected people in the country, and in the media industry in particular.
A mantra on the Right is "I believe in equality of opportunity not outcome".
“Yvette Cooper refuses to rule out sending asylum seekers overseas if Labour win general election – Shadow home secretary says Labour would examine ‘offshore processing arrangements’”
I predicted EXACTLY THIS a few weeks ago. I said in the end Starmer will do a version of Rwanda because it is the only humane solution that might work. Labour will just tweak it and pretend it is something else
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
Hi Casino. I have mixed feelings re the private school issue and did use them for one of my children. I have been following your discussion and for clarity are you referring to just Income Tax and NI because I think you said you had a marginal rate of 62% which puts you in the taxable band of £100,000 - £125,000 (approx) but to pay the tax you have just quoted above, your marginal rate would have to be 47% (45 + 2) because you would have passed the 62% point.
I agree with you that the current structure where the marginal rate goes up and down like a yo yo is bonkers (there is of course another one of these where the NI drops from 12% to 2% and others as well) I think the PA should go up each year and that the PA should be reclaimed from higher earners but it should be done in a smoother way so as not to deter people like you from working.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
As we saw in the London Mayoral election, there is a hyper sensitivity to "rumour" and "gossip" put out as tweets. We had some journo on the Thursday evening claiming "a source at CCHQ was very confident Hall had won". No evidence, just speculation and to be fair CCHQ quickly stamped that out.
A lot of it was in my view mischief-making by those opposed to Khan - whether there was an active attmept to manipulate the markets I don't know but of course we had no exit poll as we will have after the GE. 1992 tells us exit polls aren't foolproof but they are a good indication of the direction of travel and the scale of the victory/defeat.
It's also helpful for those playing the Next Conservative Leader market - you might be looking at a different set of runners and riders if 50 MPs survive rather than 100, 150 or 200.
Will the debates move the markets significantly? Recent experience suggests not.
The London market was quite illiquid. The GE will have loads more money piling into it. That should reduce volatility.
Yet again the Brexit referendum vote where the odds went to 14-1.
That is the perfect example of a liquid market with incorrect information driving it
I'm not sure a market with more liquidity reduces volatility - I think it depends on the herd mentality. IF we got an exit poll, as we did in 2017, which suggested something outside the range of many of the immediate pre-election polls, you would see everyone rushing to protect/enhance their positions and that would ramifications through the associated markets.
The first results might not help as they would be in strong Labour areas - remember how the swing in Sunderland South in 1997 was much smaller than the polls were suggesting but within an hour we were seeing an 18% swing in Crosby. Until we get a better idea of who will be declaring and when it'll be difficult to judge the point at which we'll be seeing the wood for the trees.
The new boundaries will create a degree of uncertainty too. I asked a while ago for suggestions of seats which might declare early, have minimal boundary changes and be good pointers to what will follow. I had some good responses too, which I should collate somewhere.
Nuneaton, usually the first bellwether constituency to declare, around 1am, and unchanged in the boundary review.
What time are you all planning on staying up till?
I was 3.30am in 2010, similar in 2015 (no idea why, it was a miserable election for Lib Dems), only around 2am in 2017 and went to bed shortly after the exit poll in 2019 out of sheer despondency.
Thinking this might be a 3.30-4am one.
So I am sticking to my usual plan, take off the Thursday and Friday.
Thursday wake up as normal, check the betting markets, do some PB threads.
Got to bed at 2pm and wake up at 7pm.
Vote at 7.30pm and ask the staff if voting has been brisk.
Then stay up until middayish.
I envy your ability to fall asleep at 2pm. My plan is to wake up earlier than usual, watch the exit polls and adjust bets acccirdingly, then bed at 10:15 with a 3am alarm.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might pull through if you & CR leave.
One presumes those reasons are ego, attention seeking and a sense of entitlement. Would be mildly positive news for IDS.
Lewis Goodall who was dispensed with by the BBC for previously being a member of the Labour Party is really running with these deselection stories that call out Starmer's credibility.
I do feel Shaheen has been dealt a disgraceful hand by Labour, but then ensuring Duncan Smith gets re-elected by splitting the anti-Tory vote confirms Team-Starmer was right to bin her. These Labour lefties are incredibly entitled.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
You address this to lefties but surely it is righties who have reduced the country to this bloody mess in the last 14 years they have been running the show.
Fair. The Tories are equally to blame. Indeed MORE to blame in some ways - especially the isane immigration of the last 3 years. That’s entirely on them. That’s what they CHOSE
So I agree and it why I’m not voting Tory
Nonetheless as a society we need to ask these questions. Other countries are now competing hard for clever hard working people like @Casino_Royale who pays a LOT of tax. Why should he linger in Britain which does its best to sneer at him and say he a toxic white male?
I'm getting a sense of deja vu, didn't we have the same topic of conversation (Labour waging a class war against Casino personally) last Sunday? Sod that for a game of soldiers, I'll come back tomorrow.
Sorry, you’re quitting PB for the day because it is repeating an argument we had about a week ago? PB often repeats the same arguments eight times in a morning
But to be fair those blanket 20mph limits in Wales are really annoying, and the trans issue is very important.
Those speed limits really do affect life in Hartlepool, it seems. Though there is some merit in considering the Welsh railway network and the relative paucity of services between the north and the south - oh, sorry, not that kind, you say?
Fortunately my friend who lived in rural Gwynedd and used to drive to Cardiff for professional meetings is no longer involved. The 20mph limit, while probably in his interest in Llanberis might have frustrated him on his way South.
ANC saying that coalition parties can't demand that Ramaphosa stands down as part of a deal is interesting when the opposition parties will control 60% of seats.
But there’s zero chance of the opposition parties agreeing on anything much beyond Ramaphosa standing down. There’s no chance of a non-ANC coalition government.
But neither of you are going to and everybody knows it.
On the subject of expensive policy wheezes allowing local elites to line their pockets, I spotted this in the B&B we were staying in last night in the struggling town of St Quentin:
The owner’s yacht apparently, and subject to protection as patrimoine maritime.
“Yvette Cooper refuses to rule out sending asylum seekers overseas if Labour win general election – Shadow home secretary says Labour would examine ‘offshore processing arrangements’”
I predicted EXACTLY THIS a few weeks ago. I said in the end Starmer will do a version of Rwanda because it is the only humane solution that might work. Labour will just tweak it and pretend it is something else
Hilarious
Morally, offshore processing is very different from the one way ticket. It doesn’t affect a refugee’s right to settle in the UK if their case is approved.
But behaviourally different too, I expect. If there’s any deterrent effect from Rwanda now (and there must presumably be some) there wouldn’t be with offshore processing.
I think it’s quite possible they will do something like that though they would be stupid to unless it’s significantly cheaper than doing so onshore.
The difference is that, offshore, the 50% whose cases are refused do not need to be deported from Britain. Which, given how bad we are at doing that, would be a huge improvement.
But neither of you are going to and everybody knows it.
Just because you can't tear yourself away from DVD boxsets of One Foot In The Grave from your Somerset bungalow, when you're not in your garage working on your HotwankX456-3000 with alloy-fucknuts and chrome-superanus doesn't mean the rest of are as immobile or unimaginative as you are.
As we saw in the London Mayoral election, there is a hyper sensitivity to "rumour" and "gossip" put out as tweets. We had some journo on the Thursday evening claiming "a source at CCHQ was very confident Hall had won". No evidence, just speculation and to be fair CCHQ quickly stamped that out.
A lot of it was in my view mischief-making by those opposed to Khan - whether there was an active attmept to manipulate the markets I don't know but of course we had no exit poll as we will have after the GE. 1992 tells us exit polls aren't foolproof but they are a good indication of the direction of travel and the scale of the victory/defeat.
It's also helpful for those playing the Next Conservative Leader market - you might be looking at a different set of runners and riders if 50 MPs survive rather than 100, 150 or 200.
Will the debates move the markets significantly? Recent experience suggests not.
The London market was quite illiquid. The GE will have loads more money piling into it. That should reduce volatility.
Yet again the Brexit referendum vote where the odds went to 14-1.
That is the perfect example of a liquid market with incorrect information driving it
I'm not sure a market with more liquidity reduces volatility - I think it depends on the herd mentality. IF we got an exit poll, as we did in 2017, which suggested something outside the range of many of the immediate pre-election polls, you would see everyone rushing to protect/enhance their positions and that would ramifications through the associated markets.
The first results might not help as they would be in strong Labour areas - remember how the swing in Sunderland South in 1997 was much smaller than the polls were suggesting but within an hour we were seeing an 18% swing in Crosby. Until we get a better idea of who will be declaring and when it'll be difficult to judge the point at which we'll be seeing the wood for the trees.
The new boundaries will create a degree of uncertainty too. I asked a while ago for suggestions of seats which might declare early, have minimal boundary changes and be good pointers to what will follow. I had some good responses too, which I should collate somewhere.
Nuneaton, usually the first bellwether constituency to declare, around 1am, and unchanged in the boundary review.
I remember in 1997 it was the early result from Birmingham Edgbaston (gained by Gisela Stuart) that told me Labour were going to win, and win big. At the time, it had been held by the Tories since the 1930s, and amazingly it has been Labour held ever since 1997.
Swindon: 2 seats and at least one of them has been pretty early at recent elections. Both very vulnerable to a Labour gain.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
VAT on private schools is a totem for the left which is why it’s absurdly high up the priority list.
But apparently, having been so high and being largely ignored as a “that’s a good idea but it doesn’t affect me” policy, it’s now going to prompt a voter rebellion so huge that it will decisively move the dial against Keith Donkey.
No. No it won’t. This is absurdist hoping on stilts. Private schools are not an aspiration for the vast majority of voters. Good schools for their kids IS. Practically everyone thinks paying twice for something is bonkers.
If the Tories came out and offered private school standards in state schools, then maybe. But as we saw with the national service lunacy, they truly have got it in for other people’s kids, kicking the majority and putting them back in their place whilst their own can keep their status as the few.
I'm not particularly left wing at all these days. I just slip over the left of centre line. I am on the whole sceptical of Starmer-Labour. I would be more content supporting Crazy Ed's zany LibDems..
