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A promising start for Kemi Badenoch – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,167
edited November 24 in General
A promising start for Kemi Badenoch – politicalbetting.com

Kemi Badenoch’s challenge is convert those don’t knows into positives.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,107
    First!
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,983
    Good - shows she is street smart. (Or country lane smart, perhaps.)
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098
    I think we can safely say Starmer is the most unpopular UK PM 4 months into his premiership since polling records began.

    Truss was the only other post 1945 PM as unpopular this early but she didn't even last 4 months
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098
    Interesting exercise if you type the favourable rating for the 3 main party leaders into Electoral Calculus as their voteshare but leave the other minor parties at 2024 levels.

    You end up with Reform 242 seats, Labour 181, the Tories 90 and LDs 75.

    So Farage could be PM of a minority government with Tory confidence and supply. At the moment however Reform is still polling clearly below Farage's favourable rating and below the Tories and Labour still, even if up a bit on July

    https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=21&LAB=23&LIB=12&Reform=28&Green=7&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,821
    FPT:

    MattW said:

    Good afternoon everyone. 5-6 inches of snow - whodathunkit.

    What a morning !

    At breakfast the last insulin pump went off like a fire alarm (literally) and insisted that it was broken and be uninstalled; the new ones due to arrive by 9am didn't because of 'roadworks' in the lane (as if), and the snow. So they arrived whilst I am at the hospital for a checkup. The message arrived "left them at number 15 with the neighbour"; I am number 7x, so where the hell had they gone? \Now found - he had come on from the wrong side, and ended up at the back.

    The complications of changing treatment regimen.

    Brand new car parking regime at the hospital, which means the pedestrian blocking buggers are under control again. Quite interesting - the systems clocks you in by number plate, pay on leaving the building, and it reads your plate before it lets you out of the car park. No printed tickets.

    Car park half empty either due to the people who don't need to use their vehicles not using them - or maybe due to snow-lateness, or Morrisons next door gaining hospital visitors in their car park. Time will tell.

    Now back home with most things sorted.

    This is my photo quota for the day, taken at 2pm. Selfish bastard completely blocking a much used pavement right up against a road works sign. The footway there is 1.75m wide, so he has left about a foot for wheelchairs. It has been there since last night. Who the hell ARE these people.


    Pavement parking really annoys me and to be fair it is illegal

    Not only does it affect wheelchair users but also those pushing young children in a pram

    It is selfish, inconsiderate and wrong

    The photo shows an inconsiderate bastard of the first water.

    Confession: In the years when I was piloting a double buggy, I may have made slightly more of a meal of squeezing along the side of a car parked such as this than was strictly necessary. Polite sticky notes may also have been used.

    I don't want to be an absolutist about pavement parking. Sometimes the sensible thing to do is to perch your nearside wheel on the kerb, when kerbs pavements are wide and roads are narrow. It just needs some common sense.
    There are also countless opportunities to design streets better and to show explicitly where parking is allowed. But it all costs money, and it all costs visual appeal.
    Basically - just don't park like a twat.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,217
    edited November 19
    (Slightly gratuitous FPT)

    MattW said:

    Good afternoon everyone. 5-6 inches of snow - whodathunkit.

    What a morning !

    At breakfast the last insulin pump went off like a fire alarm (literally) and insisted that it was broken and be uninstalled; the new ones due to arrive by 9am didn't because of 'roadworks' in the lane (as if), and the snow. So they arrived whilst I am at the hospital for a checkup. The message arrived "left them at number 15 with the neighbour"; I am number 7x, so where the hell had they gone? \Now found - he had come on from the wrong side, and ended up at the back.

    The complications of changing treatment regimen.

    Brand new car parking regime at the hospital, which means the pedestrian blocking buggers are under control again. Quite interesting - the systems clocks you in by number plate, pay on leaving the building, and it reads your plate before it lets you out of the car park. No printed tickets.

    Car park half empty either due to the people who don't need to use their vehicles not using them - or maybe due to snow-lateness, or Morrisons next door gaining hospital visitors in their car park. Time will tell.

    Now back home with most things sorted.

    This is my photo quota for the day, taken at 2pm. Selfish bastard completely blocking a much used pavement right up against a road works sign. The footway there is 1.75m wide, so he has left about a foot for wheelchairs. It has been there since last night. Who the hell ARE these people.


    Pavement parking really annoys me and to be fair it is illegal

    Not only does it affect wheelchair users but also those pushing young children in a pram

    It is selfish, inconsiderate and wrong

    That spot has become known for vehicles left like that. It's a very wide carriageway, with designed in space for one row of parked vehicles. But still they dump them on the footway.

    eg https://www.google.com/maps/@53.117791,-1.2681744,3a,75y,265.24h,74.72t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1szABF_kIrLEJtb_eU-PF5qw!2e0!6shttps://streetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com/v1/thumbnail?cb_client=maps_sv.tactile&w=900&h=600&pitch=15.277888379073488&panoid=zABF_kIrLEJtb_eU-PF5qw&yaw=265.23830926182825!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTExMy4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw==

    We have worse - driving into a marked parallel bay, then going half way across the pavement to leave space for the driver to open the door and get out inside the marked white line is a common pattern of ASB here.

    https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1228296,-1.2546919,3a,75y,74.81h,73.97t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1se8uA19QykuQLCKCd3PyLUQ!2e0!6shttps://streetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com/v1/thumbnail?cb_client=maps_sv.tactile&w=900&h=600&pitch=16.032882435653647&panoid=e8uA19QykuQLCKCd3PyLUQ&yaw=74.80809293562598!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTExMy4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw==
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,217
    Cookie said:

    FPT:

    MattW said:

    Good afternoon everyone. 5-6 inches of snow - whodathunkit.

    What a morning !

    At breakfast the last insulin pump went off like a fire alarm (literally) and insisted that it was broken and be uninstalled; the new ones due to arrive by 9am didn't because of 'roadworks' in the lane (as if), and the snow. So they arrived whilst I am at the hospital for a checkup. The message arrived "left them at number 15 with the neighbour"; I am number 7x, so where the hell had they gone? \Now found - he had come on from the wrong side, and ended up at the back.

    The complications of changing treatment regimen.

    Brand new car parking regime at the hospital, which means the pedestrian blocking buggers are under control again. Quite interesting - the systems clocks you in by number plate, pay on leaving the building, and it reads your plate before it lets you out of the car park. No printed tickets.

    Car park half empty either due to the people who don't need to use their vehicles not using them - or maybe due to snow-lateness, or Morrisons next door gaining hospital visitors in their car park. Time will tell.

    Now back home with most things sorted.

    This is my photo quota for the day, taken at 2pm. Selfish bastard completely blocking a much used pavement right up against a road works sign. The footway there is 1.75m wide, so he has left about a foot for wheelchairs. It has been there since last night. Who the hell ARE these people.


    Pavement parking really annoys me and to be fair it is illegal

    Not only does it affect wheelchair users but also those pushing young children in a pram

    It is selfish, inconsiderate and wrong

    The photo shows an inconsiderate bastard of the first water.

