You could also ban contraception and abortion. Romania managed to grow its population this way, albeit with orphanages.
You probably have to row back a fair way on women's rights and heavily reward it socially and in the tax system to boost population.
Women themselves, on average, want to have more children. You don't have to fight them to force them to do so. You just need to make it easier for them.
One option is to make it socially acceptable for women to have children without a long-term partner. Waiting for Mr Right to come along (who themself is ready to be a parent) seems to be one of the bigger impediments. And then, of course, you need to have the support to ensure that those children grown up to be well-adjusted without a Dad.
Or women, especially graduate career women, could be less fussy in the men they are willing to date and marry
Just the women should? Did you just marry any old girl or did you wait to find someone you fancied and felt you could make a life partnership with? I think a lot of men should be very glad that a lot of women are less fussy about who they are willing to date and marry.
Men need to up their game for starters - have you noticed how terribly British men dress, especially in the summer? Like overgrown children.
Maybe the guys need to stop fetishising the Love Island look and go for brains and then they might talk to the graduate career women who don’t look the part and both find a match.
Graduate career women know that having children will, in most cases, kibosh their career. Sure there are laws and regulations to stop it but frankly they have a choice of banging out a family earlier then going back to their career and building from there or stopping when they have career momentum and having the children.
I know some who have become board level at banks and law firms but they are the exceptions.
Many will understandably choose their career - would you give up your career to raise your children instead of your wife?
Being a good father has sod all to do with how well you dress.
Throughout history most women never had a career at all, their primary role was being home makers and raising children.
They can work part time in the early years when their children are young and then shift back to full time as they start school.
If they are rich enough to be at board level at banks and law firms they are rich enough to get nannies too
This ignorance is why these women have rejected you. They can work when and how the fuck they like without your approval and funnily enough, a lot of women, far more successful than you, would like not to hand over the upbringing of their children to a nanny, and have to make that decision not out of pure choice but because biology means they are the only party in the relationship who can gestate children.
I am married as I said, not to a liberal self absorbed career above all else woman however.
I don't give a shit how successful women are career wise at the end of the day if they want children they should find a man and stick to them and yes that may well mean giving up working full time when their children are young and if they don't want a nanny.
Why do you think many young men are surging to the far right and populist right across the western world in elections while young women vote still mainly for 'progressive' parties?
It is because in part many young men are fed up of traditional gender roles being discarded and some women putting their careers first so much they refuse to even consider a role for most men in their lives and as husbands and fathers
Your last paragraph is weird
Why should women be subservient to men ?
Well the Bible says it so if you are a traditional Christian
'Ephesians 5:22-24: "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior."
Or for Muslims Surah An-Nisa (4:34) "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more [strength] than the other, and because they support them from their means."
So that is Paul's opinion not God/Jesus. Also the Islamic quote doesn't say anything about women being subservient to men. You can protect and support your wife without suborning her
I dunno, but I’m PRETTY sure Islam is quite firm on the “women are subservient” thing. Just a hunch
I also wonder how many of you brave atheists would be as rude to a devout Muslim on here, as you are to dear old @HYUFD
I suspect very few of you would manage it
🙋♂️
I couldn't care less which medieval religion people have, I'm quite happy to speak my mind either way. Have done so in the past and on this site was called Islamophobic by someone here for disagreeing with their beliefs. Was someone who didn't last long, can't remember their name.
I was criticised a few years ago on here for using the phrase 'Middle Eastern Sky Fairies' to describe the Abrahamic religions.
I think that this pretty much sums up my position but I also find it wrong to express such disrespectful views of those with religious beliefs, including @HYUFD (Kudos to him for the first like to my comment above, by the way).
I have a real problem with the misogynistic views of many religions, the Muslim religion in particular. I think those who come to live here should seek to assimilate and acknowledge that we have moved on from that. I do not think we should respect religious views that are inconsistent with our fundamental principles.
Hmm well I suspect you would find some of my religous views inconsistent but I am a celtic pagan.....not someone coming in how do you square that circle?
Well as long as you are not for burning virgins or whatever I don't really care what your religious beliefs are.
People are entitled to their private views but as a society we need to accept that the majority view is that there are 2 sexes, they are equal, people can sleep with whoever they want provided that they are of age and not too closely related, the colour of a person's skin is completely irrelevant and we should care for those who are vulnerable and in need. Pretty basic stuff, really.
I am fine with the second paragraph and we certainly dont burn virgins as its a waste plus they are hard to find. Just pointing out that some of our practises are probably illegal
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Sofia is a strange city. It should be an historic gem but I recently learned that the RAF - with American help - completely obliterated the ancient centre in WW2
Yay UK
Bulgaria were Allies of Germany (in both World Wars), no?
They expanded all the way down to the Northern Greek coast in World War Ii, and then had to hand it all back again.
A strange and uniquely mixed record on their Jewish population- I think almost all of their own were saved, but they helped to round up about 60,000 Greek Jews, in the historic adversary to the South. Although as with Western Turkey, a lot of the people in Southwest of the country have Greek connections.
They also have beautiful choirs, from the North to the South of the country, and great musical traditions.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
DUP Leader Gavin Robinson said: “The Belfast Agreement sought to address issues of identity and whilst people living in Northern Ireland could avail of an Irish passport, there was no reciprocal arrangement in the other direction. Those born in the Republic of Ireland after 1948 needed to undertake a lengthy and costly process of applying to the Home Office for British citizenship."
Yes, I wonder if the Home Office has smuggled through something unwanted while merely appearing to be nice to the Ulster Prods
Really?
It was a DUP private members bill. They'd tried to bring it in several times, as far back as 2001, but it's only in 2024 that it was given sufficient Parliamentary time.
You're being a complete loon about this. Way over the top conspiratorial thinking. It's really disturbing. Take a step back and think about it. William Glenn is winding you up.
Aren’t you the cretin that literally claimed, yesterday, that “it’s really encouraging that Britain is top of the world rape tables, as it shows our women are empowered”?
That was you, wasn’t it? I forget otherwise, you’re so nondescript
But, lol
Pedant point. England and Wales not Britain is top of the list. And it can't be the Welsh as they have all the sheep.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
It was an absolutely shocking policy.
The real way to redistribute wealth is to have a competitive free market with low barriers to entry and high turnover and social mobility - so all have the opportunity to become rich, and wealth does not accumulate with an elite like some sort of embolism. That is what the really rich do not want to happen.
Phillippe Sands is a wanker, part 94. Words upon going to Le Carré's funeral post his Brexit tantrum:
"He became an Irishman through his maternal grandmother. And it was very, very moving, I have to say, to arrive at the place of the memorial to find an Irish flag and only an Irish flag. He had really in the last years, grown very disillusioned with what had happened to Britain and the United Kingdom"
It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.
I think you'll find women are in one of two workforces everywhere in the world: either moneywork or housework (including babies).
It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.
I think you'll find women are in one of two workforces everywhere in the world: either moneywork or housework (including babies).
(I guess trust fund kids are the exception.)
(As an aside @Luckyguy1983 - what did said 20 year olds think the women of 1880 did before they got married and had kids?)
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
As they used to say in Lancashire of the nouveau riche; "Clogs to clogs in three generations.".
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.
I think you'll find women are in one of two workforces everywhere in the world: either moneywork or housework (including babies).
(I guess trust fund kids are the exception.)
(As an aside @Luckyguy1983 - what did said 20 year olds think the women of 1880 did before they got married and had kids?)
We didn't discuss that. They acknowledged that this aggressively anti-feminist stance was at odds with their views on a woman's right to choose, so it was certainly cakism, but an interesting perspective nonetheless.
Irish citizens have all the rights of a British citizen & all the rights of an EU citizen, so there isn't really much point in someone Irish getting a British passport, unless they wanted a Knighthood (like Terry Wogan did).
Irish citizens have all the rights of a British citizen & all the rights of an EU citizen, so there isn't really much point in someone Irish getting a British passport, unless they wanted a Knighthood (like Terry Wogan did).