However charging VAT on a private education floats my boat. I sent my children to state school because I wanted a good quality and rounded education. I couldn't have afforded Monmouth, Christ College Brecon or Llandovery College and I despise these Mickey Mouse entities prefixed with "St" that I could have afforded. Half my family including my mother were students at St Michael's Llanelli. Keep them open by all means, but they are businesses, charge VAT. I am a 50% shareholder in a post 16 education provider and we are subject to VAT.
Can we all agree that, whatever the ins and outs of this policy of VAT on private school fees, it is literal insanity that schools do not have to pay VAT but FE providers do?
As we saw in the London Mayoral election, there is a hyper sensitivity to "rumour" and "gossip" put out as tweets. We had some journo on the Thursday evening claiming "a source at CCHQ was very confident Hall had won". No evidence, just speculation and to be fair CCHQ quickly stamped that out.
A lot of it was in my view mischief-making by those opposed to Khan - whether there was an active attmept to manipulate the markets I don't know but of course we had no exit poll as we will have after the GE. 1992 tells us exit polls aren't foolproof but they are a good indication of the direction of travel and the scale of the victory/defeat.
It's also helpful for those playing the Next Conservative Leader market - you might be looking at a different set of runners and riders if 50 MPs survive rather than 100, 150 or 200.
Will the debates move the markets significantly? Recent experience suggests not.
The London market was quite illiquid. The GE will have loads more money piling into it. That should reduce volatility.
Yet again the Brexit referendum vote where the odds went to 14-1.
That is the perfect example of a liquid market with incorrect information driving it
I'm not sure a market with more liquidity reduces volatility - I think it depends on the herd mentality. IF we got an exit poll, as we did in 2017, which suggested something outside the range of many of the immediate pre-election polls, you would see everyone rushing to protect/enhance their positions and that would ramifications through the associated markets.
The first results might not help as they would be in strong Labour areas - remember how the swing in Sunderland South in 1997 was much smaller than the polls were suggesting but within an hour we were seeing an 18% swing in Crosby. Until we get a better idea of who will be declaring and when it'll be difficult to judge the point at which we'll be seeing the wood for the trees.
The new boundaries will create a degree of uncertainty too. I asked a while ago for suggestions of seats which might declare early, have minimal boundary changes and be good pointers to what will follow. I had some good responses too, which I should collate somewhere.
Nuneaton, usually the first bellwether constituency to declare, around 1am, and unchanged in the boundary review.
What time are you all planning on staying up till?
I was 3.30am in 2010, similar in 2015 (no idea why, it was a miserable election for Lib Dems), only around 2am in 2017 and went to bed shortly after the exit poll in 2019 out of sheer despondency.
Thinking this might be a 3.30-4am one.
I’m three hours ahead of the UK, so will stay up for the exit poll at 1am, then get sleep until about 6am.
I tried staying up all night with a friend in 2015, and ended up very drunk and tired for days. My last memory before falling asleep, was Ed Balls losing his seat.
Go to bed. Radio 4 very quietly in left ear. No cowboy visuals or drunks on Thames boat. Don't worry about being the first to know that South Holland has voted Labour, Bootle is now LD and Keir Starmer has lost his seat. You'll know about 3 minutes later.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
And there it is. Why on earth should us white straight men stay in a country that despises us and wants fewer of us?
I think you're misreading my comment. Unless you're suggesting that the best person to do a job is always the straight white male (of which I'm one), then there's no despising involved.
If I had 100 vacancies to fill, and I filled them with 100 straight, white men, then it would be highly unlikely that I'd picked the 100 best candidates. It would be sub-optimal economically, so logically of one of those men leaving, could well be an opportunity.
It's the very opposite of being despised. It's a dispassionate argument suggesting you might, through no fault of your own, be a structural inefficiency in the UK economy.
I’m a self employed sole trader running my own business that I created and I often pay six figures in tax. And most of that is on income earned abroad. My flints mainly sell in foreign parts so I’m an exporter
I am eager to learn why I’m a structural inefficiency in the UK economy and why my departure from the UK and its tax system will therefore be of benefit to the UK and its people. Do tell
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might pull through if you & CR leave.
Yeah, right.
Fuck 'em!
I suspect you would be far more comfortable in a Republican USA. The weather in Florida or California is better too.
I planned to be happier in my retirement in Southern Europe, but that doesn't work now, thanks to Johnsonian Conservatives. I'll work 'til I drop, hopefully in a mellower, more socially agreeable UK (or independent Wales).
Because if rich people didn't rob the rest of us to pay their club fees that go to raising their obnoxious brats for them, training them in the ways and such, they'd be so narked they'd rob us even more.
That's the basic argument. Castes shouldn't mix.
And anyone who doesn't get this obvious fact has got a chip on their shoulder, doesn't understand economics, and probably doesn't even know what a bogle[1] is, let alone an upstairs chamber[2] or an initiation ceremony in the fos[3], and is therefore worthy only of contempt. Which in fact is the contempt they were born being worthy of. It all adds up. It's logical and it helps society. Don't worry.
1) Also spelled "bogwheel".
2) Tbf, I've no idea whether commoners such as Rishi Sunak know what these are.
Is the school that Casino Royale's children attended Alton Convent or another private school? Only, when I lived in north Hampshire, I knew two families who sent their special needs daughters to the Convent. One daughter was deaf, the other had hemiplegia. They chose the private school because it had a very caring attitude and was keen to assist the girls in any way possible. The attitude of the local state schools was callous indifference.
As we saw in the London Mayoral election, there is a hyper sensitivity to "rumour" and "gossip" put out as tweets. We had some journo on the Thursday evening claiming "a source at CCHQ was very confident Hall had won". No evidence, just speculation and to be fair CCHQ quickly stamped that out.
A lot of it was in my view mischief-making by those opposed to Khan - whether there was an active attmept to manipulate the markets I don't know but of course we had no exit poll as we will have after the GE. 1992 tells us exit polls aren't foolproof but they are a good indication of the direction of travel and the scale of the victory/defeat.
It's also helpful for those playing the Next Conservative Leader market - you might be looking at a different set of runners and riders if 50 MPs survive rather than 100, 150 or 200.
Will the debates move the markets significantly? Recent experience suggests not.
The London market was quite illiquid. The GE will have loads more money piling into it. That should reduce volatility.
Yet again the Brexit referendum vote where the odds went to 14-1.
That is the perfect example of a liquid market with incorrect information driving it
I'm not sure a market with more liquidity reduces volatility - I think it depends on the herd mentality. IF we got an exit poll, as we did in 2017, which suggested something outside the range of many of the immediate pre-election polls, you would see everyone rushing to protect/enhance their positions and that would ramifications through the associated markets.
The first results might not help as they would be in strong Labour areas - remember how the swing in Sunderland South in 1997 was much smaller than the polls were suggesting but within an hour we were seeing an 18% swing in Crosby. Until we get a better idea of who will be declaring and when it'll be difficult to judge the point at which we'll be seeing the wood for the trees.
The new boundaries will create a degree of uncertainty too. I asked a while ago for suggestions of seats which might declare early, have minimal boundary changes and be good pointers to what will follow. I had some good responses too, which I should collate somewhere.
Here's the list of constituencies with unchanged boundaries.
Altrincham and Sale West, Bootle, Bradford West, Bromsgrove, Burton, Cannock Chase, Cheadle, Chesterfield, Coventry North West, Crawley, Derby North, Derby South, East Worthing and Shoreham, Epping Forest, Erewash, Forest of Dean, Gillingham and Rainham, Gosport, Gravesham, Great Yarmouth, Hartlepool, Havant, High Peak, Hove, Hyndburn, Ipswich, Islington North, Lincoln, Macclesfield, New Forest East, New Forest West, North Devon, North Warwickshire, Nuneaton, Oldham East and Saddleworth, Oldham West and Royton, Penistone and Stocksbridge, Portsmouth North, Portsmouth South, Scarborough and Whitby, South Holland and The Deepings, Southampton Itchen, Southampton Test, Spelthorne, St Helens North, Stalybridge and Hyde, Stretford and Urmston, Sunderland Central, Sutton Coldfield, Tooting, Tunbridge Wells, Walthamstow, West Lancashire, West Worcestershire, Wigan, Worcester, Wyre Forest, Wythenshawe and Sale East, Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Central Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Midlothian, North Ayrshire and Arran, Orkney and Shetland, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Ynys Môn
Four of them are unchanged but with expanded names. Burton will be Burton & Uttoxeter Hove will be Hove & Portslade North Warwickshire will be North Warwickshire & Bedworth Oldham West & Royton will be Oldham West, Chadderton & Royton
It's Hove Actually, isn't it?
Haha. I do find the trend of ever increasing constituency names to be an annoyance. I suspect it comes from the concept of erasure whereby if you aren’t being utterly fawned over you are by implication being eradicated. It’s utter nonsense and so if there’s a settlement within a constituency that doesn’t form part of the constituency name someone will get on their high horse about it being ignored. So eventually the boundary commission caves and expands the name. What’s worse is the candidates then decide to proudly represent not just the name of the constituency but all the villages hamlets and farmsteads not forming part of the name.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might pull through if you & CR leave.
Yeah, right.
Fuck 'em!
I suspect you would be far more comfortable in a Republican USA. The weather in Florida or California is better too.
I planned to be happier in my retirement in Southern Europe, but that doesn't work now, thanks to Johnsonian Conservatives. I'll work 'til I drop, hopefully in a mellower, more socially agreeable UK (or independent Wales).
Happiness is a daily personal choice, it doesn't come upon you because you've plopped yourself in Portugal. You'd still be the same person with the same angst, rage, frustrations, etc. You'd find plenty to be unhappy about - the cause of the unhappiness is you.
Is the school that Casino Royale's children attended Alton Convent or another private school? Only, when I lived in north Hampshire, I knew two families who sent their special needs daughters to the Convent. One daughter was deaf, the other had hemiplegia. They chose the private school because it had a very caring attitude and was keen to assist the girls in any way possible. The attitude of the local state schools was callous indifference.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Indeed. And it’s a lot easier for me coz my kids are grown
And I’ve already - deliberately, as a test - made the psychological move by spending more than half the year abroad. Turns out I rather like it
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might pull through if you & CR leave.
Yeah, right.
Fuck 'em!
I suspect you would be far more comfortable in a Republican USA. The weather in Florida or California is better too.
I planned to be happier in my retirement in Southern Europe, but that doesn't work now, thanks to Johnsonian Conservatives. I'll work 'til I drop, hopefully in a mellower, more socially agreeable UK (or independent Wales).