    Confession: In the years when I was piloting a double buggy, I may have made slightly more of a meal of squeezing along the side of a car parked such as this than was strictly necessary. Polite sticky notes may also have been used.

    I don't want to be an absolutist about pavement parking. Sometimes the sensible thing to do is to perch your nearside wheel on the kerb, when kerbs pavements are wide and roads are narrow. It just needs some common sense.
    There are also countless opportunities to design streets better and to show explicitly where parking is allowed. But it all costs money, and it all costs visual appeal.
    Basically - just don't park like a twat.
    There are products, which don't say "twat".

    https://yplac.co.uk/shop/

    Not my style, as - like "angle grinder the barrier" - they won't fix the underlying issue.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,873
    Cookie said:

    FPT:

    MattW said:

    Good afternoon everyone. 5-6 inches of snow - whodathunkit.

    What a morning !

    At breakfast the last insulin pump went off like a fire alarm (literally) and insisted that it was broken and be uninstalled; the new ones due to arrive by 9am didn't because of 'roadworks' in the lane (as if), and the snow. So they arrived whilst I am at the hospital for a checkup. The message arrived "left them at number 15 with the neighbour"; I am number 7x, so where the hell had they gone? \Now found - he had come on from the wrong side, and ended up at the back.

    The complications of changing treatment regimen.

    Brand new car parking regime at the hospital, which means the pedestrian blocking buggers are under control again. Quite interesting - the systems clocks you in by number plate, pay on leaving the building, and it reads your plate before it lets you out of the car park. No printed tickets.

    Car park half empty either due to the people who don't need to use their vehicles not using them - or maybe due to snow-lateness, or Morrisons next door gaining hospital visitors in their car park. Time will tell.

    Now back home with most things sorted.

    This is my photo quota for the day, taken at 2pm. Selfish bastard completely blocking a much used pavement right up against a road works sign. The footway there is 1.75m wide, so he has left about a foot for wheelchairs. It has been there since last night. Who the hell ARE these people.


    Pavement parking really annoys me and to be fair it is illegal

    Not only does it affect wheelchair users but also those pushing young children in a pram

    It is selfish, inconsiderate and wrong

    The photo shows an inconsiderate bastard of the first water.

    Confession: In the years when I was piloting a double buggy, I may have made slightly more of a meal of squeezing along the side of a car parked such as this than was strictly necessary. Polite sticky notes may also have been used.

    I don't want to be an absolutist about pavement parking. Sometimes the sensible thing to do is to perch your nearside wheel on the kerb, when kerbs pavements are wide and roads are narrow. It just needs some common sense.
    There are also countless opportunities to design streets better and to show explicitly where parking is allowed. But it all costs money, and it all costs visual appeal.
    Basically - just don't park like a twat.
    But also the damage to pavements costs money (mainly vans, though?).
  • HYUFD said:

    Interesting exercise if you type the favourable rating for the 3 main party leaders into Electoral Calculus as their voteshare but leave the other minor parties at 2024 levels.

    You end up with Reform 242 seats, Labour 181, the Tories 90 and LDs 75.

    So Farage could be PM of a minority government with Tory confidence and supply. At the moment however Reform is still polling clearly below Farage's favourable rating and below the Tories and Labour still, even if up a bit on July

    https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=21&LAB=23&LIB=12&Reform=28&Green=7&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024

    Why do you persist with this utter nonsense?

    And on topic Kemi has a real opportunity to take advantage of the awful early months into Starmer's government, and it is telling that Starmer and Reeves are taking a real hit in the favourable ratings but it was entirely predictable when they told the country their manifesto was fully costed when it clearly wasn't

    They boxed themselves in to get elected, and are unable to use the best means of raising tax through income tax, vat, and NI

    I really am dismayed how bad they have been and certainly far more Corbyn than Blair in character
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,688
    edited November 19
    Cookie said:

    FPT:

    MattW said:

    Good afternoon everyone. 5-6 inches of snow - whodathunkit.

    What a morning !

    At breakfast the last insulin pump went off like a fire alarm (literally) and insisted that it was broken and be uninstalled; the new ones due to arrive by 9am didn't because of 'roadworks' in the lane (as if), and the snow. So they arrived whilst I am at the hospital for a checkup. The message arrived "left them at number 15 with the neighbour"; I am number 7x, so where the hell had they gone? \Now found - he had come on from the wrong side, and ended up at the back.

    The complications of changing treatment regimen.

    Brand new car parking regime at the hospital, which means the pedestrian blocking buggers are under control again. Quite interesting - the systems clocks you in by number plate, pay on leaving the building, and it reads your plate before it lets you out of the car park. No printed tickets.

    Car park half empty either due to the people who don't need to use their vehicles not using them - or maybe due to snow-lateness, or Morrisons next door gaining hospital visitors in their car park. Time will tell.

    Now back home with most things sorted.

    This is my photo quota for the day, taken at 2pm. Selfish bastard completely blocking a much used pavement right up against a road works sign. The footway there is 1.75m wide, so he has left about a foot for wheelchairs. It has been there since last night. Who the hell ARE these people.


    Pavement parking really annoys me and to be fair it is illegal

    Not only does it affect wheelchair users but also those pushing young children in a pram

    It is selfish, inconsiderate and wrong

    The photo shows an inconsiderate bastard of the first water.

    Confession: In the years when I was piloting a double buggy, I may have made slightly more of a meal of squeezing along the side of a car parked such as this than was strictly necessary. Polite sticky notes may also have been used.

    I don't want to be an absolutist about pavement parking. Sometimes the sensible thing to do is to perch your nearside wheel on the kerb, when kerbs pavements are wide and roads are narrow. It just needs some common sense.
    There are also countless opportunities to design streets better and to show explicitly where parking is allowed. But it all costs money, and it all costs visual appeal.
    Basically - just don't park like a twat.
    The "blanket" pavement parking ban in Edinburgh caused a great deal of fuss for about 5 minutes, now the norm. A few residents complained that there wasn't enough room for an ambulance to get down their street and promptly found their cars towed as a result.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,428
    Cookie said:

    FPT:

    MattW said:

    Good afternoon everyone. 5-6 inches of snow - whodathunkit.

    What a morning !

    At breakfast the last insulin pump went off like a fire alarm (literally) and insisted that it was broken and be uninstalled; the new ones due to arrive by 9am didn't because of 'roadworks' in the lane (as if), and the snow. So they arrived whilst I am at the hospital for a checkup. The message arrived "left them at number 15 with the neighbour"; I am number 7x, so where the hell had they gone? \Now found - he had come on from the wrong side, and ended up at the back.

    The complications of changing treatment regimen.

    Brand new car parking regime at the hospital, which means the pedestrian blocking buggers are under control again. Quite interesting - the systems clocks you in by number plate, pay on leaving the building, and it reads your plate before it lets you out of the car park. No printed tickets.

    Car park half empty either due to the people who don't need to use their vehicles not using them - or maybe due to snow-lateness, or Morrisons next door gaining hospital visitors in their car park. Time will tell.

    Now back home with most things sorted.