My ex fil found it useful having both...he got deported from spain where he travelled on his irish passport so just went back a couple of hours later on his english passport
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Not just stamp duty though often the case around me that a smaller but more suitable property is also more expensive, for instance a 3 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom bungalow
Phillippe Sands is a wanker, part 94. Words upon going to Le Carré's funeral post his Brexit tantrum:
"He became an Irishman through his maternal grandmother. And it was very, very moving, I have to say, to arrive at the place of the memorial to find an Irish flag and only an Irish flag. He had really in the last years, grown very disillusioned with what had happened to Britain and the United Kingdom"
Increasingly, Le Carre became a wanker, in later life.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
People won't willingly move to a less pleasant area. It's not just about property size.
Irish citizens have all the rights of a British citizen & all the rights of an EU citizen, so there isn't really much point in someone Irish getting a British passport, unless they wanted a Knighthood (like Terry Wogan did).
How many non-European migrants have moved to Ireland in recent years? It’s a phenomenal number compared to the native Irish - something like 650,000 - 15% of the entire population
We brexited so that Freedom of Movement would end. And yet we have FoM with Ireland - so all of those 650,000 can move to the UK should they wish. And as Ireland seems to have an open door policy with regards to migrants we can expect this figure to rise
Truth is a future Reform government will have to look at the Common Travel Area - and bring it to an end, I believe. Enough
Meanwhile this legislation goes in the opposite direction. Opening OUR door even wider. Insane
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Some of the formerly rich will certainly be absolutely destitute...
I mean, imagine taking Rees-Mogg's wealth off him so he actually had to try and earn a living.
Phillippe Sands is a wanker, part 94. Words upon going to Le Carré's funeral post his Brexit tantrum:
"He became an Irishman through his maternal grandmother. And it was very, very moving, I have to say, to arrive at the place of the memorial to find an Irish flag and only an Irish flag. He had really in the last years, grown very disillusioned with what had happened to Britain and the United Kingdom"
Increasingly, Le Carre became a wanker, in later life.
Judging by post mortem revelations he was always a rotter. A betrayer and a cad, and horribly selfish
Modern economics, worldwide, probably doesn't lend itself to it either. Both parents need to work, full-time, in most places, and childcare is thus either absent or expensive. And children, in turn, are time and cash hungry to raise.
By the same token, if the world regressed to a more primitive economic state then I'd expect birth rates to rise again.
The problem, as always, is housing. If you don't have to pay rent or a mortgage then one income is fine to live on. One income should be enough to live on, and save for a deposit, and pay a mortgage.
Remove planning controls, collapse house prices back to a fair market rate, and then we wouldn't need 2 incomes just to keep heads above water. Wouldn't need to pay for childcare either.
A second income should be to pay for luxuries, not essentials.
If most women didn't work full time you wouldn't need 2 incomes for a home either, as that doubles the mortgage most couples can get and in turn doubles the house price
No, house prices, like all goods, are based on supply and demand. Supply isn't high enough.
If there were an abundance of supply, then it wouldn't matter that people could afford more, they'd have no reason to do so as alternative, affordable, houses are available.
Land for just a 3/4 bed house with consent costs £100k+ without any building. Land without consent costs £10k per acre.
That is the problem there. Mortgages are neither here nor there, it is supply and demand.
Even if we didn't build a single extra home, house prices would near halve overnight if most couples only had one earner seeking a mortgage as the price offered from the average couple for a home would be much lower.
Building new homes might help a bit as well but only if immigration also falls to reduce demand for homes
The trouble with that logic, is that imagine you could snap your fingers, and create a world where almost all women stayed at home, and this had the effect of halving houseprices.
How long would it be before some couples were wandering past the estate agents windows going "if you do 15 hrs a week whilst the kids are in school, we could afford this mansion, rather than a three bed semi... ". At which point the spiral starts again until everything is back where it is now, with two incomes needed for most people to afford a modest house.
The only fix for house prices is to get a grip of supply by relaxing planning, and reduce demand by reducing immigration to zero.
Which would still be part time work even then, not 2 full time worker mortgages as now
No, because it's a spiral. Once our everyone's wife is at 15 hrs a week, then it becomes "we could afford this mansion if you did an extra 10hrs a week..." and so on, until ultimately you're back at two full time salaries.
That's basically what happened in the UK between 1970 and 2000, which is why house price growth rocketed away from income growth.
1970 to 2004 (which is when the final set of increases arrived up north) as banks went from 3+1 mortgages to 3+3 and 4+4 income ratios..
Mortgages aren't remotely the issue, since would-be owners need to compete against landlords and roughly half of all landlord purchases of property is cash-only.
The issue is that supply is nowhere near demand. There are not enough buildings.
If there were more supply then people wouldn't need to max out their mortgage as they could afford a different home instead.
If there were more supply then not as many people would go in to let as buy to let isn't as attractive when you don't have any tenants in your empty property as would-be tenants are now actually-owners instead.
It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.
There's no conflict between feminism and women choosing not to work and look after their kids: the point is that it has to be a choice and not forced. But being beholden to a partner for money can also make them subservient to the partner if the partner is so inclined. Which again is fine if it is a free choice; but also somewhat goes against some feminist thinking.
However, it is interesting to see people say that women should be able to choose not to work, and those who want to ban the hijab, niqab or burqa as they are 'forced' on women.
If a woman can choose to be subservient to a partner in a relationship, why can another woman not choose to wear such headgear?
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
People won't willingly move to a less pleasant area. It's not just about property size.
Modern economics, worldwide, probably doesn't lend itself to it either. Both parents need to work, full-time, in most places, and childcare is thus either absent or expensive. And children, in turn, are time and cash hungry to raise.
By the same token, if the world regressed to a more primitive economic state then I'd expect birth rates to rise again.
The problem, as always, is housing. If you don't have to pay rent or a mortgage then one income is fine to live on. One income should be enough to live on, and save for a deposit, and pay a mortgage.
Remove planning controls, collapse house prices back to a fair market rate, and then we wouldn't need 2 incomes just to keep heads above water. Wouldn't need to pay for childcare either.
A second income should be to pay for luxuries, not essentials.
If most women didn't work full time you wouldn't need 2 incomes for a home either, as that doubles the mortgage most couples can get and in turn doubles the house price
No, house prices, like all goods, are based on supply and demand. Supply isn't high enough.
If there were an abundance of supply, then it wouldn't matter that people could afford more, they'd have no reason to do so as alternative, affordable, houses are available.
Land for just a 3/4 bed house with consent costs £100k+ without any building. Land without consent costs £10k per acre.
That is the problem there. Mortgages are neither here nor there, it is supply and demand.
Even if we didn't build a single extra home, house prices would near halve overnight if most couples only had one earner seeking a mortgage as the price offered from the average couple for a home would be much lower.
Building new homes might help a bit as well but only if immigration also falls to reduce demand for homes
The trouble with that logic, is that imagine you could snap your fingers, and create a world where almost all women stayed at home, and this had the effect of halving houseprices.
How long would it be before some couples were wandering past the estate agents windows going "if you do 15 hrs a week whilst the kids are in school, we could afford this mansion, rather than a three bed semi... ". At which point the spiral starts again until everything is back where it is now, with two incomes needed for most people to afford a modest house.
The only fix for house prices is to get a grip of supply by relaxing planning, and reduce demand by reducing immigration to zero.
If people want to pay extra for a mansion there's no issues with that, the problem is that its not simply mansions which are expensive but what should be entry-level family homes are obscenely expensive too.
The entire property market needs a price collapse. Which will only happen with a tremendous shock to supply and demand.
Modern economics, worldwide, probably doesn't lend itself to it either. Both parents need to work, full-time, in most places, and childcare is thus either absent or expensive. And children, in turn, are time and cash hungry to raise.
By the same token, if the world regressed to a more primitive economic state then I'd expect birth rates to rise again.
The problem, as always, is housing. If you don't have to pay rent or a mortgage then one income is fine to live on. One income should be enough to live on, and save for a deposit, and pay a mortgage.
Remove planning controls, collapse house prices back to a fair market rate, and then we wouldn't need 2 incomes just to keep heads above water. Wouldn't need to pay for childcare either.
A second income should be to pay for luxuries, not essentials.
If most women didn't work full time you wouldn't need 2 incomes for a home either, as that doubles the mortgage most couples can get and in turn doubles the house price
No, house prices, like all goods, are based on supply and demand. Supply isn't high enough.