Happiness is a daily personal choice, it doesn't come upon you because you've plopped yourself in Portugal. You'd still be the same person with the same angst, rage, frustrations, etc. You'd find plenty to be unhappy about - the cause of the unhappiness is you.
Those are wise words.
To be fair to @Mexicanpete I can struggle with the same though.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
And there it is. Why on earth should us white straight men stay in a country that despises us and wants fewer of us?
I think you're misreading my comment. Unless you're suggesting that the best person to do a job is always the straight white male (of which I'm one), then there's no despising involved.
If I had 100 vacancies to fill, and I filled them with 100 straight, white men, then it would be highly unlikely that I'd picked the 100 best candidates. It would be sub-optimal economically, so logically of one of those men leaving, could well be an opportunity.
It's the very opposite of being despised. It's a dispassionate argument suggesting you might, through no fault of your own, be a structural inefficiency in the UK economy.
This is the kind of extreme neoliberalism that will be cast aside by Keir Starmer who will put the British people first. The economy exists to serve the people, not the other way round.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might pull through if you & CR leave.
Yeah, right.
Fuck 'em!
I suspect you would be far more comfortable in a Republican USA. The weather in Florida or California is better too.
I planned to be happier in my retirement in Southern Europe, but that doesn't work now, thanks to Johnsonian Conservatives. I'll work 'til I drop, hopefully in a mellower, more socially agreeable UK (or independent Wales).
Happiness is a daily personal choice, it doesn't come upon you because you've plopped yourself in Portugal. You'd still be the same person with the same angst, rage, frustrations, etc. You'd find plenty to be unhappy about - the cause of the unhappiness is you.
That ignores the significantly depressive effect of 298 days of rain every year allied with nine months of autumn
As we saw in the London Mayoral election, there is a hyper sensitivity to "rumour" and "gossip" put out as tweets. We had some journo on the Thursday evening claiming "a source at CCHQ was very confident Hall had won". No evidence, just speculation and to be fair CCHQ quickly stamped that out.
A lot of it was in my view mischief-making by those opposed to Khan - whether there was an active attmept to manipulate the markets I don't know but of course we had no exit poll as we will have after the GE. 1992 tells us exit polls aren't foolproof but they are a good indication of the direction of travel and the scale of the victory/defeat.
It's also helpful for those playing the Next Conservative Leader market - you might be looking at a different set of runners and riders if 50 MPs survive rather than 100, 150 or 200.
Will the debates move the markets significantly? Recent experience suggests not.
The London market was quite illiquid. The GE will have loads more money piling into it. That should reduce volatility.
Yet again the Brexit referendum vote where the odds went to 14-1.
That is the perfect example of a liquid market with incorrect information driving it
I'm not sure a market with more liquidity reduces volatility - I think it depends on the herd mentality. IF we got an exit poll, as we did in 2017, which suggested something outside the range of many of the immediate pre-election polls, you would see everyone rushing to protect/enhance their positions and that would ramifications through the associated markets.
The first results might not help as they would be in strong Labour areas - remember how the swing in Sunderland South in 1997 was much smaller than the polls were suggesting but within an hour we were seeing an 18% swing in Crosby. Until we get a better idea of who will be declaring and when it'll be difficult to judge the point at which we'll be seeing the wood for the trees.
The new boundaries will create a degree of uncertainty too. I asked a while ago for suggestions of seats which might declare early, have minimal boundary changes and be good pointers to what will follow. I had some good responses too, which I should collate somewhere.
Nuneaton, usually the first bellwether constituency to declare, around 1am, and unchanged in the boundary review.
What time are you all planning on staying up till?
I was 3.30am in 2010, similar in 2015 (no idea why, it was a miserable election for Lib Dems), only around 2am in 2017 and went to bed shortly after the exit poll in 2019 out of sheer despondency.
Thinking this might be a 3.30-4am one.
Sunrise on 4th July will be at about 05:26 on 4th July. A bit later because of the hill. I think I will stay up to watch the new dawn rise, and then take a nap.
As we saw in the London Mayoral election, there is a hyper sensitivity to "rumour" and "gossip" put out as tweets. We had some journo on the Thursday evening claiming "a source at CCHQ was very confident Hall had won". No evidence, just speculation and to be fair CCHQ quickly stamped that out.
A lot of it was in my view mischief-making by those opposed to Khan - whether there was an active attmept to manipulate the markets I don't know but of course we had no exit poll as we will have after the GE. 1992 tells us exit polls aren't foolproof but they are a good indication of the direction of travel and the scale of the victory/defeat.
It's also helpful for those playing the Next Conservative Leader market - you might be looking at a different set of runners and riders if 50 MPs survive rather than 100, 150 or 200.
Will the debates move the markets significantly? Recent experience suggests not.
The London market was quite illiquid. The GE will have loads more money piling into it. That should reduce volatility.
Yet again the Brexit referendum vote where the odds went to 14-1.
That is the perfect example of a liquid market with incorrect information driving it
I'm not sure a market with more liquidity reduces volatility - I think it depends on the herd mentality. IF we got an exit poll, as we did in 2017, which suggested something outside the range of many of the immediate pre-election polls, you would see everyone rushing to protect/enhance their positions and that would ramifications through the associated markets.
The first results might not help as they would be in strong Labour areas - remember how the swing in Sunderland South in 1997 was much smaller than the polls were suggesting but within an hour we were seeing an 18% swing in Crosby. Until we get a better idea of who will be declaring and when it'll be difficult to judge the point at which we'll be seeing the wood for the trees.
The new boundaries will create a degree of uncertainty too. I asked a while ago for suggestions of seats which might declare early, have minimal boundary changes and be good pointers to what will follow. I had some good responses too, which I should collate somewhere.
Here's the list of constituencies with unchanged boundaries.
Altrincham and Sale West, Bootle, Bradford West, Bromsgrove, Burton, Cannock Chase, Cheadle, Chesterfield, Coventry North West, Crawley, Derby North, Derby South, East Worthing and Shoreham, Epping Forest, Erewash, Forest of Dean, Gillingham and Rainham, Gosport, Gravesham, Great Yarmouth, Hartlepool, Havant, High Peak, Hove, Hyndburn, Ipswich, Islington North, Lincoln, Macclesfield, New Forest East, New Forest West, North Devon, North Warwickshire, Nuneaton, Oldham East and Saddleworth, Oldham West and Royton, Penistone and Stocksbridge, Portsmouth North, Portsmouth South, Scarborough and Whitby, South Holland and The Deepings, Southampton Itchen, Southampton Test, Spelthorne, St Helens North, Stalybridge and Hyde, Stretford and Urmston, Sunderland Central, Sutton Coldfield, Tooting, Tunbridge Wells, Walthamstow, West Lancashire, West Worcestershire, Wigan, Worcester, Wyre Forest, Wythenshawe and Sale East, Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Central Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Midlothian, North Ayrshire and Arran, Orkney and Shetland, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Ynys Môn
Four of them are unchanged but with expanded names. Burton will be Burton & Uttoxeter Hove will be Hove & Portslade North Warwickshire will be North Warwickshire & Bedworth Oldham West & Royton will be Oldham West, Chadderton & Royton
It's Hove Actually, isn't it?
Haha. I do find the trend of ever increasing constituency names to be an annoyance. I suspect it comes from the concept of erasure whereby if you aren’t being utterly fawned over you are by implication being eradicated. It’s utter nonsense and so if there’s a settlement within a constituency that doesn’t form part of the constituency name someone will get on their high horse about it being ignored. So eventually the boundary commission caves and expands the name. What’s worse is the candidates then decide to proudly represent not just the name of the constituency but all the villages hamlets and farmsteads not forming part of the name.
Among the name losses is Penrith and Border (my seat). The furthest part of 'Border' from Penrith is about 50 miles, and the last 10 miles you have to walk it in tough terrain. It was Tory and Rory, and we have not only lost the name and the seat but also the party it always voted for and Rory along with it. So it's with a bit of sadness I shall be voting Labour in Penrith and Solway this time.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might pull through if you & CR leave.
Yeah, right.
Fuck 'em!
I suspect you would be far more comfortable in a Republican USA. The weather in Florida or California is better too.
I planned to be happier in my retirement in Southern Europe, but that doesn't work now, thanks to Johnsonian Conservatives. I'll work 'til I drop, hopefully in a mellower, more socially agreeable UK (or independent Wales).
Happiness is a daily personal choice, it doesn't come upon you because you've plopped yourself in Portugal. You'd still be the same person with the same angst, rage, frustrations, etc. You'd find plenty to be unhappy about - the cause of the unhappiness is you.
I'm not particularly unhappy here. If the Conservatives win, so be it. The only answer that gives me is I am lumbered with a state of politics I find depressing until I drop.
My main reason for going would have been the weather.
These dates were all before private school fees blew up on the doorsteps.
Have we done this poll?
Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if some private schools have to close because they cannot afford to operate if their VAT tax breaks are withdrawn? The public are divided:
I'm amazed that a question phrased like that only had 28% support. Is it a good thing or a bad thing if ANYTHING couldn't afford to operate anymore because their tax breaks were being withdrawn? We're a compassionate nation. We don't like people being forced into penury. Had it asked "Should private schooling lose their tax breaks" I suggest you'd have a very different answer
I think Labour will ultimately drop this policy or amend it dramatically. Reasons are in my mind as follows.
1. It upsets a few people a lot but the majority dont really care 2. It breaks EC law (kids education should not be taxed) 3. It wont raise a lot of money. (Many people will put their kids school through their company and claim back the VAT) 4. Some schools will close and this will look terrible in the press 5. There are technical difficulties with this.
In the UK, the provision of education by an “eligible body” is an “exempt” supply for VAT purposes. This means that goods and services that are closely related to education are also exempt from VAT, such as catering, transport, school trips, and boarding accommodation. So lets say an Oxford College such as New College also runs a choir school. Would it be an eligible or non eligible body?
They can implement it without all those dificulties by simply making it 5% rather than 20%. Then they can say they have done it. (Actually, now we are out of the EU, they can pick any number.)
5% would, however, undoubtedly be the worst of all worlds:
1) Because schools will be claiming back the VAT they pay out for other purchases under this policy, it would definitely be revenue negative for the government;
2) It would still massively increase the bureaucracy involved which would be bad for everyone;
3) It would piss off private school parents AND the Labour left who would see it as a cop out.