    This is my photo quota for the day, taken at 2pm. Selfish bastard completely blocking a much used pavement right up against a road works sign. The footway there is 1.75m wide, so he has left about a foot for wheelchairs. It has been there since last night. Who the hell ARE these people.


    Pavement parking really annoys me and to be fair it is illegal

    Not only does it affect wheelchair users but also those pushing young children in a pram

    It is selfish, inconsiderate and wrong

    The photo shows an inconsiderate bastard of the first water.

    Confession: In the years when I was piloting a double buggy, I may have made slightly more of a meal of squeezing along the side of a car parked such as this than was strictly necessary. Polite sticky notes may also have been used.

    I don't want to be an absolutist about pavement parking. Sometimes the sensible thing to do is to perch your nearside wheel on the kerb, when kerbs pavements are wide and roads are narrow. It just needs some common sense.
    There are also countless opportunities to design streets better and to show explicitly where parking is allowed. But it all costs money, and it all costs visual appeal.
    Basically - just don't park like a twat.
    My ex plod father tells a story about a narrow road in Swindon in the 1960's with cars on both sides. Fire engine needed to get through.

    Dad says "just go through and we will deal with the consequences later..." Lots of scratched cars, but the fire engine got through.

    Can only imagine the insurance claims nowadays.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,598

    On topic:


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    1h
    That means Kemi Badenoch is committed to going into the next election with her two priorities being a tax cut for farmers with proprieties worth over £3 million, and a tax cut for parents of private school children. I'm not sure that's where the Tories need to be.

    Oppostion policies four years out aren't opposition policies going into the election. Hodges knows that.
  • On topic:


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    1h
    That means Kemi Badenoch is committed to going into the next election with her two priorities being a tax cut for farmers with proprieties worth over £3 million, and a tax cut for parents of private school children. I'm not sure that's where the Tories need to be.

    I have no problem with conservatives following conservative policies
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,375
    HYUFD said:

    Interesting exercise if you type the favourable rating for the 3 main party leaders into Electoral Calculus as their voteshare but leave the other minor parties at 2024 levels.

    You end up with Reform 242 seats, Labour 181, the Tories 90 and LDs 75.

    So Farage could be PM of a minority government with Tory confidence and supply. At the moment however Reform is still polling clearly below Farage's favourable rating and below the Tories and Labour still, even if up a bit on July

    https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=21&LAB=23&LIB=12&Reform=28&Green=7&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024

    28% is a comparative good score. And Reform are plainly adding a fair chunk on top of those who voted UKIP.

    Whether one approves of him or not, Farage is a talented politician.

    As is Bojo. He could be one of Plutarch’s examples of wasted talent, like Alkibiades, brought down by his total lack of self-discipline and restraint.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098

    On topic:


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    1h
    That means Kemi Badenoch is committed to going into the next election with her two priorities being a tax cut for farmers with proprieties worth over £3 million, and a tax cut for parents of private school children. I'm not sure that's where the Tories need to be.

    She knows who her core vote are and in July the Tories didn't even win most of them
  • FossFoss Posts: 1,019
    Order-Order thinks there's an Opinium/Senedd poll that puts Reform ahead. Anyone got a link to the tables?
  • On topic:


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    1h
    That means Kemi Badenoch is committed to going into the next election with her two priorities being a tax cut for farmers with proprieties worth over £3 million, and a tax cut for parents of private school children. I'm not sure that's where the Tories need to be.

    I plan to cover this in the morning thread.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,100
    edited November 19
    Foss said:

    Order-Order thinks there's an Opinium/Senedd poll that puts Reform ahead. Anyone got a link to the tables?

    *Reform 28%
    Labour 26%
    Conservative 13%
    Lib Dems 13%

    Mind you here in North Wales conservatives have won 4 locals from Labour recently

    On the wider issue it would be excellent for Wales to see Labour lose the Senedd in 2026

    * I have no tables and do not know if these are subsamples or an actual Welsh poll
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098
    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,316
    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    Trusts currently pay 6% per decade. This works out to be very close to 0.6% per annum.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,672

    Cookie said:

    FPT:

    MattW said:

    Good afternoon everyone. 5-6 inches of snow - whodathunkit.

    What a morning !

    At breakfast the last insulin pump went off like a fire alarm (literally) and insisted that it was broken and be uninstalled; the new ones due to arrive by 9am didn't because of 'roadworks' in the lane (as if), and the snow. So they arrived whilst I am at the hospital for a checkup. The message arrived "left them at number 15 with the neighbour"; I am number 7x, so where the hell had they gone? \Now found - he had come on from the wrong side, and ended up at the back.

    The complications of changing treatment regimen.

    Brand new car parking regime at the hospital, which means the pedestrian blocking buggers are under control again. Quite interesting - the systems clocks you in by number plate, pay on leaving the building, and it reads your plate before it lets you out of the car park. No printed tickets.

    Car park half empty either due to the people who don't need to use their vehicles not using them - or maybe due to snow-lateness, or Morrisons next door gaining hospital visitors in their car park. Time will tell.

    Now back home with most things sorted.

    This is my photo quota for the day, taken at 2pm. Selfish bastard completely blocking a much used pavement right up against a road works sign. The footway there is 1.75m wide, so he has left about a foot for wheelchairs. It has been there since last night. Who the hell ARE these people.


    Pavement parking really annoys me and to be fair it is illegal

    Not only does it affect wheelchair users but also those pushing young children in a pram

    It is selfish, inconsiderate and wrong

    The photo shows an inconsiderate bastard of the first water.

    Confession: In the years when I was piloting a double buggy, I may have made slightly more of a meal of squeezing along the side of a car parked such as this than was strictly necessary. Polite sticky notes may also have been used.

    I don't want to be an absolutist about pavement parking. Sometimes the sensible thing to do is to perch your nearside wheel on the kerb, when kerbs pavements are wide and roads are narrow. It just needs some common sense.
    There are also countless opportunities to design streets better and to show explicitly where parking is allowed. But it all costs money, and it all costs visual appeal.
    Basically - just don't park like a twat.
    My ex plod father tells a story about a narrow road in Swindon in the 1960's with cars on both sides. Fire engine needed to get through.

    Dad says "just go through and we will deal with the consequences later..." Lots of scratched cars, but the fire engine got through.

    Can only imagine the insurance claims nowadays.
    I was told a story about one of the tiny north Cornwall coastal villages. Because of lack of space, they allow people to park on the beach if the tide and weather allowed, and there is a sign stating the time people should be back by for the tide. I asked what happened if the tide came in. "We let them flood," I was told. "We used to pull them up the beach using one of the launch tractors, but someone tried suing us for some slight damage to their car. So now we let them flood."

    No idea if that was true, but I can believe it.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,672
    edited November 19

    Bit disappointed that Ed Davey didn't arrive by jumping a tractor over a double decker bus...

    I thought he had come dressed like a potato.

    Then I realised that was just how he looks... ;)
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,316

    On topic:


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    1h
    That means Kemi Badenoch is committed to going into the next election with her two priorities being a tax cut for farmers with proprieties worth over £3 million, and a tax cut for parents of private school children. I'm not sure that's where the Tories need to be.