If there were an abundance of supply, then it wouldn't matter that people could afford more, they'd have no reason to do so as alternative, affordable, houses are available.
Land for just a 3/4 bed house with consent costs £100k+ without any building. Land without consent costs £10k per acre.
That is the problem there. Mortgages are neither here nor there, it is supply and demand.
Even if we didn't build a single extra home, house prices would near halve overnight if most couples only had one earner seeking a mortgage as the price offered from the average couple for a home would be much lower.
Building new homes might help a bit as well but only if immigration also falls to reduce demand for homes
The trouble with that logic, is that imagine you could snap your fingers, and create a world where almost all women stayed at home, and this had the effect of halving houseprices.
How long would it be before some couples were wandering past the estate agents windows going "if you do 15 hrs a week whilst the kids are in school, we could afford this mansion, rather than a three bed semi... ". At which point the spiral starts again until everything is back where it is now, with two incomes needed for most people to afford a modest house.
The only fix for house prices is to get a grip of supply by relaxing planning, and reduce demand by reducing immigration to zero.
Which would still be part time work even then, not 2 full time worker mortgages as now
No, because it's a spiral. Once our everyone's wife is at 15 hrs a week, then it becomes "we could afford this mansion if you did an extra 10hrs a week..." and so on, until ultimately you're back at two full time salaries.
That's basically what happened in the UK between 1970 and 2000, which is why house price growth rocketed away from income growth.
1970 to 2004 (which is when the final set of increases arrived up north) as banks went from 3+1 mortgages to 3+3 and 4+4 income ratios..
Mortgages aren't remotely the issue, since would-be owners need to compete against landlords and roughly half of all landlord purchases of property is cash-only.
The issue is that supply is nowhere near demand. There are not enough buildings.
If there were more supply then people wouldn't need to max out their mortgage as they could afford a different home instead.
If there were more supply then not as many people would go in to let as buy to let isn't as attractive when you don't have any tenants in your empty property as would-be tenants are now actually-owners instead.
Even if there were more homes house prices will still remain high as long as there are significant numbers of 2 earner couples, lenders lending 4+ times income and unless immigration also falls significantly
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Some of the formerly rich will certainly be absolutely destitute...
I mean, imagine taking Rees-Mogg's wealth off him so he actually had to try and earn a living.
Rees Mogg worked in the City and Hong Kong, founded a hedge fund, was an MP for 14 years and a Cabinet minister.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Londoners would revolt if such a system came in.
So what?
I have an apartment in Central London that I use perhaps 100 days a year. That's not efficient use of housing.
Either I should pay handsomely for the privelege of blocking housing that could be used for someone who lives and works in London, or I should move. My proposal encourages me to move.
Someone who lives in a five bedroom home, where the kids have left home... well, if they want to trade down (and I'm not forcing them), then they shouldn't have to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds to do so. And if they do do so, then they should benefit too from a lower tax bill.
Modern economics, worldwide, probably doesn't lend itself to it either. Both parents need to work, full-time, in most places, and childcare is thus either absent or expensive. And children, in turn, are time and cash hungry to raise.
By the same token, if the world regressed to a more primitive economic state then I'd expect birth rates to rise again.
The problem, as always, is housing. If you don't have to pay rent or a mortgage then one income is fine to live on. One income should be enough to live on, and save for a deposit, and pay a mortgage.
Remove planning controls, collapse house prices back to a fair market rate, and then we wouldn't need 2 incomes just to keep heads above water. Wouldn't need to pay for childcare either.
A second income should be to pay for luxuries, not essentials.
If most women didn't work full time you wouldn't need 2 incomes for a home either, as that doubles the mortgage most couples can get and in turn doubles the house price
No, house prices, like all goods, are based on supply and demand. Supply isn't high enough.
If there were an abundance of supply, then it wouldn't matter that people could afford more, they'd have no reason to do so as alternative, affordable, houses are available.
Land for just a 3/4 bed house with consent costs £100k+ without any building. Land without consent costs £10k per acre.
That is the problem there. Mortgages are neither here nor there, it is supply and demand.
Even if we didn't build a single extra home, house prices would near halve overnight if most couples only had one earner seeking a mortgage as the price offered from the average couple for a home would be much lower.
Building new homes might help a bit as well but only if immigration also falls to reduce demand for homes
The trouble with that logic, is that imagine you could snap your fingers, and create a world where almost all women stayed at home, and this had the effect of halving houseprices.
How long would it be before some couples were wandering past the estate agents windows going "if you do 15 hrs a week whilst the kids are in school, we could afford this mansion, rather than a three bed semi... ". At which point the spiral starts again until everything is back where it is now, with two incomes needed for most people to afford a modest house.
The only fix for house prices is to get a grip of supply by relaxing planning, and reduce demand by reducing immigration to zero.
Which would still be part time work even then, not 2 full time worker mortgages as now
No, because it's a spiral. Once our everyone's wife is at 15 hrs a week, then it becomes "we could afford this mansion if you did an extra 10hrs a week..." and so on, until ultimately you're back at two full time salaries.
That's basically what happened in the UK between 1970 and 2000, which is why house price growth rocketed away from income growth.
1970 to 2004 (which is when the final set of increases arrived up north) as banks went from 3+1 mortgages to 3+3 and 4+4 income ratios..
Mortgages aren't remotely the issue, since would-be owners need to compete against landlords and roughly half of all landlord purchases of property is cash-only.
The issue is that supply is nowhere near demand. There are not enough buildings.
If there were more supply then people wouldn't need to max out their mortgage as they could afford a different home instead.
If there were more supply then not as many people would go in to let as buy to let isn't as attractive when you don't have any tenants in your empty property as would-be tenants are now actually-owners instead.
Even if there were more homes house prices will still remain high as long as there are significant numbers of 2 earner couples, lenders lending 4+ times income and unless immigration also falls significantly
If we built 10 million new homes over the next decade and had net migration of 2 million over that decade, do you think prices would rise or fall?
People spend a higher proportion of income on property than before, that's not because of 2 earner families, its because supply and demand is broken by an imbalanced market and too many restrictions preventing prices from falling down to a free market equilibrium.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
100% agreed.
I believe 1% tax on property would be enough to abolish not just Stamp Duty but Council Tax too.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Some of the formerly rich will certainly be absolutely destitute...
I mean, imagine taking Rees-Mogg's wealth off him so he actually had to try and earn a living.
Rees Mogg worked in the City, founded a hedge fund, was an MP for 14 years and a Cabinet minister.
All of it using inherited wealth. Apart from the cabinet minister, which he was totally inept at and appointed to because there was literally nobody else.
I worked as an academic, civil servant, author, publisher and then a teacher and have founded my own very successful international tutoring business which in five years has grown from me working with one person to an organisation with clients on five continents employing multiple tutors.
It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.
There's no conflict between feminism and women choosing not to work and look after their kids: the point is that it has to be a choice and not forced. But being beholden to a partner for money can also make them subservient to the partner if the partner is so inclined. Which again is fine if it is a free choice; but also somewhat goes against some feminist thinking.
However, it is interesting to see people say that women should be able to choose not to work, and those who want to ban the hijab, niqab or burqa as they are 'forced' on women.
If a woman can choose to be subservient to a partner in a relationship, why can another woman not choose to wear such headgear?
The issue with the hijab, niquab and burqua....I agree with you if they choose it. However some dont choose that life and have it forced on them. I give an example my son had been dating a girl for a couple of years and they were getting on for two years when they were getting towards two years, she had been round the house lots eaten with us, she was bright. They were getting serious so had to ask her do your parents know, did talk it over with my son first about what might happen. Yes her parents objected 1 month later she had been to pakistan and was married to a cousin she had never met. Now personally I think that might have been forced and now instead of the bright friendly intelligent girl I remember next time I saw her was traipsing along 2m behind her new husband eyes downcast and ignoring all her old friends from school
Modern economics, worldwide, probably doesn't lend itself to it either. Both parents need to work, full-time, in most places, and childcare is thus either absent or expensive. And children, in turn, are time and cash hungry to raise.
By the same token, if the world regressed to a more primitive economic state then I'd expect birth rates to rise again.