4) Finally, it would look weak.
I'm highly sceptical of this policy and the idea itself isn't a bad one but I don't think a rate that low is the answer. Maybe 15% would work. Enough to gently mull the frogs with a slight overall increase while raising a worthwhile slug of cash.
I may have my view coloured because I think it's mad to charge VAT at 20% on anything anyway.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might pull through if you & CR leave.
Yeah, right.
Fuck 'em!
I suspect you would be far more comfortable in a Republican USA. The weather in Florida or California is better too.
I planned to be happier in my retirement in Southern Europe, but that doesn't work now, thanks to Johnsonian Conservatives. I'll work 'til I drop, hopefully in a mellower, more socially agreeable UK (or independent Wales).
Happiness is a daily personal choice, it doesn't come upon you because you've plopped yourself in Portugal. You'd still be the same person with the same angst, rage, frustrations, etc. You'd find plenty to be unhappy about - the cause of the unhappiness is you.
I’m glad we picked this small town in N Essex for our retirement. Going for a walk round the town centre we’re almost certain to bump into acquaintances for a chat.
The ST story of the £450m that will have to be repaid by the SNP government just appals me but my disgust goes far wider than the SNP government.
This money could have been spent on anti-poverty (principally programs designed to overcome barriers to work) and programs to boost economic growth. Programs are still eligible for the grants provided that they are made this month (despite the program officially ending in 2020).
The EU said, in 2019, that there had been 27 suspensions of payments across the whole EU because of failures to adequately audit and vouch the spending of the money. 19% of all such suspensions have been in Scotland, a country of 5.4m out of more than 500m (before the UK left).
Both Douglas Ross and Jackie Baillie are shouting this morning how shocking this is and it is indeed shocking. But: * if Scotland had a civil service worthy of the name this simply would not have happened. * where were Ross and Baillie when the prior suspensions happened? Why were the alarm bells not ringing loud? *Why have our local authorities of all stripes not been competing vigorously for that money in their areas? * What Ministers were responsible for these multiple failures and lack of focus and what consequences, if any, did they face? Do we even know who they are? * What is happening right now across government and local authorities to ensure as much of this money as possible is applied for by the end of the month? * Why were opposition politicians dependent upon a story in the ST based on a report to discover there was even a problem here? What the hell do shadow Ministers actually do with their time?
What this shows is that our Scottish government is utterly incompetent at every level, both Ministerial and administrative. As are our opposition parties. As are our local authorities. As, indeed, are our third sector who should have been promoting qualifying projects. This is not just a stick with which to beat the SNP, it is a condemnation of our entire system of governance, social society and democratic accountability.
As we saw in the London Mayoral election, there is a hyper sensitivity to "rumour" and "gossip" put out as tweets. We had some journo on the Thursday evening claiming "a source at CCHQ was very confident Hall had won". No evidence, just speculation and to be fair CCHQ quickly stamped that out.
A lot of it was in my view mischief-making by those opposed to Khan - whether there was an active attmept to manipulate the markets I don't know but of course we had no exit poll as we will have after the GE. 1992 tells us exit polls aren't foolproof but they are a good indication of the direction of travel and the scale of the victory/defeat.
It's also helpful for those playing the Next Conservative Leader market - you might be looking at a different set of runners and riders if 50 MPs survive rather than 100, 150 or 200.
Will the debates move the markets significantly? Recent experience suggests not.
The London market was quite illiquid. The GE will have loads more money piling into it. That should reduce volatility.
Yet again the Brexit referendum vote where the odds went to 14-1.
That is the perfect example of a liquid market with incorrect information driving it
I'm not sure a market with more liquidity reduces volatility - I think it depends on the herd mentality. IF we got an exit poll, as we did in 2017, which suggested something outside the range of many of the immediate pre-election polls, you would see everyone rushing to protect/enhance their positions and that would ramifications through the associated markets.
The first results might not help as they would be in strong Labour areas - remember how the swing in Sunderland South in 1997 was much smaller than the polls were suggesting but within an hour we were seeing an 18% swing in Crosby. Until we get a better idea of who will be declaring and when it'll be difficult to judge the point at which we'll be seeing the wood for the trees.
The new boundaries will create a degree of uncertainty too. I asked a while ago for suggestions of seats which might declare early, have minimal boundary changes and be good pointers to what will follow. I had some good responses too, which I should collate somewhere.
Nuneaton, usually the first bellwether constituency to declare, around 1am, and unchanged in the boundary review.
What time are you all planning on staying up till?
I was 3.30am in 2010, similar in 2015 (no idea why, it was a miserable election for Lib Dems), only around 2am in 2017 and went to bed shortly after the exit poll in 2019 out of sheer despondency.
Thinking this might be a 3.30-4am one.
Sunrise on 4th July will be at about 05:26 on 4th July. A bit later because of the hill. I think I will stay up to watch the new dawn rise, and then take a nap.
And presumably log in here to say “a new dawn has broken, has it not”.
The ST story of the £450m that will have to be repaid by the SNP government just appals me but my disgust goes far wider than the SNP government.
This money could have been spent on anti-poverty (principally programs designed to overcome barriers to work) and programs to boost economic growth. Programs are still eligible for the grants provided that they are made this month (despite the program officially ending in 2020).
The EU said, in 2019, that there had been 27 suspensions of payments across the whole EU because of failures to adequately audit and vouch the spending of the money. 19% of all such suspensions have been in Scotland, a country of 5.4m out of more than 500m (before the UK left).
Both Douglas Ross and Jackie Baillie are shouting this morning how shocking this is and it is indeed shocking. But: * if Scotland had a civil service worthy of the name this simply would not have happened. * where were Ross and Baillie when the prior suspensions happened? Why were the alarm bells not ringing loud? *Why have our local authorities of all stripes not been competing vigorously for that money in their areas? * What Ministers were responsible for these multiple failures and lack of focus and what consequences, if any, did they face? Do we even know who they are? * What is happening right now across government and local authorities to ensure as much of this money as possible is applied for by the end of the month? * Why were opposition politicians dependent upon a story in the ST based on a report to discover there was even a problem here? What the hell do shadow Ministers actually do with their time?
What this shows is that our Scottish government is utterly incompetent at every level, both Ministerial and administrative. As are our opposition parties. As are our local authorities. As, indeed, are our third sector who should have been promoting qualifying projects. This is not just a stick with which to beat the SNP, it is a condemnation of our entire system of governance, social society and democratic accountability.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
The reality is that an awful lot of people could up sticks and move abroad but most people don’t.
If you actually upped sticks and moved abroad I would actually be impressed as I suspect you are one of the majority who threaten to do it but won’t / can’t for multiple reasons
On the subject of VAT thresholds, one reason to be careful of lowering it is because of the vast amount of extra work involved in managing a VAT registered business as against one that isn't VAT registered. Quarterly returns, for a start.
There was this problem when the Treasury wanted to do quarterly returns for literally everyone and accountants patiently explained that would require literally quadruple the number of accountants that existed.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might pull through if you & CR leave.
Yeah, right.
Fuck 'em!
I suspect you would be far more comfortable in a Republican USA. The weather in Florida or California is better too.
I planned to be happier in my retirement in Southern Europe, but that doesn't work now, thanks to Johnsonian Conservatives. I'll work 'til I drop, hopefully in a mellower, more socially agreeable UK (or independent Wales).
Happiness is a daily personal choice, it doesn't come upon you because you've plopped yourself in Portugal. You'd still be the same person with the same angst, rage, frustrations, etc. You'd find plenty to be unhappy about - the cause of the unhappiness is you.
That ignores the significantly depressive effect of 298 days of rain every year allied with nine months of autumn
My wife and I are looking at houses and she vetoed one possibility because it receives about 300 hours less sunshine per year. Going by the house prices round here an hour of sunshine per year adds about €500 to the value of a house.
As we saw in the London Mayoral election, there is a hyper sensitivity to "rumour" and "gossip" put out as tweets. We had some journo on the Thursday evening claiming "a source at CCHQ was very confident Hall had won". No evidence, just speculation and to be fair CCHQ quickly stamped that out.
A lot of it was in my view mischief-making by those opposed to Khan - whether there was an active attmept to manipulate the markets I don't know but of course we had no exit poll as we will have after the GE. 1992 tells us exit polls aren't foolproof but they are a good indication of the direction of travel and the scale of the victory/defeat.
It's also helpful for those playing the Next Conservative Leader market - you might be looking at a different set of runners and riders if 50 MPs survive rather than 100, 150 or 200.
Will the debates move the markets significantly? Recent experience suggests not.
The London market was quite illiquid. The GE will have loads more money piling into it. That should reduce volatility.
Yet again the Brexit referendum vote where the odds went to 14-1.
That is the perfect example of a liquid market with incorrect information driving it
I'm not sure a market with more liquidity reduces volatility - I think it depends on the herd mentality. IF we got an exit poll, as we did in 2017, which suggested something outside the range of many of the immediate pre-election polls, you would see everyone rushing to protect/enhance their positions and that would ramifications through the associated markets.
The first results might not help as they would be in strong Labour areas - remember how the swing in Sunderland South in 1997 was much smaller than the polls were suggesting but within an hour we were seeing an 18% swing in Crosby. Until we get a better idea of who will be declaring and when it'll be difficult to judge the point at which we'll be seeing the wood for the trees.
The new boundaries will create a degree of uncertainty too. I asked a while ago for suggestions of seats which might declare early, have minimal boundary changes and be good pointers to what will follow. I had some good responses too, which I should collate somewhere.
Nuneaton, usually the first bellwether constituency to declare, around 1am, and unchanged in the boundary review.
What time are you all planning on staying up till?
I was 3.30am in 2010, similar in 2015 (no idea why, it was a miserable election for Lib Dems), only around 2am in 2017 and went to bed shortly after the exit poll in 2019 out of sheer despondency.
Thinking this might be a 3.30-4am one.
Sunrise on 4th July will be at about 05:26 on 4th July. A bit later because of the hill. I think I will stay up to watch the new dawn rise, and then take a nap.
And presumably log in here to say “a new dawn has broken, has it not”.
Well. I'll make no assumptions about the weather just yet.