    I plan to cover this in the morning thread.
    Historically UK opposition parties have been very keen to bash the government of the day when they impose unpopular taxes, but notably less keen to revert said taxes once in power & the inevitable calculus of “where are you going to get the money to fund this tax cut then?” raises its ugly head.
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,660

    On topic:


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    1h
    That means Kemi Badenoch is committed to going into the next election with her two priorities being a tax cut for farmers with proprieties worth over £3 million, and a tax cut for parents of private school children. I'm not sure that's where the Tories need to be.

    I think the Conservative party will really suffer under the 'noch.

    She's the perfect storm. A clownish libertarian for the home counties retirees and a fiscally tight pseudo-globalist for the red wall. IMO If we keep the current leaders for 2029: Reform will be on a higher voter percentage and Labour a small majority or Libdem & Green confidence and supply. Honestly Nige is much closer to power than I want.

    Johnson killed the modern Conservative party and Badenoch will be alienating the last of the base.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,202
    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
    I don't understand.

    Is corn from a family owned farm different to corn from a farm owned by a company?
  • Leon said:

    Rachel Reeves is doing quite spectacularly badly

    She is well qualified to fields the complaints though....
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,689
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
    I don't understand.

    Is corn from a family owned farm different to corn from a farm owned by a company?
    A family owned farm will produce more food than a field sold to build houses.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,418
    edited November 19
    I agree with OGH junior.

    Abolishing IHT altogether and introducing a very low rate assets tax would be a simpler and less objectionable way to deal with the distortion that the exemption of agricultural land from IHT created, compared to the policy that Labour introduced.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,202

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
    I don't understand.

    Is corn from a family owned farm different to corn from a farm owned by a company?
    A family owned farm will produce more food than a field sold to build houses.
    Oh, so farmers never sell land to developers.

    Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up then.
  • On topic:


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    1h
    That means Kemi Badenoch is committed to going into the next election with her two priorities being a tax cut for farmers with proprieties worth over £3 million, and a tax cut for parents of private school children. I'm not sure that's where the Tories need to be.

    I think the Conservative party will really suffer under the 'noch.

    She's the perfect storm. A clownish libertarian for the home counties retirees and a fiscally tight pseudo-globalist for the red wall. IMO If we keep the current leaders for 2029: Reform will be on a higher voter percentage and Labour a small majority or Libdem & Green confidence and supply. Honestly Nige is much closer to power than I want.

    Johnson killed the modern Conservative party and Badenoch will be alienating the last of the base.
    She is not alienating me nor the many locals the conservatives are gaining from Labour
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,375

    Foss said:

    Order-Order thinks there's an Opinium/Senedd poll that puts Reform ahead. Anyone got a link to the tables?

    *Reform 28%
    Labour 26%
    Conservative 13%
    Lib Dems 13%

    Mind you here in North Wales conservatives have won 4 locals from Labour recently

    On the wider issue it would be excellent for Wales to see Labour lose the Senedd in 2026

    * I have no tables and do not know if these are subsamples or an actual Welsh poll
    Since 1999, the Welsh Labour administration has been diabolically bad. Fortunately, it looks as if they’ll be booted out in 2026.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,316
    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.
  • Isn't the historical trend for satisfaction ratings to tend downwards over time?

    If Badenoch can persuade the 'Don't Knows' to like her, she wins. That's certainly possible, but is it likely?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,202
    edited November 19
    Farmers are economically rational. If the price of farmland shoots up, such that the yields they earn on farming are low compared to what they would get if they sell their farm... then they'll sell their farm.

    The IHT loophole encourages farmers to sell their farms to wealthy investment fund managers.
  • Sean_F said:

    Foss said:

    Order-Order thinks there's an Opinium/Senedd poll that puts Reform ahead. Anyone got a link to the tables?

    *Reform 28%
    Labour 26%
    Conservative 13%
    Lib Dems 13%

    Mind you here in North Wales conservatives have won 4 locals from Labour recently

    On the wider issue it would be excellent for Wales to see Labour lose the Senedd in 2026

    * I have no tables and do not know if these are subsamples or an actual Welsh poll
    Since 1999, the Welsh Labour administration has been diabolically bad. Fortunately, it looks as if they’ll be booted out in 2026.
    I agree but it is still a long way to go to see Labour out of office
  • Phil said:

    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

    It is
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,316

    I agree with OGH junior.

    Abolishing IHT altogether and introducing a very low rate assets tax would be a simpler and less objectionable way to deal with the distortion that the exemption of agricultural land from IHT created, compared to the policy that Labour introduced.

    Imagine the screaming from the large landowners. IHT is bad enough: an asset tax! Mon dieu!
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,428
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
    I don't understand.

    Is corn from a family owned farm different to corn from a farm owned by a company?
    Yes. Under a microscope you can the see the Big Pharma bar-code on the company corn.
  • Isn't the historical trend for satisfaction ratings to tend downwards over time?

    If Badenoch can persuade the 'Don't Knows' to like her, she wins. That's certainly possible, but is it likely?

    Generally yes to go down, but she could win in the way Johnson did in 2019.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,963

    On topic:


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    1h
    That means Kemi Badenoch is committed to going into the next election with her two priorities being a tax cut for farmers with proprieties worth over £3 million, and a tax cut for parents of private school children. I'm not sure that's where the Tories need to be.

    I plan to cover this in the morning thread.
    Hopefully less disingenuously so than Hodges...
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,689
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
    I don't understand.

    Is corn from a family owned farm different to corn from a farm owned by a company?
    A family owned farm will produce more food than a field sold to build houses.
    Oh, so farmers never sell land to developers.

    Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up then.
    And this policy will incentivise/coerce more of them to do it.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,793
    Phil said:

    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

    I was going to say that Lloyd Webber should stick to his day job... but on reflection, perhaps not.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,963

    https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/1858878744397504721

    NEW: Keir Starmer says he is "absolutely not" engaged in a class war on wealthy people

    Rigby: "You’ve targeted people who send their kids to private schools, people who earn income from assets, landowners, small business owners. There is a pattern here, is this class war?"

    Engaging the First Rule of Politics.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,418
    edited November 19

    Isn't the historical trend for satisfaction ratings to tend downwards over time?

    If Badenoch can persuade the 'Don't Knows' to like her, she wins. That's certainly possible, but is it likely?

    Keir Starmer's ratings improved in opposition when the electorate decided they needed to get rid of the Tories.

    Obviously there comes a time when the public have made their mind up, but opposition leaders sometimes get a second chance with the voters, if the voters are desperate enough.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,217

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
    I don't understand.

    Is corn from a family owned farm different to corn from a farm owned by a company?
    A family owned farm will produce more food than a field sold to build houses.
    Oh, so farmers never sell land to developers.

    Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up then.
    And this policy will incentivise/coerce more of them to do it.
    So we can expect - I hope - rapid reform of taxes on Planning Gain windfalls.
  • Driver said:

    On topic:


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    1h
    That means Kemi Badenoch is committed to going into the next election with her two priorities being a tax cut for farmers with proprieties worth over £3 million, and a tax cut for parents of private school children. I'm not sure that's where the Tories need to be.