The problem, as always, is housing. If you don't have to pay rent or a mortgage then one income is fine to live on. One income should be enough to live on, and save for a deposit, and pay a mortgage.
Remove planning controls, collapse house prices back to a fair market rate, and then we wouldn't need 2 incomes just to keep heads above water. Wouldn't need to pay for childcare either.
A second income should be to pay for luxuries, not essentials.
If most women didn't work full time you wouldn't need 2 incomes for a home either, as that doubles the mortgage most couples can get and in turn doubles the house price
No, house prices, like all goods, are based on supply and demand. Supply isn't high enough.
If there were an abundance of supply, then it wouldn't matter that people could afford more, they'd have no reason to do so as alternative, affordable, houses are available.
Land for just a 3/4 bed house with consent costs £100k+ without any building. Land without consent costs £10k per acre.
That is the problem there. Mortgages are neither here nor there, it is supply and demand.
Even if we didn't build a single extra home, house prices would near halve overnight if most couples only had one earner seeking a mortgage as the price offered from the average couple for a home would be much lower.
Building new homes might help a bit as well but only if immigration also falls to reduce demand for homes
The trouble with that logic, is that imagine you could snap your fingers, and create a world where almost all women stayed at home, and this had the effect of halving houseprices.
How long would it be before some couples were wandering past the estate agents windows going "if you do 15 hrs a week whilst the kids are in school, we could afford this mansion, rather than a three bed semi... ". At which point the spiral starts again until everything is back where it is now, with two incomes needed for most people to afford a modest house.
The only fix for house prices is to get a grip of supply by relaxing planning, and reduce demand by reducing immigration to zero.
Which would still be part time work even then, not 2 full time worker mortgages as now
No, because it's a spiral. Once our everyone's wife is at 15 hrs a week, then it becomes "we could afford this mansion if you did an extra 10hrs a week..." and so on, until ultimately you're back at two full time salaries.
That's basically what happened in the UK between 1970 and 2000, which is why house price growth rocketed away from income growth.
1970 to 2004 (which is when the final set of increases arrived up north) as banks went from 3+1 mortgages to 3+3 and 4+4 income ratios..
Mortgages aren't remotely the issue, since would-be owners need to compete against landlords and roughly half of all landlord purchases of property is cash-only.
The issue is that supply is nowhere near demand. There are not enough buildings.
If there were more supply then people wouldn't need to max out their mortgage as they could afford a different home instead.
If there were more supply then not as many people would go in to let as buy to let isn't as attractive when you don't have any tenants in your empty property as would-be tenants are now actually-owners instead.
Even if there were more homes house prices will still remain high as long as there are significant numbers of 2 earner couples, lenders lending 4+ times income and unless immigration also falls significantly
If we built 10 million new homes over the next decade and had net migration of 2 million over that decade, do you think prices would rise or fall?
People spend a higher proportion of income on property than before, that's not because of 2 earner families, its because supply and demand is broken by an imbalanced market and too many restrictions preventing prices from falling down to a free market equilibrium.
Well we wouldn't have much countryside left and of course many of those 2 million would buy many of the new homes.
If only 1 earner was the norm only 1 earner would be needed to buy the average house, hence reducing average house prices without even a single new home being built
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Some of the formerly rich will certainly be absolutely destitute...
I mean, imagine taking Rees-Mogg's wealth off him so he actually had to try and earn a living.
Rees Mogg worked in the City, founded a hedge fund, was an MP for 14 years and a Cabinet minister.
All of it using inherited wealth. Apart from the cabinet minister, which he was totally inept at and appointed to because there was literally nobody else.
I worked as an academic, civil servant, author, publisher and then a teacher and have founded my own very successful international tutoring business which in five years has grown from me working with one person to an organisation with clients on five continents employing multiple tutors.
Your point being?
I should, in fairness, make three clarifying points:
1) I did inherit a fair sum from my parents, without which I would probably have been much more reluctant to branch out and start my own business. But the money from the business was earned by work, not by speculating that inheritance as Mogg's was;
2) I may be partly prejudiced against Mogg because he has a striking (and entirely chance) resemblance to a former individual I worked for whom I happen to know wasn't safe around children. However, this doesn't alter the fact he's an entitled and not very intelligent twat.
3) Every time I think of Mogg and how much I dislike him, I'm forced to remind myself that his niece is a *lot* worse.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Londoners would revolt if such a system came in.
So what?
I have an apartment in Central London that I use perhaps 100 days a year. That's not efficient use of housing.
Either I should pay handsomely for the privelege of blocking housing that could be used for someone who lives and works in London, or I should move. My proposal encourages me to move.
Someone who lives in a five bedroom home, where the kids have left home... well, if they want to trade down (and I'm not forcing them), then they shouldn't have to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds to do so. And if they do do so, then they should benefit too from a lower tax bill.
I'm not convinced that stamp duty is as much a deterrent as other considerations. It's not about money. We, a retired couple, live in a larger house than we strictly need. But, until my knees give in, we don't want to move. Two reasons, that I suspect others share: 1. We have kids and grandkids and like to have spare room(s) when they come to stay, particularly the grandkids. 2. The sheer hassle of moving is a real deterrent. One of us (clue: not me) has accumulated so much stuff that the prospect of having to pack everything up is terrifying - and it wouldn't all fit in a smaller space. (No, it can't be thrown away, apparently).
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Some of the formerly rich will certainly be absolutely destitute...
I mean, imagine taking Rees-Mogg's wealth off him so he actually had to try and earn a living.
Rees Mogg worked in the City, founded a hedge fund, was an MP for 14 years and a Cabinet minister.
All of it using inherited wealth. Apart from the cabinet minister, which he was totally inept at and appointed to because there was literally nobody else.
I worked as an academic, civil servant, author, publisher and then a teacher and have founded my own very successful international tutoring business which in five years has grown from me working with one person to an organisation with clients on five continents employing multiple tutors.
Your point being?
No, you don't get a job at Rothschild and last in the City and financial services for over 15 years and be an MP elected multiple times and Cabinet minister purely on inherited wealth.
All very good, you did a bit of work in education but you did not earn as much as Rees Mogg and most people will have heard of Rees Mogg, they won't have heard of you.
Not that there is anything wrong with inherited wealth anyway unless you are a communist, as you state you even inherit something yourself
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Some of the formerly rich will certainly be absolutely destitute...
I mean, imagine taking Rees-Mogg's wealth off him so he actually had to try and earn a living.
Rees Mogg worked in the City, founded a hedge fund, was an MP for 14 years and a Cabinet minister.
All of it using inherited wealth. Apart from the cabinet minister, which he was totally inept at and appointed to because there was literally nobody else.
I worked as an academic, civil servant, author, publisher and then a teacher and have founded my own very successful international tutoring business which in five years has grown from me working with one person to an organisation with clients on five continents employing multiple tutors.
Your point being?
I should, in fairness, make three clarifying points:
1) I did inherit a fair sum from my parents, without which I would probably have been much more reluctant to branch out and start my own business. But the money from the business was earned by work, not by speculating that inheritance as Mogg's was;
2) I may be partly prejudiced against Mogg because he has a striking (and entirely chance) resemblance to a former individual I worked for whom I happen to know wasn't safe around children. However, this doesn't alter the fact he's an entitled and not very intelligent twat.
3) Every time I think of Mogg and how much I dislike him, I'm forced to remind myself that his niece is a *lot* worse.
Modern economics, worldwide, probably doesn't lend itself to it either. Both parents need to work, full-time, in most places, and childcare is thus either absent or expensive. And children, in turn, are time and cash hungry to raise.
By the same token, if the world regressed to a more primitive economic state then I'd expect birth rates to rise again.
The problem, as always, is housing. If you don't have to pay rent or a mortgage then one income is fine to live on. One income should be enough to live on, and save for a deposit, and pay a mortgage.
Remove planning controls, collapse house prices back to a fair market rate, and then we wouldn't need 2 incomes just to keep heads above water. Wouldn't need to pay for childcare either.
A second income should be to pay for luxuries, not essentials.
If most women didn't work full time you wouldn't need 2 incomes for a home either, as that doubles the mortgage most couples can get and in turn doubles the house price
No, house prices, like all goods, are based on supply and demand. Supply isn't high enough.