“Yvette Cooper refuses to rule out sending asylum seekers overseas if Labour win general election – Shadow home secretary says Labour would examine ‘offshore processing arrangements’”
I predicted EXACTLY THIS a few weeks ago. I said in the end Starmer will do a version of Rwanda because it is the only humane solution that might work. Labour will just tweak it and pretend it is something else
Hilarious
And we all pointed out the gargantuan difference between offshore processing of claims and just deporting people to Rwanda.
Labour propose the Australia / Denmark / Israel etc route where successful applicants get brought back. Only the Tories proposed to send people away with no route to apply for asylum.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might pull through if you & CR leave.
Yeah, right.
Fuck 'em!
I suspect you would be far more comfortable in a Republican USA. The weather in Florida or California is better too.
I planned to be happier in my retirement in Southern Europe, but that doesn't work now, thanks to Johnsonian Conservatives. I'll work 'til I drop, hopefully in a mellower, more socially agreeable UK (or independent Wales).
Happiness is a daily personal choice, it doesn't come upon you because you've plopped yourself in Portugal. You'd still be the same person with the same angst, rage, frustrations, etc. You'd find plenty to be unhappy about - the cause of the unhappiness is you.
I’m glad we picked this small town in N Essex for our retirement. Going for a walk round the town centre we’re almost certain to bump into acquaintances for a chat.
And human contact is very important.
I agree. I couldn’t help noticing the massive difference between St Quentin yesterday, and somewhere like Cluny or Macon, or indeed Brockley back home.
In towns or villages that work socially you can sense it even if you don’t live there: people bumping randomly into familiar faces and chatting. It’s just normal in South Burgundy to see this, and it’s also normal in our bit of South East London. In atomised places you can also sense the atomisation.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
It is, you absolute and total fucking moron.
It's exactly what killed it off. Pupil numbers dived for next year because parents weren't willing to subscribe to the school with that sort of price increase hanging over their head. It's not a hugely wealthy area here. The letter from the Trustees specifically highlighted these political factors pushing the school roll into unviability.
I know you don't want to accept this because it means accepting that your nasty little policy has nasty real-world effects. But it's thrown my son out of his school, lost the community an important educational institution, and lost his teachers their jobs- many of whom are family friends. I hate Labour for it.
As we saw in the London Mayoral election, there is a hyper sensitivity to "rumour" and "gossip" put out as tweets. We had some journo on the Thursday evening claiming "a source at CCHQ was very confident Hall had won". No evidence, just speculation and to be fair CCHQ quickly stamped that out.
A lot of it was in my view mischief-making by those opposed to Khan - whether there was an active attmept to manipulate the markets I don't know but of course we had no exit poll as we will have after the GE. 1992 tells us exit polls aren't foolproof but they are a good indication of the direction of travel and the scale of the victory/defeat.
It's also helpful for those playing the Next Conservative Leader market - you might be looking at a different set of runners and riders if 50 MPs survive rather than 100, 150 or 200.
Will the debates move the markets significantly? Recent experience suggests not.
The London market was quite illiquid. The GE will have loads more money piling into it. That should reduce volatility.
Yet again the Brexit referendum vote where the odds went to 14-1.
That is the perfect example of a liquid market with incorrect information driving it
I'm not sure a market with more liquidity reduces volatility - I think it depends on the herd mentality. IF we got an exit poll, as we did in 2017, which suggested something outside the range of many of the immediate pre-election polls, you would see everyone rushing to protect/enhance their positions and that would ramifications through the associated markets.
The first results might not help as they would be in strong Labour areas - remember how the swing in Sunderland South in 1997 was much smaller than the polls were suggesting but within an hour we were seeing an 18% swing in Crosby. Until we get a better idea of who will be declaring and when it'll be difficult to judge the point at which we'll be seeing the wood for the trees.
The new boundaries will create a degree of uncertainty too. I asked a while ago for suggestions of seats which might declare early, have minimal boundary changes and be good pointers to what will follow. I had some good responses too, which I should collate somewhere.
Here's the list of constituencies with unchanged boundaries.
Altrincham and Sale West, Bootle, Bradford West, Bromsgrove, Burton, Cannock Chase, Cheadle, Chesterfield, Coventry North West, Crawley, Derby North, Derby South, East Worthing and Shoreham, Epping Forest, Erewash, Forest of Dean, Gillingham and Rainham, Gosport, Gravesham, Great Yarmouth, Hartlepool, Havant, High Peak, Hove, Hyndburn, Ipswich, Islington North, Lincoln, Macclesfield, New Forest East, New Forest West, North Devon, North Warwickshire, Nuneaton, Oldham East and Saddleworth, Oldham West and Royton, Penistone and Stocksbridge, Portsmouth North, Portsmouth South, Scarborough and Whitby, South Holland and The Deepings, Southampton Itchen, Southampton Test, Spelthorne, St Helens North, Stalybridge and Hyde, Stretford and Urmston, Sunderland Central, Sutton Coldfield, Tooting, Tunbridge Wells, Walthamstow, West Lancashire, West Worcestershire, Wigan, Worcester, Wyre Forest, Wythenshawe and Sale East, Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Central Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Midlothian, North Ayrshire and Arran, Orkney and Shetland, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Ynys Môn
Four of them are unchanged but with expanded names. Burton will be Burton & Uttoxeter Hove will be Hove & Portslade North Warwickshire will be North Warwickshire & Bedworth Oldham West & Royton will be Oldham West, Chadderton & Royton
It's Hove Actually, isn't it?
Haha. I do find the trend of ever increasing constituency names to be an annoyance. I suspect it comes from the concept of erasure whereby if you aren’t being utterly fawned over you are by implication being eradicated. It’s utter nonsense and so if there’s a settlement within a constituency that doesn’t form part of the constituency name someone will get on their high horse about it being ignored. So eventually the boundary commission caves and expands the name. What’s worse is the candidates then decide to proudly represent not just the name of the constituency but all the villages hamlets and farmsteads not forming part of the name.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
The reality is that an awful lot of people could up sticks and move abroad but most people don’t.
If you actually upped sticks and moved abroad I would actually be impressed as I suspect you are one of the majority who threaten to do it but won’t / can’t for multiple reasons
As Matt Goodwin would argue, that’s because most people are somewheres rather than rootless citizens of nowhere. Or something.
The ST story of the £450m that will have to be repaid by the SNP government just appals me but my disgust goes far wider than the SNP government.
This money could have been spent on anti-poverty (principally programs designed to overcome barriers to work) and programs to boost economic growth. Programs are still eligible for the grants provided that they are made this month (despite the program officially ending in 2020).
The EU said, in 2019, that there had been 27 suspensions of payments across the whole EU because of failures to adequately audit and vouch the spending of the money. 19% of all such suspensions have been in Scotland, a country of 5.4m out of more than 500m (before the UK left).
Both Douglas Ross and Jackie Baillie are shouting this morning how shocking this is and it is indeed shocking. But: * if Scotland had a civil service worthy of the name this simply would not have happened. * where were Ross and Baillie when the prior suspensions happened? Why were the alarm bells not ringing loud? *Why have our local authorities of all stripes not been competing vigorously for that money in their areas? * What Ministers were responsible for these multiple failures and lack of focus and what consequences, if any, did they face? Do we even know who they are? * What is happening right now across government and local authorities to ensure as much of this money as possible is applied for by the end of the month? * Why were opposition politicians dependent upon a story in the ST based on a report to discover there was even a problem here? What the hell do shadow Ministers actually do with their time?
What this shows is that our Scottish government is utterly incompetent at every level, both Ministerial and administrative. As are our opposition parties. As are our local authorities. As, indeed, are our third sector who should have been promoting qualifying projects. This is not just a stick with which to beat the SNP, it is a condemnation of our entire system of governance, social society and democratic accountability.
Working in education, I feel your pain.
There is a weird thing in some parts of local and regional government - they seem upset with people applying for lottery and other funding which doesn’t go through them. To the point of hindering an application.
A relative was involved with a lottery application by a sports club for money to rebuild a shack of a clubhouse with a proper structure.
The local council spent a surprising amount of time and effort trying to screw up the application.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
The reality is that an awful lot of people could up sticks and move abroad but most people don’t.
If you actually upped sticks and moved abroad I would actually be impressed as I suspect you are one of the majority who threaten to do it but won’t / can’t for multiple reasons
This thread is making me want to do it more and more.
The ST story of the £450m that will have to be repaid by the SNP government just appals me but my disgust goes far wider than the SNP government.
This money could have been spent on anti-poverty (principally programs designed to overcome barriers to work) and programs to boost economic growth. Programs are still eligible for the grants provided that they are made this month (despite the program officially ending in 2020).
The EU said, in 2019, that there had been 27 suspensions of payments across the whole EU because of failures to adequately audit and vouch the spending of the money. 19% of all such suspensions have been in Scotland, a country of 5.4m out of more than 500m (before the UK left).
Both Douglas Ross and Jackie Baillie are shouting this morning how shocking this is and it is indeed shocking. But: * if Scotland had a civil service worthy of the name this simply would not have happened. * where were Ross and Baillie when the prior suspensions happened? Why were the alarm bells not ringing loud? *Why have our local authorities of all stripes not been competing vigorously for that money in their areas? * What Ministers were responsible for these multiple failures and lack of focus and what consequences, if any, did they face? Do we even know who they are? * What is happening right now across government and local authorities to ensure as much of this money as possible is applied for by the end of the month? * Why were opposition politicians dependent upon a story in the ST based on a report to discover there was even a problem here? What the hell do shadow Ministers actually do with their time?
What this shows is that our Scottish government is utterly incompetent at every level, both Ministerial and administrative. As are our opposition parties. As are our local authorities. As, indeed, are our third sector who should have been promoting qualifying projects. This is not just a stick with which to beat the SNP, it is a condemnation of our entire system of governance, social society and democratic accountability.
Working in education, I feel your pain.
There is a weird thing in some parts of local and regional government - they seem upset with people applying for lottery and other funding which doesn’t go through them. To the point of hindering an application.
A relative was involved with a lottery application by a sports club for money to rebuild a shack of a clubhouse with a proper structure.
The local council spent a surprising amount of time and effort trying to screw up the application.
“Yvette Cooper refuses to rule out sending asylum seekers overseas if Labour win general election – Shadow home secretary says Labour would examine ‘offshore processing arrangements’”
I predicted EXACTLY THIS a few weeks ago. I said in the end Starmer will do a version of Rwanda because it is the only humane solution that might work. Labour will just tweak it and pretend it is something else
Hilarious
And we all pointed out the gargantuan difference between offshore processing of claims and just deporting people to Rwanda.