    I plan to cover this in the morning thread.
    Hopefully less disingenuously so than Hodges...
    I do not possess the subtlety to be disingenuous.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,689

    Phil said:

    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

    I was going to say that Lloyd Webber should stick to his day job... but on reflection, perhaps not.
    I foresee a hit musical about a salt-of-the-earth farmer's battle to prevent his family's land being expropriated by a heartless socialist regime.
  • xyzxyzxyzxyzxyzxyz Posts: 60
    edited November 19
    Phil said:

    I agree with OGH junior.

    Abolishing IHT altogether and introducing a very low rate assets tax would be a simpler and less objectionable way to deal with the distortion that the exemption of agricultural land from IHT created, compared to the policy that Labour introduced.

    Imagine the screaming from the large landowners. IHT is bad enough: an asset tax! Mon dieu!
    Cutting IHT to a level payed by the monarch and on public sector pensions eg 0% could be payed for by reducing the carbon capture and storage budget by 50%.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,428
    edited November 19
    Brexit has allowed us to save our beautiful seabirds

    Now the EU wants to reverse our noble bravery, and kill off every last British puffin and puffling

    "Puffins, Kittiwakes, Razorbills—the UK’s decision to end sandeel fishing was a hard-won lifeline for our struggling seabirds.

    The EU’s move to challenge it risks undoing that progress. 🚨

    We urge the Commission to support, not undermine, this key step for marine biodiversity."

    https://x.com/Natures_Voice/status/1858820509732843521

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098
    edited November 19
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
    I don't understand.

    Is corn from a family owned farm different to corn from a farm owned by a company?
    The typical attitude of a liberal globalist citizen of nowhere.

    It is farming families who know how to work the land, who care about the food they produce for the local community and our nation even when the chips are down as during the war. Global corporations care for neither and would happily sell most of the food they produce abroad if the price was right and just use the land for short term profit not long term benefit.

    That is why the tractor tax is so hated with 57% of British voters wanting it scrapped and just 24% wanting inheritance tax on family farms

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1858787981303185664
  • DoctorGDoctorG Posts: 48
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
    I don't understand.

    Is corn from a family owned farm different to corn from a farm owned by a company?
    A family owned farm will produce more food than a field sold to build houses.
    Oh, so farmers never sell land to developers.

    Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up then.
    Interesting line from the Labour 2024 manifesto, they want to pay compensation for compulsory purchased land which is “fair compensation rather than inflated prices”. Which may only be agri market value when the policy is implemented. There is another bun fight coming down the line
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,376

    Foss said:

    Order-Order thinks there's an Opinium/Senedd poll that puts Reform ahead. Anyone got a link to the tables?

    They’ve gone full Stuart Dickson and are passing off a sub-sample as a full blown poll.

    Idiots.
    Let's hope no one posts that sort of nonsense on here as a bone fide poll with figures.
  • Leon said:

    Rachel Reeves is doing quite spectacularly badly

    She’s utterly toast if we have a bad/freezing winter and the papers are full of stories of the granny who froze to death because Reeves took away her winter fuel allowance.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,217
    edited November 19
    Eabhal said:

    Cookie said:

    FPT:

    MattW said:

    Good afternoon everyone. 5-6 inches of snow - whodathunkit.

    What a morning !

    At breakfast the last insulin pump went off like a fire alarm (literally) and insisted that it was broken and be uninstalled; the new ones due to arrive by 9am didn't because of 'roadworks' in the lane (as if), and the snow. So they arrived whilst I am at the hospital for a checkup. The message arrived "left them at number 15 with the neighbour"; I am number 7x, so where the hell had they gone? \Now found - he had come on from the wrong side, and ended up at the back.

    The complications of changing treatment regimen.

    Brand new car parking regime at the hospital, which means the pedestrian blocking buggers are under control again. Quite interesting - the systems clocks you in by number plate, pay on leaving the building, and it reads your plate before it lets you out of the car park. No printed tickets.

    Car park half empty either due to the people who don't need to use their vehicles not using them - or maybe due to snow-lateness, or Morrisons next door gaining hospital visitors in their car park. Time will tell.

    Now back home with most things sorted.

    This is my photo quota for the day, taken at 2pm. Selfish bastard completely blocking a much used pavement right up against a road works sign. The footway there is 1.75m wide, so he has left about a foot for wheelchairs. It has been there since last night. Who the hell ARE these people.


    Pavement parking really annoys me and to be fair it is illegal

    Not only does it affect wheelchair users but also those pushing young children in a pram

    It is selfish, inconsiderate and wrong

    The photo shows an inconsiderate bastard of the first water.

    Confession: In the years when I was piloting a double buggy, I may have made slightly more of a meal of squeezing along the side of a car parked such as this than was strictly necessary. Polite sticky notes may also have been used.

    I don't want to be an absolutist about pavement parking. Sometimes the sensible thing to do is to perch your nearside wheel on the kerb, when kerbs pavements are wide and roads are narrow. It just needs some common sense.
    There are also countless opportunities to design streets better and to show explicitly where parking is allowed. But it all costs money, and it all costs visual appeal.
    Basically - just don't park like a twat.
    The "blanket" pavement parking ban in Edinburgh caused a great deal of fuss for about 5 minutes, now the norm. A few residents complained that there wasn't enough room for an ambulance to get down their street and promptly found their cars towed as a result.
    Indeed, but whisper it quietly ... England has more antis in positions of petty power on issues like this one. Try and get something like that through in Nottinghamshire, and see what happens :smile: .

    (I am now going to don the PB tin hat and crouch down behind my settee, with a yard brush for self-defence.)
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,489
    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    Aren’t there already exemptions on the tax system where it makes sense for society to have these exemptions?

    For example I believe in the UK that children’s shoes (and clothes?) are VAT exempt.

    Should all clothes not suffer VAT? We are happy that there is a good reason why there are different treatments.

    If exempting farmers and farms from IHT serves a benefit to society by keeping together farmland to ensure sizes are cost effective to manage then that is surely good as it keeps a healthy industry going.

    Maybe a better approach would have been to exempt owner occupier farmers so that those tracts of farmland owned by wealthy individuals as an asset that were leased out and no activity by owner would be taxed but not family farms.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098
    edited November 19

    Isn't the historical trend for satisfaction ratings to tend downwards over time?

    If Badenoch can persuade the 'Don't Knows' to like her, she wins. That's certainly possible, but is it likely?

    Yes but Farage doesn't even need to persuade DKs. He only needs to get the 28% who have a favourable view of him to all vote for him and Reform and he then has a strong chance of leading Reform to most seats in a hung parliament, especially as a lot of those 28% are Leave voting working class and lower middle class swing voters who voted for the Boris led Tories in 2019 but Starmer Labour in 2024 and could easily vote Farage next time
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,988
    Phil said:

    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

    Unfortunately THE theme of the times is privileged, prosperous amoral chancers persuading the folk at the bottom that somehow they’re on their side. Clarkson (Repton) and Lloyd Webber (Westminster) aren’t a bad fit for that model.
    *tugs forelock and taps side of nose at the same time*
    Look, they’re rich, smart guys, they must know what they’re talking abaht.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,202
    boulay said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    Aren’t there already exemptions on the tax system where it makes sense for society to have these exemptions?