If there were an abundance of supply, then it wouldn't matter that people could afford more, they'd have no reason to do so as alternative, affordable, houses are available.
Land for just a 3/4 bed house with consent costs £100k+ without any building. Land without consent costs £10k per acre.
That is the problem there. Mortgages are neither here nor there, it is supply and demand.
Even if we didn't build a single extra home, house prices would near halve overnight if most couples only had one earner seeking a mortgage as the price offered from the average couple for a home would be much lower.
Building new homes might help a bit as well but only if immigration also falls to reduce demand for homes
The trouble with that logic, is that imagine you could snap your fingers, and create a world where almost all women stayed at home, and this had the effect of halving houseprices.
How long would it be before some couples were wandering past the estate agents windows going "if you do 15 hrs a week whilst the kids are in school, we could afford this mansion, rather than a three bed semi... ". At which point the spiral starts again until everything is back where it is now, with two incomes needed for most people to afford a modest house.
The only fix for house prices is to get a grip of supply by relaxing planning, and reduce demand by reducing immigration to zero.
Which would still be part time work even then, not 2 full time worker mortgages as now
No, because it's a spiral. Once our everyone's wife is at 15 hrs a week, then it becomes "we could afford this mansion if you did an extra 10hrs a week..." and so on, until ultimately you're back at two full time salaries.
That's basically what happened in the UK between 1970 and 2000, which is why house price growth rocketed away from income growth.
1970 to 2004 (which is when the final set of increases arrived up north) as banks went from 3+1 mortgages to 3+3 and 4+4 income ratios..
Mortgages aren't remotely the issue, since would-be owners need to compete against landlords and roughly half of all landlord purchases of property is cash-only.
The issue is that supply is nowhere near demand. There are not enough buildings.
If there were more supply then people wouldn't need to max out their mortgage as they could afford a different home instead.
If there were more supply then not as many people would go in to let as buy to let isn't as attractive when you don't have any tenants in your empty property as would-be tenants are now actually-owners instead.
Even if there were more homes house prices will still remain high as long as there are significant numbers of 2 earner couples, lenders lending 4+ times income and unless immigration also falls significantly
If we built 10 million new homes over the next decade and had net migration of 2 million over that decade, do you think prices would rise or fall?
People spend a higher proportion of income on property than before, that's not because of 2 earner families, its because supply and demand is broken by an imbalanced market and too many restrictions preventing prices from falling down to a free market equilibrium.
Well we wouldn't have much countryside left and of course many of those 2 million would buy many of the new homes.
If only 1 earner was the norm only 1 earner would be needed to buy the average house, hence reducing average house prices without even a single new home being built
We'd have plenty of countryside left, over 90% of the country is countryside today so even if we doubled our quantity of homes we'd still have over 80% of the country being countryside. Oh and that's England-only data, not Scotland or Wales which is even more extreme.
No, it wouldn't, since not everyone is buying from any amounts of earners - or mortgages. You'd simply have landlords snapping up more homes, cash only, and more people paying their income on rent.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
I know there's more than one logical step involved, but I didn't think that was beyond you.
Oh, what an I saying. You're just an odious troll who has driven countless interesting people away from this site with your boring bad faith arguments.
I can see your gravestone now: "He argued with people online until they gave up out of boredom and disgust."
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
I know there's more than one logical step involved, but I didn't think that was beyond you.
Oh, what an I saying. You're just an odious troll who has driven countless interesting people away from this site with your boring bad faith arguments.
I can see your gravestone now: "He argued with people online until they gave up out of boredom and disgust."
Great legacy.
If I planned on having a gravestone only needs one inscription "AFK"
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Some might be, but millions wouldn't be.
Many people just need a lucky break in order to change their lives.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
No, presumably the goal is to have as few actual rapes as possible, but to have as many of those rapes as possible being reported.
Only a moron would conflate reported rapes with actual ones. Oh.
Ten years ago was before the Me Too movement etc when a lot of women started coming out of the woodwork and saying that they had been abused and never reported it. A lot of work has gone in the past decade into encouraging women to come forward to report abuse if it happens.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Some might be, but millions wouldn't be.
Many people just need a lucky break in order to change their lives.
Lottery millionaires disprove your point sadly the poor that win soon end up poor again
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Londoners would revolt if such a system came in.
So what?
I have an apartment in Central London that I use perhaps 100 days a year. That's not efficient use of housing.
Either I should pay handsomely for the privelege of blocking housing that could be used for someone who lives and works in London, or I should move. My proposal encourages me to move.
Someone who lives in a five bedroom home, where the kids have left home... well, if they want to trade down (and I'm not forcing them), then they shouldn't have to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds to do so. And if they do do so, then they should benefit too from a lower tax bill.
I'm not convinced that stamp duty is as much a deterrent as other considerations. It's not about money. We, a retired couple, live in a larger house than we strictly need. But, until my knees give in, we don't want to move. Two reasons, that I suspect others share: 1. We have kids and grandkids and like to have spare room(s) when they come to stay, particularly the grandkids. 2. The sheer hassle of moving is a real deterrent. One of us (clue: not me) has accumulated so much stuff that the prospect of having to pack everything up is terrifying - and it wouldn't all fit in a smaller space. (No, it can't be thrown away, apparently).
Ruthlessly throwing things away is definitely an underrated life hack.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Londoners would revolt if such a system came in.
So what?
I have an apartment in Central London that I use perhaps 100 days a year. That's not efficient use of housing.
Either I should pay handsomely for the privelege of blocking housing that could be used for someone who lives and works in London, or I should move. My proposal encourages me to move.
Someone who lives in a five bedroom home, where the kids have left home... well, if they want to trade down (and I'm not forcing them), then they shouldn't have to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds to do so. And if they do do so, then they should benefit too from a lower tax bill.
I'm not convinced that stamp duty is as much a deterrent as other considerations. It's not about money. We, a retired couple, live in a larger house than we strictly need. But, until my knees give in, we don't want to move. Two reasons, that I suspect others share: 1. We have kids and grandkids and like to have spare room(s) when they come to stay, particularly the grandkids. 2. The sheer hassle of moving is a real deterrent. One of us (clue: not me) has accumulated so much stuff that the prospect of having to pack everything up is terrifying - and it wouldn't all fit in a smaller space. (No, it can't be thrown away, apparently).
It's not a silver bullet.
But nothing is.
Will it encourage *some* people to downsize? Yes. Will it also encourage more housebuildng, as the cost of a new home has just falled 7%? Yes.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
Possibly on topic: One good sign for the US: A few blocks from where I live, a retired couple has, for years, put out a Canadian flag every July 1st — and an American flag every July 4th. I’ve always liked that, thinking it showed both the strength of our nations’ friendship — and their marriage.
This year, the couple did something very sensible; they put out both flags on the 1st — and on the 4th.
Our enemies want to divide us, so it is good to see even small efforts fighting their attempts.
(I took some photos of the flags both days; I'll try to post one tomorrow.)
Modern economics, worldwide, probably doesn't lend itself to it either. Both parents need to work, full-time, in most places, and childcare is thus either absent or expensive. And children, in turn, are time and cash hungry to raise.
By the same token, if the world regressed to a more primitive economic state then I'd expect birth rates to rise again.
The problem, as always, is housing. If you don't have to pay rent or a mortgage then one income is fine to live on. One income should be enough to live on, and save for a deposit, and pay a mortgage.
Remove planning controls, collapse house prices back to a fair market rate, and then we wouldn't need 2 incomes just to keep heads above water. Wouldn't need to pay for childcare either.
A second income should be to pay for luxuries, not essentials.
If most women didn't work full time you wouldn't need 2 incomes for a home either, as that doubles the mortgage most couples can get and in turn doubles the house price
No, house prices, like all goods, are based on supply and demand. Supply isn't high enough.
If there were an abundance of supply, then it wouldn't matter that people could afford more, they'd have no reason to do so as alternative, affordable, houses are available.
Land for just a 3/4 bed house with consent costs £100k+ without any building. Land without consent costs £10k per acre.
That is the problem there. Mortgages are neither here nor there, it is supply and demand.
Even if we didn't build a single extra home, house prices would near halve overnight if most couples only had one earner seeking a mortgage as the price offered from the average couple for a home would be much lower.