Labour propose the Australia / Denmark / Israel etc route where successful applicants get brought back. Only the Tories proposed to send people away with no route to apply for asylum.
Australia, Denmark and Israel are not known for accepting large numbers of asylum seekers, are they?
Denmark even has a policy target of accepting zero asylum seekers.
I was told “Isaac Levido sees this election as a courts case. Opening arguments. Present case. Closing arguments”. Before opening arguments the voters were leaning 9-3 towards sending the Tories to the chair. After opening arguments it’s now 11-1.
The ST story of the £450m that will have to be repaid by the SNP government just appals me but my disgust goes far wider than the SNP government.
This money could have been spent on anti-poverty (principally programs designed to overcome barriers to work) and programs to boost economic growth. Programs are still eligible for the grants provided that they are made this month (despite the program officially ending in 2020).
The EU said, in 2019, that there had been 27 suspensions of payments across the whole EU because of failures to adequately audit and vouch the spending of the money. 19% of all such suspensions have been in Scotland, a country of 5.4m out of more than 500m (before the UK left).
Both Douglas Ross and Jackie Baillie are shouting this morning how shocking this is and it is indeed shocking. But: * if Scotland had a civil service worthy of the name this simply would not have happened. * where were Ross and Baillie when the prior suspensions happened? Why were the alarm bells not ringing loud? *Why have our local authorities of all stripes not been competing vigorously for that money in their areas? * What Ministers were responsible for these multiple failures and lack of focus and what consequences, if any, did they face? Do we even know who they are? * What is happening right now across government and local authorities to ensure as much of this money as possible is applied for by the end of the month? * Why were opposition politicians dependent upon a story in the ST based on a report to discover there was even a problem here? What the hell do shadow Ministers actually do with their time?
What this shows is that our Scottish government is utterly incompetent at every level, both Ministerial and administrative. As are our opposition parties. As are our local authorities. As, indeed, are our third sector who should have been promoting qualifying projects. This is not just a stick with which to beat the SNP, it is a condemnation of our entire system of governance, social society and democratic accountability.
And given that the UK were net contributors to the EU in our final year, to the tune of £12.6bn, this is just huge wodges of our own money going to the EU. I am all for criticism of the Tories and Labour, but the SNP own this fair and square.
I was told “Isaac Levido sees this election as a courts case. Opening arguments. Present case. Closing arguments”. Before opening arguments the voters were leaning 9-3 towards sending the Tories to the chair. After opening arguments it’s now 11-1.
It's not my world, so I'm curious.
What does an advocate do when they have to advocate for a hopeless case?
The Conservatives can't run on their record, because it's clearly awful. You don't burn through 2 PMs if things are going well.
They can't run a Presidential campaign, because that's not Rishi's strength.
They can't run on an exciting agenda for 2024-8, because they're out of ideas and anything good they suggested runs up against 'you've had fourteen years'.
They're trying fear of the other lot, but that's not working, and Starmer is too boring to induce fear.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
The reality is that an awful lot of people could up sticks and move abroad but most people don’t.
If you actually upped sticks and moved abroad I would actually be impressed as I suspect you are one of the majority who threaten to do it but won’t / can’t for multiple reasons
This thread is making me want to do it more and more.
I was briefly tempted after Brexit but inertia is a powerful thing.
I was told “Isaac Levido sees this election as a courts case. Opening arguments. Present case. Closing arguments”. Before opening arguments the voters were leaning 9-3 towards sending the Tories to the chair. After opening arguments it’s now 11-1.
It's not my world, so I'm curious.
What does an advocate do when they have to advocate for a hopeless case?
The Conservatives can't run on their record, because it's clearly awful. You don't burn through 2 PMs if things are going well.
They can't run a Presidential campaign, because that's not Rishi's strength.
They can't run on an exciting agenda for 2024-8, because they're out of ideas and anything good they suggested runs up against 'you've had fourteen years'.
They're trying fear of the other lot, but that's not working, and Starmer is too boring to induce fear.
Is there anything else they can try?
Their strongest suit, I think, is “don’t give Labour too huge a majority, it’s important they face scrutiny”.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
The reality is that an awful lot of people could up sticks and move abroad but most people don’t.
If you actually upped sticks and moved abroad I would actually be impressed as I suspect you are one of the majority who threaten to do it but won’t / can’t for multiple reasons
This thread is making me want to do it more and more.
Do you actually appreciate why it is that the country has grown tired of Conservative Government and wants something a bit different?
The last fourteen years haven't gone entirely smoothly, and it's not entirely down to Covid and Vladimir Putin, now is it?
VAT on private schools - why is it a bad thing? The state is very short of funds to pay the public services we need. Fact is, taxes need to go up. So now the question is, what taxes need to go up? Simples really…
Have you missed the debate on here the last few weeks?
It will reduce funds to the state, not increase them.
That’s not known. Various people have modelled what might happens and come up with different answers. The median estimate shows funds to the state increasing: see the House of Lords library report. You are presenting a biased estimate as if it’s the truth, because you want it to be the truth.
I was told “Isaac Levido sees this election as a courts case. Opening arguments. Present case. Closing arguments”. Before opening arguments the voters were leaning 9-3 towards sending the Tories to the chair. After opening arguments it’s now 11-1.
It's not my world, so I'm curious.
What does an advocate do when they have to advocate for a hopeless case?
The Conservatives can't run on their record, because it's clearly awful. You don't burn through 2 PMs if things are going well.
They can't run a Presidential campaign, because that's not Rishi's strength.
They can't run on an exciting agenda for 2024-8, because they're out of ideas and anything good they suggested runs up against 'you've had fourteen years'.
They're trying fear of the other lot, but that's not working, and Starmer is too boring to induce fear.
Is there anything else they can try?
This was explained to me by a very experienced practitioner when I was wet behind the ears. He said: "Look, David, its like this. When you have the facts you bang the facts. And when you dinnae have the facts but you have the law you bang the law. And when you dinnae ha'e the facts or the law you bang the table. That's your job, son."
The ST story of the £450m that will have to be repaid by the SNP government just appals me but my disgust goes far wider than the SNP government.
This money could have been spent on anti-poverty (principally programs designed to overcome barriers to work) and programs to boost economic growth. Programs are still eligible for the grants provided that they are made this month (despite the program officially ending in 2020).
The EU said, in 2019, that there had been 27 suspensions of payments across the whole EU because of failures to adequately audit and vouch the spending of the money. 19% of all such suspensions have been in Scotland, a country of 5.4m out of more than 500m (before the UK left).
Both Douglas Ross and Jackie Baillie are shouting this morning how shocking this is and it is indeed shocking. But: * if Scotland had a civil service worthy of the name this simply would not have happened. * where were Ross and Baillie when the prior suspensions happened? Why were the alarm bells not ringing loud? *Why have our local authorities of all stripes not been competing vigorously for that money in their areas? * What Ministers were responsible for these multiple failures and lack of focus and what consequences, if any, did they face? Do we even know who they are? * What is happening right now across government and local authorities to ensure as much of this money as possible is applied for by the end of the month? * Why were opposition politicians dependent upon a story in the ST based on a report to discover there was even a problem here? What the hell do shadow Ministers actually do with their time?
What this shows is that our Scottish government is utterly incompetent at every level, both Ministerial and administrative. As are our opposition parties. As are our local authorities. As, indeed, are our third sector who should have been promoting qualifying projects. This is not just a stick with which to beat the SNP, it is a condemnation of our entire system of governance, social society and democratic accountability.
Working in education, I feel your pain.
There is a weird thing in some parts of local and regional government - they seem upset with people applying for lottery and other funding which doesn’t go through them. To the point of hindering an application.
A relative was involved with a lottery application by a sports club for money to rebuild a shack of a clubhouse with a proper structure.
The local council spent a surprising amount of time and effort trying to screw up the application.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
It is, you absolute and total fucking moron.
It's exactly what killed it off. Pupil numbers dived for next year because parents weren't willing to subscribe to the school with that sort of price increase hanging over their head. It's not a hugely wealthy area here. The letter from the Trustees specifically highlighted these political factors pushing the school roll into unviability.
I know you don't want to accept this because it means accepting that your nasty little policy has nasty real-world effects. But it's thrown my son out of his school, lost the community an important educational institution, and lost his teachers their jobs- many of whom are family friends. I hate Labour for it.
So fuck off, there's a good chap.
This one goes round and round and round. School roll falling and schools closing is just what happens in town after town after town. Old schools close, new schools open. Free schools, run by the right kind of Tory, with large budgets for administration. Taking cash and students from other schools which then fall into crisis.
How is your school running out of students and cash any different to any other school running out of students and cash? Other than it affecting your kids this time rather than other people's kids?
When its your kids its always personal. I get that. But why are your kids a special case and nobody else's?
The ST story of the £450m that will have to be repaid by the SNP government just appals me but my disgust goes far wider than the SNP government.
This money could have been spent on anti-poverty (principally programs designed to overcome barriers to work) and programs to boost economic growth. Programs are still eligible for the grants provided that they are made this month (despite the program officially ending in 2020).
The EU said, in 2019, that there had been 27 suspensions of payments across the whole EU because of failures to adequately audit and vouch the spending of the money. 19% of all such suspensions have been in Scotland, a country of 5.4m out of more than 500m (before the UK left).
Both Douglas Ross and Jackie Baillie are shouting this morning how shocking this is and it is indeed shocking. But: * if Scotland had a civil service worthy of the name this simply would not have happened. * where were Ross and Baillie when the prior suspensions happened? Why were the alarm bells not ringing loud? *Why have our local authorities of all stripes not been competing vigorously for that money in their areas? * What Ministers were responsible for these multiple failures and lack of focus and what consequences, if any, did they face? Do we even know who they are? * What is happening right now across government and local authorities to ensure as much of this money as possible is applied for by the end of the month? * Why were opposition politicians dependent upon a story in the ST based on a report to discover there was even a problem here? What the hell do shadow Ministers actually do with their time?
What this shows is that our Scottish government is utterly incompetent at every level, both Ministerial and administrative. As are our opposition parties. As are our local authorities. As, indeed, are our third sector who should have been promoting qualifying projects. This is not just a stick with which to beat the SNP, it is a condemnation of our entire system of governance, social society and democratic accountability.