    For example I believe in the UK that children’s shoes (and clothes?) are VAT exempt.

    Should all clothes not suffer VAT? We are happy that there is a good reason why there are different treatments.

    If exempting farmers and farms from IHT serves a benefit to society by keeping together farmland to ensure sizes are cost effective to manage then that is surely good as it keeps a healthy industry going.

    Maybe a better approach would have been to exempt owner occupier farmers so that those tracts of farmland owned by wealthy individuals as an asset that were leased out and no activity by owner would be taxed but not family farms.
    But does it?

    Surely it simply encourages farmers to sell their land to investment managers and to pocket a quick buck.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,418
    xyzxyzxyz said:

    Phil said:

    I agree with OGH junior.

    Abolishing IHT altogether and introducing a very low rate assets tax would be a simpler and less objectionable way to deal with the distortion that the exemption of agricultural land from IHT created, compared to the policy that Labour introduced.

    Imagine the screaming from the large landowners. IHT is bad enough: an asset tax! Mon dieu!
    Cutting IHT to a level payed by the monarch and on public sector pensions eg 0% could be payed for by reducing the carbon capture and storage budget by 50%.

    No it could not. The money wasted on carbon capture and storage is a lump sum amount, whereas IHT is income every year.

    Much as I dislike the decision to waste time and money on CCS, your making yourself look like a twerp to set off capital expenditure against recurring taxation.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,202
    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
    I don't understand.

    Is corn from a family owned farm different to corn from a farm owned by a company?
    The typical attitude of a liberal globalist citizen of nowhere.

    It is farming families who know how to work the land, who care about the food they produce for the local community and our nation even when the chips are down as during the war. Global corporations care for neither and would happily sell most of the food they produce abroad if the price was right and just use the land for short term profit not long term benefit.

    That is why the tractor tax is so hated with 57% of British voters wanting it scrapped and just 24% wanting inheritance tax on family farms

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1858787981303185664
    No, the attitude of someone with an understanding of economics.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,656
    edited November 19
    So I am told by a pollster that when the public are told the value of the IHT exemptions for farmers the support for the farmers craters.

    I was right, the voters do not like people getting unjustifiable tax exemptions.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,316
    xyzxyzxyz said:

    Phil said:

    I agree with OGH junior.

    Abolishing IHT altogether and introducing a very low rate assets tax would be a simpler and less objectionable way to deal with the distortion that the exemption of agricultural land from IHT created, compared to the policy that Labour introduced.

    Imagine the screaming from the large landowners. IHT is bad enough: an asset tax! Mon dieu!
    Cutting IHT to a level payed by the monarch and on public sector pensions eg 0% could be payed for by reducing the carbon capture and storage budget by 50%.

    As an aside: this simply isn’t true.

    I completely agree that carbon capture is a complete waste of money at the current time, with far better options available for carbon reduction if that’s the government’s goal, but the annoucement was for £22billion over 25 years, so less than a £1billion / annum.

    IHT raises ~£7.5billion / annum.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,376

    Leon said:

    Rachel Reeves is doing quite spectacularly badly

    She’s utterly toast if we have a bad/freezing winter and the papers are full of stories of the granny who froze to death because Reeves took away her winter fuel allowance.
    That shock horror story could come as soon as this week, and perception trumps reality. Old people dying as the cold weather draws in tells the tale even if the people in question retain their WFA.

    Cutting WFA is a spectacularly ludicrous policy for little gain

    The farmers on the other hand? Sod 'em!
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,316

    So I am told by a pollster that when the public are told the value of the IHT exemptions for farmers the support for the farmers craters.

    I was right, the voters do not like people getting unjustifiable tax exemptions.

    This government really is quite spectacularly bad at the PR side of things.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,428
    edited November 19

    Leon said:

    Rachel Reeves is doing quite spectacularly badly

    She’s utterly toast if we have a bad/freezing winter and the papers are full of stories of the granny who froze to death because Reeves took away her winter fuel allowance.
    She's doomed anyway. That hair colour change was symbolic, a sign of early panic. We've had the endless lies on her CV, now the farming thing, following the WFA debacle, the pathetic fibs about the £22bn black hole, the economy is already tottering towards recession, her pro-growth policies are already failing

    If she isn't booted I predict that in about 18 months, when it is obvious the growth is not coming and her insane tax proposals are actually costing money, not making it, Starmer will sacrifice her to save his own skin
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,672

    Phil said:

    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

    Unfortunately THE theme of the times is privileged, prosperous amoral chancers persuading the folk at the bottom that somehow they’re on their side. Clarkson (Repton) and Lloyd Webber (Westminster) aren’t a bad fit for that model.
    *tugs forelock and taps side of nose at the same time*
    Look, they’re rich, smart guys, they must know what they’re talking abaht.
    When I was doing aa triathlon at Oundle School earlier in the year, someone in the registration queue commented on the rather majestic aircraft hanger-like sports hall. "Better than my old school," I said.
    "Where did you go?" he asked.
    "I went to school in Repton.
    "Oh", he said, "a posho."
    "No," I replied. "I went to school in Repton, not at Repton. I was at primary school there."
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098
    edited November 19
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
    I don't understand.

    Is corn from a family owned farm different to corn from a farm owned by a company?
    The typical attitude of a liberal globalist citizen of nowhere.

    It is farming families who know how to work the land, who care about the food they produce for the local community and our nation even when the chips are down as during the war. Global corporations care for neither and would happily sell most of the food they produce abroad if the price was right and just use the land for short term profit not long term benefit.

    That is why the tractor tax is so hated with 57% of British voters wanting it scrapped and just 24% wanting inheritance tax on family farms

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1858787981303185664
    No, the attitude of someone with an understanding of economics.
    Oscar Wilde economics ie someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

    However unchallenged globalist liberalism is near the end of its day, hence Trump, hence Brexit and Farage, hence Meloni, hence Le Pen, hence the AfD, hence Modi, hence even Corbyn, Melenchon and Sanders and Lula and arguably even Putin.

    Indeed even the Liberal Democrats, supposedly the main party of globalist liberalism now in the UK, oppose the tractor tax
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,746

    Isn't the historical trend for satisfaction ratings to tend downwards over time?

    If Badenoch can persuade the 'Don't Knows' to like her, she wins. That's certainly possible, but is it likely?

    Generally yes to go down, but she could win in the way Johnson did in 2019.
    Labour deciding to try one more election with Jeremy Corbyn as leader? It looks like a long shot from here, I'll be honest! :wink:
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,598
    Leon said:

    Brexit has allowed us to save our beautiful seabirds

    Now the EU wants to reverse our noble bravery, and kill off every last British puffin and puffling

    "Puffins, Kittiwakes, Razorbills—the UK’s decision to end sandeel fishing was a hard-won lifeline for our struggling seabirds.