Building new homes might help a bit as well but only if immigration also falls to reduce demand for homes
The trouble with that logic, is that imagine you could snap your fingers, and create a world where almost all women stayed at home, and this had the effect of halving houseprices.
How long would it be before some couples were wandering past the estate agents windows going "if you do 15 hrs a week whilst the kids are in school, we could afford this mansion, rather than a three bed semi... ". At which point the spiral starts again until everything is back where it is now, with two incomes needed for most people to afford a modest house.
The only fix for house prices is to get a grip of supply by relaxing planning, and reduce demand by reducing immigration to zero.
Which would still be part time work even then, not 2 full time worker mortgages as now
No, because it's a spiral. Once our everyone's wife is at 15 hrs a week, then it becomes "we could afford this mansion if you did an extra 10hrs a week..." and so on, until ultimately you're back at two full time salaries.
That's basically what happened in the UK between 1970 and 2000, which is why house price growth rocketed away from income growth.
1970 to 2004 (which is when the final set of increases arrived up north) as banks went from 3+1 mortgages to 3+3 and 4+4 income ratios..
Mortgages aren't remotely the issue, since would-be owners need to compete against landlords and roughly half of all landlord purchases of property is cash-only.
The issue is that supply is nowhere near demand. There are not enough buildings.
If there were more supply then people wouldn't need to max out their mortgage as they could afford a different home instead.
If there were more supply then not as many people would go in to let as buy to let isn't as attractive when you don't have any tenants in your empty property as would-be tenants are now actually-owners instead.
Even if there were more homes house prices will still remain high as long as there are significant numbers of 2 earner couples, lenders lending 4+ times income and unless immigration also falls significantly
If we built 10 million new homes over the next decade and had net migration of 2 million over that decade, do you think prices would rise or fall?
People spend a higher proportion of income on property than before, that's not because of 2 earner families, its because supply and demand is broken by an imbalanced market and too many restrictions preventing prices from falling down to a free market equilibrium.
Well we wouldn't have much countryside left and of course many of those 2 million would buy many of the new homes.
If only 1 earner was the norm only 1 earner would be needed to buy the average house, hence reducing average house prices without even a single new home being built
We'd have plenty of countryside left, over 90% of the country is countryside today so even if we doubled our quantity of homes we'd still have over 80% of the country being countryside. Oh and that's England-only data, not Scotland or Wales which is even more extreme.
No, it wouldn't, since not everyone is buying from any amounts of earners - or mortgages. You'd simply have landlords snapping up more homes, cash only, and more people paying their income on rent.
Which would even then have a hugely detrimental affect on our farmland and food supply and natural beauty of our countryside.
Most home buyers are now 2 earner couples, landlords are specialist buy to let and 50 years ago when most home buyers were 1 earner couples house prices were lower and there were no more landlords than now
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Londoners would revolt if such a system came in.
So what?
I have an apartment in Central London that I use perhaps 100 days a year. That's not efficient use of housing.
Either I should pay handsomely for the privelege of blocking housing that could be used for someone who lives and works in London, or I should move. My proposal encourages me to move.
Someone who lives in a five bedroom home, where the kids have left home... well, if they want to trade down (and I'm not forcing them), then they shouldn't have to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds to do so. And if they do do so, then they should benefit too from a lower tax bill.
I'm not convinced that stamp duty is as much a deterrent as other considerations. It's not about money. We, a retired couple, live in a larger house than we strictly need. But, until my knees give in, we don't want to move. Two reasons, that I suspect others share: 1. We have kids and grandkids and like to have spare room(s) when they come to stay, particularly the grandkids. 2. The sheer hassle of moving is a real deterrent. One of us (clue: not me) has accumulated so much stuff that the prospect of having to pack everything up is terrifying - and it wouldn't all fit in a smaller space. (No, it can't be thrown away, apparently).
Ruthlessly throwing things away is definitely an underrated life hack.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Londoners would revolt if such a system came in.
So what?
I have an apartment in Central London that I use perhaps 100 days a year. That's not efficient use of housing.
Either I should pay handsomely for the privelege of blocking housing that could be used for someone who lives and works in London, or I should move. My proposal encourages me to move.
Someone who lives in a five bedroom home, where the kids have left home... well, if they want to trade down (and I'm not forcing them), then they shouldn't have to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds to do so. And if they do do so, then they should benefit too from a lower tax bill.
I'm not convinced that stamp duty is as much a deterrent as other considerations. It's not about money. We, a retired couple, live in a larger house than we strictly need. But, until my knees give in, we don't want to move. Two reasons, that I suspect others share: 1. We have kids and grandkids and like to have spare room(s) when they come to stay, particularly the grandkids. 2. The sheer hassle of moving is a real deterrent. One of us (clue: not me) has accumulated so much stuff that the prospect of having to pack everything up is terrifying - and it wouldn't all fit in a smaller space. (No, it can't be thrown away, apparently).
Ruthlessly throwing things away is definitely an underrated life hack.
The biggest deterrent that noone seems to mention...I have a son and his wife....if I dont have a spare room for them to come for a week costs them a 1000 in hotel fees so less likely to come, my spare room is also used for many friends that come to visit so probably only unoccupied maybe 6 months a year
It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.
She didn't.
Women are not forced into the workplace. It's a free choice if they want a career or if they want to be a stay at home mum.
Thats what Pankhurst fought for, choice, and I thought that Conservatives were in favour of choice.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Some of the formerly rich will certainly be absolutely destitute...
I mean, imagine taking Rees-Mogg's wealth off him so he actually had to try and earn a living.
Rees Mogg worked in the City, founded a hedge fund, was an MP for 14 years and a Cabinet minister.
All of it using inherited wealth. Apart from the cabinet minister, which he was totally inept at and appointed to because there was literally nobody else.
I worked as an academic, civil servant, author, publisher and then a teacher and have founded my own very successful international tutoring business which in five years has grown from me working with one person to an organisation with clients on five continents employing multiple tutors.
Your point being?
You know your business is doomed, don’t you
I don’t say this nastily. Your CV is genuinely impressive. Well done. I admire anyone who gets up and goes, like you
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
That's not what I said and, despite the evidence to the contrary, I refuse to believe that you are that stupid to think that I did.
Is it better that 100% of rapes are reported to police or 16%?
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
Modern economics, worldwide, probably doesn't lend itself to it either. Both parents need to work, full-time, in most places, and childcare is thus either absent or expensive. And children, in turn, are time and cash hungry to raise.
By the same token, if the world regressed to a more primitive economic state then I'd expect birth rates to rise again.
The problem, as always, is housing. If you don't have to pay rent or a mortgage then one income is fine to live on. One income should be enough to live on, and save for a deposit, and pay a mortgage.
Remove planning controls, collapse house prices back to a fair market rate, and then we wouldn't need 2 incomes just to keep heads above water. Wouldn't need to pay for childcare either.
A second income should be to pay for luxuries, not essentials.
If most women didn't work full time you wouldn't need 2 incomes for a home either, as that doubles the mortgage most couples can get and in turn doubles the house price
No, house prices, like all goods, are based on supply and demand. Supply isn't high enough.
If there were an abundance of supply, then it wouldn't matter that people could afford more, they'd have no reason to do so as alternative, affordable, houses are available.
Land for just a 3/4 bed house with consent costs £100k+ without any building. Land without consent costs £10k per acre.
That is the problem there. Mortgages are neither here nor there, it is supply and demand.
Even if we didn't build a single extra home, house prices would near halve overnight if most couples only had one earner seeking a mortgage as the price offered from the average couple for a home would be much lower.
Building new homes might help a bit as well but only if immigration also falls to reduce demand for homes
The trouble with that logic, is that imagine you could snap your fingers, and create a world where almost all women stayed at home, and this had the effect of halving houseprices.
How long would it be before some couples were wandering past the estate agents windows going "if you do 15 hrs a week whilst the kids are in school, we could afford this mansion, rather than a three bed semi... ". At which point the spiral starts again until everything is back where it is now, with two incomes needed for most people to afford a modest house.
The only fix for house prices is to get a grip of supply by relaxing planning, and reduce demand by reducing immigration to zero.