And given that the UK were net contributors to the EU in our final year, to the tune of £12.6bn, this is just huge wodges of our own money going to the EU. I am all for criticism of the Tories and Labour, but the SNP own this fair and square.
Yes, they do. But the others have not exactly shown themselves to be a viable alternative government either. They have completely missed the fact we are losing out on half a billion until a newspaper (who had done no more than pick up a report) pointed it out to them.
To put this into perspective then money we are losing is worth £90 a head for Scotland. At a time of cuts and tight budgets. It's just shocking.
I was told “Isaac Levido sees this election as a courts case. Opening arguments. Present case. Closing arguments”. Before opening arguments the voters were leaning 9-3 towards sending the Tories to the chair. After opening arguments it’s now 11-1.
It's not my world, so I'm curious.
What does an advocate do when they have to advocate for a hopeless case?
The Conservatives can't run on their record, because it's clearly awful. You don't burn through 2 PMs if things are going well.
They can't run a Presidential campaign, because that's not Rishi's strength.
They can't run on an exciting agenda for 2024-8, because they're out of ideas and anything good they suggested runs up against 'you've had fourteen years'.
They're trying fear of the other lot, but that's not working, and Starmer is too boring to induce fear.
Is there anything else they can try?
They could have tried governing well - Rishi had another 6 months. Failing that they could have tried to present an optimistic vision of Britain with a future Tory Government being an active instigator of, and catalyst for, that vision. But it's clear, as he indicated when he first campaigned for leadership, that Rishi Sunak doesn't have a positive vision for the UK - he has nothing to offer us but a declining standard of living at best and World War 3 at worst, and he merely aspires, in a Cameronite way, to be slightly better at managing this decline than SKS. Lowly aspirations that even themselves look exceedingly dubious.
Save me from bourgeois parents who keep talking about how good an "education" is provided by the top exclusive schools. Most of them are too fucking lazy to find out what's on the curriculum, except perhaps insofar as they can gloatingly repeat one or two private-language buzzphrases. But somehow they know the "education" is a cut above. None of them have even got off their rich arses to mug up on boarding school syndrome either. They're no better than "nace" middle class types who go on about league tables.
I was told “Isaac Levido sees this election as a courts case. Opening arguments. Present case. Closing arguments”. Before opening arguments the voters were leaning 9-3 towards sending the Tories to the chair. After opening arguments it’s now 11-1.
It's not my world, so I'm curious.
What does an advocate do when they have to advocate for a hopeless case?
The Conservatives can't run on their record, because it's clearly awful. You don't burn through 2 PMs if things are going well.
They can't run a Presidential campaign, because that's not Rishi's strength.
They can't run on an exciting agenda for 2024-8, because they're out of ideas and anything good they suggested runs up against 'you've had fourteen years'.
They're trying fear of the other lot, but that's not working, and Starmer is too boring to induce fear.
Is there anything else they can try?
Their strongest suit, I think, is “don’t give Labour too huge a majority, it’s important they face scrutiny”.
That's just begging for a pity fuck from the electorate. If they are that bereft of energy and any other ideas then they deserve everything that's coming.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
It’s such an offensively stupid remark I wonder if @nova is a Russian bot. And this is designed to stir up yet more anger
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
It's also nonsense. I've had job offers from partners in my firm to work in Hong Kong, Washington DC and the Middle East (UAE and Saudi) just over the last 9 months.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
Labour aren't in Government, there is no VAT on private schools.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
It is, you absolute and total fucking moron.
It's exactly what killed it off. Pupil numbers dived for next year because parents weren't willing to subscribe to the school with that sort of price increase hanging over their head. It's not a hugely wealthy area here. The letter from the Trustees specifically highlighted these political factors pushing the school roll into unviability.
I know you don't want to accept this because it means accepting that your nasty little policy has nasty real-world effects. But it's thrown my son out of his school, lost the community an important educational institution, and lost his teachers their jobs- many of whom are family friends. I hate Labour for it.
So fuck off, there's a good chap.
This one goes round and round and round. School roll falling and schools closing is just what happens in town after town after town. Old schools close, new schools open. Free schools, run by the right kind of Tory, with large budgets for administration. Taking cash and students from other schools which then fall into crisis.
How is your school running out of students and cash any different to any other school running out of students and cash? Other than it affecting your kids this time rather than other people's kids?
When its your kids its always personal. I get that. But why are your kids a special case and nobody else's?
My argument is that having looked at the actual financials of the school (readily available) the lack of student admissions has been a long term problem which compounded by the new mortgage rates and reduction of children aged 4 made what was already a precarious situation that was even then running on borrowed time run out of road.
You can blame Labour and I suspect that is a part of the issue but the actual issue was the school was probably closing this year or next year regardless of any Labour policy..
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might survive without you or CR if we have to.
Just thinking, last time the Tories et pals look like winning an election, we get lots of crap about lots of people leaving the country, but we don't get that in reality either do we?
See also referendums. Lady Mone is about the only flounce threatener I can remember who did actually leave, albeit on a result opposite to the one that she was so exercised about. At least it was to the benefit of Scotland if not that of the greater UK.
“Yvette Cooper refuses to rule out sending asylum seekers overseas if Labour win general election – Shadow home secretary says Labour would examine ‘offshore processing arrangements’”
I predicted EXACTLY THIS a few weeks ago. I said in the end Starmer will do a version of Rwanda because it is the only humane solution that might work. Labour will just tweak it and pretend it is something else
Hilarious
And we all pointed out the gargantuan difference between offshore processing of claims and just deporting people to Rwanda.
Labour propose the Australia / Denmark / Israel etc route where successful applicants get brought back. Only the Tories proposed to send people away with no route to apply for asylum.
Australia, Denmark and Israel are not known for accepting large numbers of asylum seekers, are they?
Denmark even has a policy target of accepting zero asylum seekers.
We aren't known for accepting large numbers of asylum seekers. We take a lot less than comparable neighbouring countries, and have set an effective zero rate for places like Afghanistan, abandoning our former colleagues to the taliban.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
The reality is that an awful lot of people could up sticks and move abroad but most people don’t.
If you actually upped sticks and moved abroad I would actually be impressed as I suspect you are one of the majority who threaten to do it but won’t / can’t for multiple reasons
As Matt Goodwin would argue, that’s because most people are somewheres rather than rootless citizens of nowhere. Or something.
David Goodhart "The Road To Somewhere". Goodwin is working in the same space but that nomenclature is Goodhart's.
“Yvette Cooper refuses to rule out sending asylum seekers overseas if Labour win general election – Shadow home secretary says Labour would examine ‘offshore processing arrangements’”
I predicted EXACTLY THIS a few weeks ago. I said in the end Starmer will do a version of Rwanda because it is the only humane solution that might work. Labour will just tweak it and pretend it is something else
Hilarious
And we all pointed out the gargantuan difference between offshore processing of claims and just deporting people to Rwanda.
Labour propose the Australia / Denmark / Israel etc route where successful applicants get brought back. Only the Tories proposed to send people away with no route to apply for asylum.
Australia, Denmark and Israel are not known for accepting large numbers of asylum seekers, are they?
Denmark even has a policy target of accepting zero asylum seekers.
… although Australia and Israel both have high rates of legal immigration.
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
We get this crap every time Labour look like winning an election. I think the country might survive without you or CR if we have to.
Just thinking, last time the Tories et pals look like winning an election, we get lots of crap about lots of people leaving the country, but we don't get that in reality either do we?
See also referendums. Lady Mone is about the only flounce threatener I can remember who did actually leave, albeit on a result opposite to the one that she was so exercised about. At least it was to the benefit of Scotland if not that of the greater UK.
She also closed her business because reasons.
Didn't some Brexiters threaten to leave if they lost? And then promptly move to the EU, demand Irish passports, etc. etc.?
Fpt for @Farooq and the other pb lefties because this is a really important debate
@Casino_Royale is a smart, hard working heterosexual white British male. British society is doing everything it can to tell him he is despised just for being a straight white male, and everyone else - every woman, every minority, everyone else has priority over him
At the same time the state is asking him to pay more and more tax for increasingly shabby public services because the state insists on importing 700,000 people a year (that no one asked for) putting ever more pressure on everything - and what money is left over must be spent - billions a year - on housing asylum seekers who are really just economic migrants but we are too spineless to say this and to pathetic to keep them out
And still you scoff at the idea @Casino_Royale might think “Fuck this” and bugger off somewhere else
Edit to add: At the same time as Britain is doing this, and as Britain seems to be gaining the climate of the Faroe Islands, lots of countries with better climates and nice cities and less Wokeness which aren’t intrinsically hostile to straight white men are adopting favourable tax regimes to attract people like @Casino_Royale
We really are in danger or driving away the smart hard working people that pay for the British state. What then?
For every 12 of me that go the State loses £1 million of tax revenue.
But (in the case of employees, obvs) your jobs will still remain. And someone else will fill them.
The concept of unfulfilled vacancies is clearly alien to you then?
Are you suggesting you're irreplaceable?
That's quite the claim.
Perhaps (and this is aimed at Leon's comment, not yours), the over-representation of white British heterosexual males in some industries is a failure of capitalism, and if a few of them left it wouldn't be the disaster they imagine.
Jesus Christ.
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
The reality is that an awful lot of people could up sticks and move abroad but most people don’t.
If you actually upped sticks and moved abroad I would actually be impressed as I suspect you are one of the majority who threaten to do it but won’t / can’t for multiple reasons
This thread is making me want to do it more and more.
It's not a dig even though you may think it is one.
You are at a point when it may make sense to do so given what is happening with the school and elsewhere - have a look round and see if it's possible.
I spent years flying round Europe advising on the software I know... Expertise and the ability to take a document and transform it into clearer English will get you a very long way (that latter bit is a great skill that kept my flying round Europe for years long than my contemporaries, making things easier to read is worth it's weight in gold).
Comments
Is it an idle threat designed to scare people into voting Conservative?
@Casino_Royale may feel the change of Government will be economically disadvantageous to him and his family and he may wish to emigrate - that's his right. As to the claims it's easier to work abroad from @Malmesbury, this may come as a surprise but a lot of people don't earn £100k or more a year and simply want to be able to work and have a decent life here on the money they earn instead of having to struggle.