    The EU’s move to challenge it risks undoing that progress. 🚨

    We urge the Commission to support, not undermine, this key step for marine biodiversity."

    https://x.com/Natures_Voice/status/1858820509732843521

    I had thought it was a fertiliser - blood fish & bone meal, but apparently I'm out of date: mostly used for animal feed these days:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_meal
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,689
    Leon said:

    Brexit has allowed us to save our beautiful seabirds

    Now the EU wants to reverse our noble bravery, and kill off every last British puffin and puffling

    "Puffins, Kittiwakes, Razorbills—the UK’s decision to end sandeel fishing was a hard-won lifeline for our struggling seabirds.

    The EU’s move to challenge it risks undoing that progress. 🚨

    We urge the Commission to support, not undermine, this key step for marine biodiversity."

    https://x.com/Natures_Voice/status/1858820509732843521

    This could be Starmer's opportunity for a Falklands moment. If EU boats come near our sandeels, they will have to be sunk.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,428
    Phil said:

    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

    Really not sure quoting a tweet by a bell-end lefty like "Otto English" says much at all about anything. Also, why has't he fucked off to Bluesky, where he can be ignored?
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,489

    Phil said:

    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

    Unfortunately THE theme of the times is privileged, prosperous amoral chancers persuading the folk at the bottom that somehow they’re on their side. Clarkson (Repton) and Lloyd Webber (Westminster) aren’t a bad fit for that model.
    *tugs forelock and taps side of nose at the same time*
    Look, they’re rich, smart guys, they must know what they’re talking abaht.
    When I was doing aa triathlon at Oundle School earlier in the year, someone in the registration queue commented on the rather majestic aircraft hanger-like sports hall. "Better than my old school," I said.
    "Where did you go?" he asked.
    "I went to school in Repton.
    "Oh", he said, "a posho."
    "No," I replied. "I went to school in Repton, not at Repton. I was at primary school there."
    What happened next?
  • KnightOutKnightOut Posts: 144
    HYUFD said:

    I

    You end up with Reform 242 seats, Labour 181, the Tories 90 and LDs 75.

    So Farage could be PM of a minority government with Tory confidence and supply. At the moment however Reform is still polling clearly below Farage's favourable rating and below the Tories and Labour still, even if up a bit on July


    Who would the 242 Reform MPs actually be, and what skills and abilities and experience would they possess? How will they actually govern?

    I guess it's possible they might surprise on the upside, and there would be a few decent individual members I'm sure, but on balance I'd expect an unprofessional, uncoordinated shitshow that makes the 2015 SNP Westminster intake look competent. Possibly even on a par with those BNP councillors from a few years back who struggled to even read the agendas for council meetings.

    If the current five - chosen for the top target seats - represent the top 0.5% of what the party has to offer, the overall calibre must be shocking.

    I know this is probably not how your typical Reform voter thinks, but if they expect to get Farage x 242, they're likely going to be in for disappointment.



  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,000
    rcs1000 said:

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    Clarkson gave a helpful interview saying exactly that.

    Instead of the original tax dodge he will now have to invest time and money in a different tax dodge, and he is quote upset about it
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,489
    Phil said:

    So I am told by a pollster that when the public are told the value of the IHT exemptions for farmers the support for the farmers craters.

    I was right, the voters do not like people getting unjustifiable tax exemptions.

    This government really is quite spectacularly bad at the PR side of things.
    So was the last. Maybe it’s impossible these days for a government to be on top of things fully and all the time from a PR perspective as there are so many millions of “voices” on social media and new media not just old media who are pulling things apart and critiquing.

    We might just get used to the absolute facts we never truly saw that governments are incompetent by nature under the skin.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,080
    edited November 19
    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

    Really not sure quoting a tweet by a bell-end lefty like "Otto English" says much at all about anything. Also, why has't he fucked off to Bluesky, where he can be ignored?
    You won't guess what he blames as the reason for farmers having to pay this IHT....
  • Selebian said:

    Isn't the historical trend for satisfaction ratings to tend downwards over time?

    If Badenoch can persuade the 'Don't Knows' to like her, she wins. That's certainly possible, but is it likely?

    Generally yes to go down, but she could win in the way Johnson did in 2019.
    Labour deciding to try one more election with Jeremy Corbyn as leader? It looks like a long shot from here, I'll be honest! :wink:
    Not quite, a really unpopular leader defeats an even more unpopular leader.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,689

    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

    Really not sure quoting a tweet by a bell-end lefty like "Otto English" says much at all about anything. Also, why has't he fucked off to Bluesky, where he can be ignored?
    You won't guess what he blames for the reason for farmers having to pay this IHT....
    Is it Brexit?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,376
    I was quite impressed with Badenoch's stirring speech about downtrodden workers and the nation's indebtedness for their labours

    The miners strike might have turned out so differently if we'd had Kemi on board.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,428
    Scott_xP said:

    rcs1000 said:

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    Clarkson gave a helpful interview saying exactly that.

    Instead of the original tax dodge he will now have to invest time and money in a different tax dodge, and he is quote upset about it
    Or rather his accountant will. The suffering. Will no one think of the accountants?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098

    So I am told by a pollster that when the public are told the value of the IHT exemptions for farmers the support for the farmers craters.

    I was right, the voters do not like people getting unjustifiable tax exemptions.

    I doubt it changes that much, not least as to get all the tax exemptions you add in the home and the allowance transferred to spouses which are not relevant to the land itself.

    So the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP will still hammer Labour on their wicked tractor tax which will destroy the family farmland on which our nation's foodsupply depends
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,660

    On topic:


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    1h
    That means Kemi Badenoch is committed to going into the next election with her two priorities being a tax cut for farmers with proprieties worth over £3 million, and a tax cut for parents of private school children. I'm not sure that's where the Tories need to be.

    I think the Conservative party will really suffer under the 'noch.

    She's the perfect storm. A clownish libertarian for the home counties retirees and a fiscally tight pseudo-globalist for the red wall. IMO If we keep the current leaders for 2029: Reform will be on a higher voter percentage and Labour a small majority or Libdem & Green confidence and supply. Honestly Nige is much closer to power than I want.

    Johnson killed the modern Conservative party and Badenoch will be alienating the last of the base.
    She is not alienating me nor the many locals the conservatives are gaining from Labour
    Give her time to ooze into the nations consciousness. Doubt 1 in 10 could name the current Cons leader.
  • DoctorGDoctorG Posts: 48
    edited November 19
    boulay said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    Aren’t there already exemptions on the tax system where it makes sense for society to have these exemptions?

    For example I believe in the UK that children’s shoes (and clothes?) are VAT exempt.

    Should all clothes not suffer VAT? We are happy that there is a good reason why there are different treatments.

    If exempting farmers and farms from IHT serves a benefit to society by keeping together farmland to ensure sizes are cost effective to manage then that is surely good as it keeps a healthy industry going.

    Maybe a better approach would have been to exempt owner occupier farmers so that those tracts of farmland owned by wealthy individuals as an asset that were leased out and no activity by owner would be taxed but not family farms.
    Phil said:

    So I am told by a pollster that when the public are told the value of the IHT exemptions for farmers the support for the farmers craters.

    I was right, the voters do not like people getting unjustifiable tax exemptions.