Which would still be part time work even then, not 2 full time worker mortgages as now
No, because it's a spiral. Once our everyone's wife is at 15 hrs a week, then it becomes "we could afford this mansion if you did an extra 10hrs a week..." and so on, until ultimately you're back at two full time salaries.
That's basically what happened in the UK between 1970 and 2000, which is why house price growth rocketed away from income growth.
1970 to 2004 (which is when the final set of increases arrived up north) as banks went from 3+1 mortgages to 3+3 and 4+4 income ratios..
Mortgages aren't remotely the issue, since would-be owners need to compete against landlords and roughly half of all landlord purchases of property is cash-only.
The issue is that supply is nowhere near demand. There are not enough buildings.
If there were more supply then people wouldn't need to max out their mortgage as they could afford a different home instead.
If there were more supply then not as many people would go in to let as buy to let isn't as attractive when you don't have any tenants in your empty property as would-be tenants are now actually-owners instead.
Even if there were more homes house prices will still remain high as long as there are significant numbers of 2 earner couples, lenders lending 4+ times income and unless immigration also falls significantly
If we built 10 million new homes over the next decade and had net migration of 2 million over that decade, do you think prices would rise or fall?
People spend a higher proportion of income on property than before, that's not because of 2 earner families, its because supply and demand is broken by an imbalanced market and too many restrictions preventing prices from falling down to a free market equilibrium.
Well we wouldn't have much countryside left and of course many of those 2 million would buy many of the new homes.
If only 1 earner was the norm only 1 earner would be needed to buy the average house, hence reducing average house prices without even a single new home being built
We'd have plenty of countryside left, over 90% of the country is countryside today so even if we doubled our quantity of homes we'd still have over 80% of the country being countryside. Oh and that's England-only data, not Scotland or Wales which is even more extreme.
No, it wouldn't, since not everyone is buying from any amounts of earners - or mortgages. You'd simply have landlords snapping up more homes, cash only, and more people paying their income on rent.
Which would even then have a hugely detrimental affect on our farmland and food supply and natural beauty of our countryside.
Most home buyers are now 2 earner couples, landlords are specialist buy to let and 50 years ago when most home buyers were 1 earner couples house prices were lower and there were no more landlords than now
You conflate cause and effect.
Competition drives prices down. 50 years ago a TV a fraction of the quality of the one you can get affordably today, would cost much more in real terms than one does today. Why hasn't the fact that people have two incomes increased the price of televisions like it has property? Because competition has boosted their quality and their supply.
Technology has improved across the board. It should be cheaper today to build a home than it was 50 years ago thanks to technological improvements - its not, not because of the cost of materials, but because of the cost of the land. Even without building anything, the land costs too much.
That's got sod all to do with the amount of incomes of earners and everything to do with the supply and demand of land with permission. Permission is tightly controlled which means it costs too much, that's the effect of state controlled restrictions - and why I oppose state planning and controls across the board in the economy - and why all right wingers typically do, except for this one area where you oppose a free market.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
Because it’s bollocks
Nah, the bollocks is the reported data.
Why did so many people, less than ten years ago, when the Me Too movement happened come out and say that they were abused but never reported it?
And why are you now comparing data to ten years ago, pre-Me Too, and pretending nothing has changed in the interval?
Its not our fault you're too thick to understand the data.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Some of the formerly rich will certainly be absolutely destitute...
I mean, imagine taking Rees-Mogg's wealth off him so he actually had to try and earn a living.
Rees Mogg worked in the City and Hong Kong, founded a hedge fund, was an MP for 14 years and a Cabinet minister.
I hate to admit it, but when I had some of Rees-Mogg’s fund in my SIPP, it did extremely well.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
Because it’s bollocks
Nah, the bollocks is the reported data.
Why did so many people, less than ten years ago, when the Me Too movement happened come out and say that they were abused but never reported it?
And why are you now comparing data to ten years ago, pre-Me Too, and pretending nothing has changed in the interval?
Its not our fault you're too thick to understand the data.
Jeff Bezos: "When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
It was an absolutely shocking policy.
The real way to redistribute wealth is to have a competitive free market with low barriers to entry and high turnover and social mobility - so all have the opportunity to become rich, and wealth does not accumulate with an elite like some sort of embolism. That is what the really rich do not want to happen.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Londoners would revolt if such a system came in.
So what?
I have an apartment in Central London that I use perhaps 100 days a year. That's not efficient use of housing.
Either I should pay handsomely for the privelege of blocking housing that could be used for someone who lives and works in London, or I should move. My proposal encourages me to move.
Someone who lives in a five bedroom home, where the kids have left home... well, if they want to trade down (and I'm not forcing them), then they shouldn't have to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds to do so. And if they do do so, then they should benefit too from a lower tax bill.
I'm not convinced that stamp duty is as much a deterrent as other considerations. It's not about money. We, a retired couple, live in a larger house than we strictly need. But, until my knees give in, we don't want to move. Two reasons, that I suspect others share: 1. We have kids and grandkids and like to have spare room(s) when they come to stay, particularly the grandkids. 2. The sheer hassle of moving is a real deterrent. One of us (clue: not me) has accumulated so much stuff that the prospect of having to pack everything up is terrifying - and it wouldn't all fit in a smaller space. (No, it can't be thrown away, apparently).
Sure it's not the only reason people don't downsize, but far too many of us are drowning in "stuff". Mrs Foxy and I have four bedrooms, with the spare ones occupied a few weekends a year. It's just not a sensible use of housing stock.
One of the smartest things my folks did was to downsize from their 5 bed country home to a 3 bed* in the centre of Romsey 20 years ago. They are in their late eighties now, have 3 supermarkets and umpteen pubs and restraints within walking distance, and a new social network. I intend to do something similar with Mrs Foxy when I finally stop work.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
As they used to say in Lancashire of the nouveau riche; "Clogs to clogs in three generations.".
On a tour of the Woolworth Building our guide explained the dynastic struggles of the family that no longer owned it. "It's always the same," he sighed. "The first generation makes the money, the second generation manages it ... and the third generation just pisses it away."
The Great Gatsby was just one of a hundred Gilded Age stories describing rich kids from the Mid-West heading 'back east' to blow grandpa's money on high life in the Hamptons. It almost makes one believe in Karma.
As they probably also say in Lancashire (I'm guessing here) 'There's nowt new under the sun'.
It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.
There's no conflict between feminism and women choosing not to work and look after their kids: the point is that it has to be a choice and not forced. But being beholden to a partner for money can also make them subservient to the partner if the partner is so inclined. Which again is fine if it is a free choice; but also somewhat goes against some feminist thinking.
However, it is interesting to see people say that women should be able to choose not to work, and those who want to ban the hijab, niqab or burqa as they are 'forced' on women.
If a woman can choose to be subservient to a partner in a relationship, why can another woman not choose to wear such headgear?
"Know ye it is Allah's will that we are all born stark, raving naked." - Grand Ayatollah Nudistani.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
That's not what I said and, despite the evidence to the contrary, I refuse to believe that you are that stupid to think that I did.
Is it better that 100% of rapes are reported to police or 16%?
It is better that there are fewer rapists than more. It is a fucking odd thing to celebrate. You think women are less likely to report rapes in Sweden? why? chances are more English women are being raped and you are celebrating it.
Modern economics, worldwide, probably doesn't lend itself to it either. Both parents need to work, full-time, in most places, and childcare is thus either absent or expensive. And children, in turn, are time and cash hungry to raise.
By the same token, if the world regressed to a more primitive economic state then I'd expect birth rates to rise again.
The problem, as always, is housing. If you don't have to pay rent or a mortgage then one income is fine to live on. One income should be enough to live on, and save for a deposit, and pay a mortgage.
Remove planning controls, collapse house prices back to a fair market rate, and then we wouldn't need 2 incomes just to keep heads above water. Wouldn't need to pay for childcare either.
A second income should be to pay for luxuries, not essentials.
If most women didn't work full time you wouldn't need 2 incomes for a home either, as that doubles the mortgage most couples can get and in turn doubles the house price
No, house prices, like all goods, are based on supply and demand. Supply isn't high enough.