The old "the rich pay a lot of tax" meme also gets wheeled out along with the flat tax idea. The rich pay a lot of tax because they earn a lot more - 40% of £1 million is a lot more than 20% of £25k for example so yes, proportionally, the wealthy pay more tax. Even after that, however, they still have more disposible income and since the cost of things is not wholly related to your income, a millionaire pays the same for a pint of milk as I do.
More money allows you to buy more and better things, no question, and you can argue the quality of what you can afford is directly related to the income you have though I sometimes wonder whether it's more about knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Consumption and the quality of that consumption is a personal choice if you have the money, it's less so if you don't but that's not to say the choices the poor make are often informed - look at how much is spent on ultra-processed food.
The other point is we are moving into a period of under-employment in many key sectors, both professional and in the public sector. The only ways to resolve that are to upskill those who are here (the better solution) or import skilled people to fill the gap (and that's another issue or series of issues).
There is a high chance of a change of government. This is intrinsically interesting.
Electoral Calculus suggests that the Tories are set to get between 37 and 225 seats. This is fascinating both WRT the politics - what happens if Tories lose almost 90% of their 2019 seats, it's as significant as the Corn Laws episode - and the range of possibilities numerically.
There is even a chance of a chaotic result - where no government is viable, though that possibility is receding.
Politically there are big expectations of a new Labour government, but they start with minus £2trillion in the bank. This is fascinating.
The LDs could get 20 seats. They could get 80. This is interesting, especially as their leader is Harry Worth.
There are lots of betting opportunities, which as usual I shall miss.
Overall this is a great election, and could turn out to be the most significant since 1945.
Whilst you don’t get the buzz and range that London gives you can just jump in the car and go skiing for the day or drive off to multiple other countries easily which makes up for it.
And with digital nomad visas and remote working and computer translation and universal English it is now easier to work abroad than ever before. And other countries are vigorously TRYING to attract people like me and CR who pay a lot of tax
And yet you scoff and shrug it off. Madness. But up to you
This is the country we're becoming, folks.
If I had 100 vacancies to fill, and I filled them with 100 straight, white men, then it would be highly unlikely that I'd picked the 100 best candidates. It would be sub-optimal economically, so logically of one of those men leaving, could well be an opportunity.
It's the very opposite of being despised. It's a dispassionate argument suggesting you might, through no fault of your own, be a structural inefficiency in the UK economy.
It will reduce funds to the state, not increase them.
But behaviourally different too, I expect. If there’s any deterrent effect from Rwanda now (and there must presumably be some) there wouldn’t be with offshore processing.
I think it’s quite possible they will do something like that though they would be stupid to unless it’s significantly cheaper than doing so onshore.
This shows what a bunch of horseshit that is.
If it is real, god help us. As you say. Why should the likes of you or I pay to support a state that looks after @nova and all the others that hate us? Our taxes go to people that despise us
Steve
Fuck 'em!
I do feel Shaheen has been dealt a disgraceful hand by Labour, but then ensuring Duncan Smith gets re-elected by splitting the anti-Tory vote confirms Team-Starmer was right to bin her. These Labour lefties are incredibly entitled.
The owner’s yacht apparently, and subject to protection as patrimoine maritime.
Absolutely do not google 'nooner' if you do not know what it is.
Now, as it happens, I said no because my kids were settled in school and we didn't want to uproot them. But, given Labour have uprooted one of them anyway, there comes a point where I might just take the plunge.
I've been listening to @Gardenwalker carefully on this and he doesn't make it sound so bad.
I am eager to learn why I’m a structural inefficiency in the UK economy and why my departure from the UK and its tax system will therefore be of benefit to the UK and its people. Do tell
I planned to be happier in my retirement in Southern Europe, but that doesn't work now, thanks to Johnsonian Conservatives. I'll work 'til I drop, hopefully in a mellower, more socially agreeable UK (or independent Wales).
That's the basic argument. Castes shouldn't mix.
And anyone who doesn't get this obvious fact has got a chip on their shoulder, doesn't understand economics, and probably doesn't even know what a bogle[1] is, let alone an upstairs chamber[2] or an initiation ceremony in the fos[3], and is therefore worthy only of contempt. Which in fact is the contempt they were born being worthy of. It all adds up. It's logical and it helps society. Don't worry.
1) Also spelled "bogwheel".
2) Tbf, I've no idea whether commoners such as Rishi Sunak know what these are.
3) Short for "foricas".
And I’ve already - deliberately, as a test - made the psychological move by spending more than half the year abroad. Turns out I rather like it
To be fair to @Mexicanpete I can struggle with the same though.
Your child's school failed for any number of reasons but it wasn't because Labour applied VAT.
My main reason for going would have been the weather.
1) Because schools will be claiming back the VAT they pay out for other purchases under this policy, it would definitely be revenue negative for the government;
2) It would still massively increase the bureaucracy involved which would be bad for everyone;
3) It would piss off private school parents AND the Labour left who would see it as a cop out.
4) Finally, it would look weak.
I'm highly sceptical of this policy and the idea itself isn't a bad one but I don't think a rate that low is the answer. Maybe 15% would work. Enough to gently mull the frogs with a slight overall increase while raising a worthwhile slug of cash.
I may have my view coloured because I think it's mad to charge VAT at 20% on anything anyway.
And human contact is very important.
This money could have been spent on anti-poverty (principally programs designed to overcome barriers to work) and programs to boost economic growth. Programs are still eligible for the grants provided that they are made this month (despite the program officially ending in 2020).
The EU said, in 2019, that there had been 27 suspensions of payments across the whole EU because of failures to adequately audit and vouch the spending of the money. 19% of all such suspensions have been in Scotland, a country of 5.4m out of more than 500m (before the UK left).
Both Douglas Ross and Jackie Baillie are shouting this morning how shocking this is and it is indeed shocking. But:
* if Scotland had a civil service worthy of the name this simply would not have happened.
* where were Ross and Baillie when the prior suspensions happened? Why were the alarm bells not ringing loud?
*Why have our local authorities of all stripes not been competing vigorously for that money in their areas?
* What Ministers were responsible for these multiple failures and lack of focus and what consequences, if any, did they face? Do we even know who they are?
* What is happening right now across government and local authorities to ensure as much of this money as possible is applied for by the end of the month?
* Why were opposition politicians dependent upon a story in the ST based on a report to discover there was even a problem here? What the hell do shadow Ministers actually do with their time?
What this shows is that our Scottish government is utterly incompetent at every level, both Ministerial and administrative. As are our opposition parties. As are our local authorities. As, indeed, are our third sector who should have been promoting qualifying projects. This is not just a stick with which to beat the SNP, it is a condemnation of our entire system of governance, social society and democratic accountability.
If you actually upped sticks and moved abroad I would actually be impressed as I suspect you are one of the majority who threaten to do it but won’t / can’t for multiple reasons
There was this problem when the Treasury wanted to do quarterly returns for literally everyone and accountants patiently explained that would require literally quadruple the number of accountants that existed.
Labour propose the Australia / Denmark / Israel etc route where successful applicants get brought back. Only the Tories proposed to send people away with no route to apply for asylum.
In towns or villages that work socially you can sense it even if you don’t live there: people bumping randomly into familiar faces and chatting. It’s just normal in South Burgundy to see this, and it’s also normal in our bit of South East London. In atomised places you can also sense the atomisation.
It's exactly what killed it off. Pupil numbers dived for next year because parents weren't willing to subscribe to the school with that sort of price increase hanging over their head. It's not a hugely wealthy area here. The letter from the Trustees specifically highlighted these political factors pushing the school roll into unviability.
I know you don't want to accept this because it means accepting that your nasty little policy has nasty real-world effects. But it's thrown my son out of his school, lost the community an important educational institution, and lost his teachers their jobs- many of whom are family friends. I hate Labour for it.
So fuck off, there's a good chap.
Private school advocates not really helping themselves out, though. Oh no, we had to keep a car for 8 years!
A relative was involved with a lottery application by a sports club for money to rebuild a shack of a clubhouse with a proper structure.
The local council spent a surprising amount of time and effort trying to screw up the application.
Denmark even has a policy target of accepting zero asylum seekers.
RAYNER
Mornington Crescent.
What does an advocate do when they have to advocate for a hopeless case?
The Conservatives can't run on their record, because it's clearly awful. You don't burn through 2 PMs if things are going well.
They can't run a Presidential campaign, because that's not Rishi's strength.
They can't run on an exciting agenda for 2024-8, because they're out of ideas and anything good they suggested runs up against 'you've had fourteen years'.
They're trying fear of the other lot, but that's not working, and Starmer is too boring to induce fear.
Is there anything else they can try?
Faiza Shaheen was happy to go down with him.
Rightly, Labour wants to be seen as serious on national security. Shaheen won’t help there.
https://x.com/habibi_uk/status/1796885065252663692
Shaheen really should have been barred on this alone.
The last fourteen years haven't gone entirely smoothly, and it's not entirely down to Covid and Vladimir Putin, now is it?
How is your school running out of students and cash any different to any other school running out of students and cash? Other than it affecting your kids this time rather than other people's kids?
When its your kids its always personal. I get that. But why are your kids a special case and nobody else's?
To put this into perspective then money we are losing is worth £90 a head for Scotland. At a time of cuts and tight budgets. It's just shocking.
Of my ten best friends
Two have moved to America
One has moved to France
One moved to America but is now moving to Spain
One is in the process of moving to Thailand
That’s five out of ten. All late middle aged men who either earn good money (and pay the tax on it) or they earn amazing money (and pay insane tax)
All gone or going from the UK
You can blame Labour and I suspect that is a part of the issue but the actual issue was the school was probably closing this year or next year regardless of any Labour policy..
Lady Mone is about the only flounce threatener I can remember who did actually leave, albeit on a result opposite to the one that she was so exercised about. At least it was to the benefit of Scotland if not that of the greater UK.
Source: my bookshelves
Didn't some Brexiters threaten to leave if they lost? And then promptly move to the EU, demand Irish passports, etc. etc.?
You are at a point when it may make sense to do so given what is happening with the school and elsewhere - have a look round and see if it's possible.
I spent years flying round Europe advising on the software I know... Expertise and the ability to take a document and transform it into clearer English will get you a very long way (that latter bit is a great skill that kept my flying round Europe for years long than my contemporaries, making things easier to read is worth it's weight in gold).