    This government really is quite spectacularly bad at the PR side of things.
    I think the Tories have missed a trick by not putting in place some form of levy on larger companies/investors buying land when they were in government, they could have sold it to their core vote as a family farm exemption. I've no issue with land being subjected to either full CGT/a windfall tax if the beneficiary sells up and chooses not to reinvest/use rollover relief

    It's incredibly bad comms from Labour - Clarkson thinks the policy was hastily arranged, even Defra have had a swipe at Reeves for the way it's being implemented
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,672
    boulay said:

    Phil said:

    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

    Unfortunately THE theme of the times is privileged, prosperous amoral chancers persuading the folk at the bottom that somehow they’re on their side. Clarkson (Repton) and Lloyd Webber (Westminster) aren’t a bad fit for that model.
    *tugs forelock and taps side of nose at the same time*
    Look, they’re rich, smart guys, they must know what they’re talking abaht.
    When I was doing aa triathlon at Oundle School earlier in the year, someone in the registration queue commented on the rather majestic aircraft hanger-like sports hall. "Better than my old school," I said.
    "Where did you go?" he asked.
    "I went to school in Repton.
    "Oh", he said, "a posho."
    "No," I replied. "I went to school in Repton, not at Repton. I was at primary school there."
    What happened next?
    He laughed. And then I got changed and swum 600 metres in their rather excellent 50-metre pool, cycled 25km, and ran 5km around their playing fields. Which annoyingly were not as flat as I hoped.

    (Indoor 50-metre pools are quite unusual in the UK; most are 25 metre. I was quite looking forward to swimming in it, but the boom had broken down halfway across, so we ended up swimming in one half of the pool, climbing out, then getting into the other half to continue the swim.)
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,098

    I was quite impressed with Badenoch's stirring speech about downtrodden workers and the nation's indebtedness for their labours

    The miners strike might have turned out so differently if we'd had Kemi on board.

    Kemi can also back the miners now too after Ed Miliband scrapped what would have been the last mine left in the UK in Cumbria
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,475
    HYUFD said:

    I was quite impressed with Badenoch's stirring speech about downtrodden workers and the nation's indebtedness for their labours

    The miners strike might have turned out so differently if we'd had Kemi on board.

    Kemi can also back the miners now too after Ed Miliband scrapped what would have been the last mine left in the UK in Cumbria
    She flipping well should do.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,217
    An account of the regnum * of Justin Welby, by the Church Mouse (whom some may recall as writing for the Indy, and publishing a well-received, idiosyncratic book called "Beard Theology: A holy history of hairy faces.").

    Detailed, and probably includes some things that will not be familiar.

    A church on its knees: the Welby legacy
    https://www.churchmousepublishing.co.uk/2024/11/a-church-on-its-knees-welby-legacy.html

    * I think this is the correct word, since the period in-between Vicars is called an interregnum.
  • Winter fuel cut to push up to 100,000 pensioners into poverty, DWP analysis shows

    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/winter-fuel-cut-up-to-100000-pensioners-poverty-dwp-analysis-shows-3389224?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,428
    Fucksake, already dark by 4pm
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,080
    edited November 19

    boulay said:

    Phil said:

    Next up, after Jeremy “I bought my farm in order to avoid inheritance tax“ Clarkson; that well known farmer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who definitely hasn’t bought 5,000 acres in order to avoid inheritance tax: https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1858860636609876027

    Really not sure leading with these guys is doing the farming lobby any favours with the wider public? But maybe that’s just my left-liberal bubble speaking.

    Unfortunately THE theme of the times is privileged, prosperous amoral chancers persuading the folk at the bottom that somehow they’re on their side. Clarkson (Repton) and Lloyd Webber (Westminster) aren’t a bad fit for that model.
    *tugs forelock and taps side of nose at the same time*
    Look, they’re rich, smart guys, they must know what they’re talking abaht.
    When I was doing aa triathlon at Oundle School earlier in the year, someone in the registration queue commented on the rather majestic aircraft hanger-like sports hall. "Better than my old school," I said.
    "Where did you go?" he asked.
    "I went to school in Repton.
    "Oh", he said, "a posho."
    "No," I replied. "I went to school in Repton, not at Repton. I was at primary school there."
    What happened next?
    He laughed. And then I got changed and swum 600 metres in their rather excellent 50-metre pool, cycled 25km, and ran 5km around their playing fields. Which annoyingly were not as flat as I hoped.

    (Indoor 50-metre pools are quite unusual in the UK; most are 25 metre. I was quite looking forward to swimming in it, but the boom had broken down halfway across, so we ended up swimming in one half of the pool, climbing out, then getting into the other half to continue the swim.)
    Until recently Bath Uni had a very rare 49.96 m pool. Long story, short version - they built a pool that was exactly 50 m long and forgot about the tiles...
    Until recently? They no longer have a ~50m pool or they fixed the 49.96m pool to be 50m?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,983
    edited November 19
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Before I start my work day... I just wanted to chip in very briefly on the IHT and farms issue.

    When I was a fund manager, two of my older colleagues bought farms. Partly this was because they were obsessive fans of shooting small birds out of the sky ("the humane harvesting of organic free range produce" claimed one). But mostly it was to enable them to take advantage of the inheritance tax break. This will - of course - have pushed up the price of farmland, because people like my colleagues will have acquired farms solely for tax reasons.

    I am not a fan of exemptions. Why should passing on a shoe shop to one's daughter be subject to inheritance tax, but not a a corn field? And why should a town house be subject to tax, but a farm house be not.

    On the other hand, inheritance tax is easily dodged by the wealthy and the well prepared. The use of trusts, gifts, and ensuring assets are held by corporate bodies is such that if you don't want to pay IHT, you don't need to.

    I would therefore abolish it, and replace it with a very small (say 0.1%) gross assets levy.

    As we need family farms for our food.

    Labour could have kept the exemption for 3 generations or more of family farmers but refused as it is a measure of socialist class war
    I don't understand.

    Is corn from a family owned farm different to corn from a farm owned by a company?
    A family owned farm will produce more food than a field sold to build houses.
    Oh, so farmers never sell land to developers.

    Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up then.
    It's about stewardship.

    Would you prefer Farmer Tess or Monsanto in charge of the corporate.

    Plus re your previous post, game is one of the most natural foods to eat. Nice, free range life then shot out of the sky. And delicious.

    And of course your ex colleagues bought farms because as well as the tax there is the status. And I appreciate you can switch round the priority of those but many City boys want to be Country Gents. The tax is just the icing on the cake.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,746

    Selebian said:

    Isn't the historical trend for satisfaction ratings to tend downwards over time?

    If Badenoch can persuade the 'Don't Knows' to like her, she wins. That's certainly possible, but is it likely?

    Generally yes to go down, but she could win in the way Johnson did in 2019.
    Labour deciding to try one more election with Jeremy Corbyn as leader? It looks like a long shot from here, I'll be honest! :wink:
    Not quite, a really unpopular leader defeats an even more unpopular leader.
    To be fair, that's every general election since Cameron resigned (PBUH). And maybe even Cameron's 2015 victory (although he wasn't super unpopular).
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