If there were an abundance of supply, then it wouldn't matter that people could afford more, they'd have no reason to do so as alternative, affordable, houses are available.
Land for just a 3/4 bed house with consent costs £100k+ without any building. Land without consent costs £10k per acre.
That is the problem there. Mortgages are neither here nor there, it is supply and demand.
Even if we didn't build a single extra home, house prices would near halve overnight if most couples only had one earner seeking a mortgage as the price offered from the average couple for a home would be much lower.
Building new homes might help a bit as well but only if immigration also falls to reduce demand for homes
The trouble with that logic, is that imagine you could snap your fingers, and create a world where almost all women stayed at home, and this had the effect of halving houseprices.
How long would it be before some couples were wandering past the estate agents windows going "if you do 15 hrs a week whilst the kids are in school, we could afford this mansion, rather than a three bed semi... ". At which point the spiral starts again until everything is back where it is now, with two incomes needed for most people to afford a modest house.
The only fix for house prices is to get a grip of supply by relaxing planning, and reduce demand by reducing immigration to zero.
Which would still be part time work even then, not 2 full time worker mortgages as now
No, because it's a spiral. Once our everyone's wife is at 15 hrs a week, then it becomes "we could afford this mansion if you did an extra 10hrs a week..." and so on, until ultimately you're back at two full time salaries.
That's basically what happened in the UK between 1970 and 2000, which is why house price growth rocketed away from income growth.
1970 to 2004 (which is when the final set of increases arrived up north) as banks went from 3+1 mortgages to 3+3 and 4+4 income ratios..
Mortgages aren't remotely the issue, since would-be owners need to compete against landlords and roughly half of all landlord purchases of property is cash-only.
The issue is that supply is nowhere near demand. There are not enough buildings.
If there were more supply then people wouldn't need to max out their mortgage as they could afford a different home instead.
If there were more supply then not as many people would go in to let as buy to let isn't as attractive when you don't have any tenants in your empty property as would-be tenants are now actually-owners instead.
Even if there were more homes house prices will still remain high as long as there are significant numbers of 2 earner couples, lenders lending 4+ times income and unless immigration also falls significantly
If we built 10 million new homes over the next decade and had net migration of 2 million over that decade, do you think prices would rise or fall?
People spend a higher proportion of income on property than before, that's not because of 2 earner families, its because supply and demand is broken by an imbalanced market and too many restrictions preventing prices from falling down to a free market equilibrium.
Well we wouldn't have much countryside left and of course many of those 2 million would buy many of the new homes.
If only 1 earner was the norm only 1 earner would be needed to buy the average house, hence reducing average house prices without even a single new home being built
We'd have plenty of countryside left, over 90% of the country is countryside today so even if we doubled our quantity of homes we'd still have over 80% of the country being countryside. Oh and that's England-only data, not Scotland or Wales which is even more extreme.
No, it wouldn't, since not everyone is buying from any amounts of earners - or mortgages. You'd simply have landlords snapping up more homes, cash only, and more people paying their income on rent.
Which would even then have a hugely detrimental affect on our farmland and food supply and natural beauty of our countryside.
Most home buyers are now 2 earner couples, landlords are specialist buy to let and 50 years ago when most home buyers were 1 earner couples house prices were lower and there were no more landlords than now
You conflate cause and effect.
Competition drives prices down. 50 years ago a TV a fraction of the quality of the one you can get affordably today, would cost much more in real terms than one does today. Why hasn't the fact that people have two incomes increased the price of televisions like it has property? Because competition has boosted their quality and their supply.
Technology has improved across the board. It should be cheaper today to build a home than it was 50 years ago thanks to technological improvements - its not, not because of the cost of materials, but because of the cost of the land. Even without building anything, the land costs too much.
That's got sod all to do with the amount of incomes of earners and everything to do with the supply and demand of land with permission. Permission is tightly controlled which means it costs too much, that's the effect of state controlled restrictions - and why I oppose state planning and controls across the board in the economy - and why all right wingers typically do, except for this one area where you oppose a free market.
We now have Local Plans which set clearly where development can go in each council area.
We didn't 50 years ago but still had lower prices as fewer 2 earner couples were buying
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
Because it’s bollocks
Nah, the bollocks is the reported data.
Why did so many people, less than ten years ago, when the Me Too movement happened come out and say that they were abused but never reported it?
And why are you now comparing data to ten years ago, pre-Me Too, and pretending nothing has changed in the interval?
Its not our fault you're too thick to understand the data.
Jeff Bezos: "When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."
British Crime Survey data shows a sharp reduction in rape and sexual assault.
So, now the question is which is more likely to be correct, the BCS or police reports?.
It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.
She didn't.
Women are not forced into the workplace. It's a free choice if they want a career or if they want to be a stay at home mum.
Thats what Pankhurst fought for, choice, and I thought that Conservatives were in favour of choice.
That is more a liberal cornerstone than conservative one although both are more in favour of economic choice at least than socialists
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
That's not what I said and, despite the evidence to the contrary, I refuse to believe that you are that stupid to think that I did.
Is it better that 100% of rapes are reported to police or 16%?
It is better that there are fewer rapists than more. It is a fucking odd thing to celebrate. You think women are less likely to report rapes in Sweden? why? chances are more English women are being raped and you are celebrating it.
Question: were more people raped by Catholic priests in the 1970s (when the reported level was zero) or now?
It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.
There's no conflict between feminism and women choosing not to work and look after their kids: the point is that it has to be a choice and not forced. But being beholden to a partner for money can also make them subservient to the partner if the partner is so inclined. Which again is fine if it is a free choice; but also somewhat goes against some feminist thinking.
However, it is interesting to see people say that women should be able to choose not to work, and those who want to ban the hijab, niqab or burqa as they are 'forced' on women.
If a woman can choose to be subservient to a partner in a relationship, why can another woman not choose to wear such headgear?
The issue with the hijab, niquab and burqua....I agree with you if they choose it. However some dont choose that life and have it forced on them. I give an example my son had been dating a girl for a couple of years and they were getting on for two years when they were getting towards two years, she had been round the house lots eaten with us, she was bright. They were getting serious so had to ask her do your parents know, did talk it over with my son first about what might happen. Yes her parents objected 1 month later she had been to pakistan and was married to a cousin she had never met. Now personally I think that might have been forced and now instead of the bright friendly intelligent girl I remember next time I saw her was traipsing along 2m behind her new husband eyes downcast and ignoring all her old friends from school
Indeed. But it's the same with women not working and having to look after loads of babies: some don't choose that life and have it forced upon them.
In fact, that was probably the norm just a few decades ago.
And that's where @HYUFD wants us to return to. And like the burqa etc, it is because of a particular religious interpretation.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
Because it’s bollocks
Nah, the bollocks is the reported data.
Why did so many people, less than ten years ago, when the Me Too movement happened come out and say that they were abused but never reported it?
And why are you now comparing data to ten years ago, pre-Me Too, and pretending nothing has changed in the interval?
Its not our fault you're too thick to understand the data.
Jeff Bezos: "When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."
British Crime Survey data shows a sharp reduction in rape and sexual assault.
So, now the question is which is more likely to be correct, the BCS or police reports?.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Londoners would revolt if such a system came in.
So what?
I have an apartment in Central London that I use perhaps 100 days a year. That's not efficient use of housing.
Either I should pay handsomely for the privelege of blocking housing that could be used for someone who lives and works in London, or I should move. My proposal encourages me to move.
Someone who lives in a five bedroom home, where the kids have left home... well, if they want to trade down (and I'm not forcing them), then they shouldn't have to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds to do so. And if they do do so, then they should benefit too from a lower tax bill.
I'm not convinced that stamp duty is as much a deterrent as other considerations. It's not about money. We, a retired couple, live in a larger house than we strictly need. But, until my knees give in, we don't want to move. Two reasons, that I suspect others share: 1. We have kids and grandkids and like to have spare room(s) when they come to stay, particularly the grandkids. 2. The sheer hassle of moving is a real deterrent. One of us (clue: not me) has accumulated so much stuff that the prospect of having to pack everything up is terrifying - and it wouldn't all fit in a smaller space. (No, it can't be thrown away, apparently).
Sure it's not the only reason people don't downsize, but far too many of us are drowning in "stuff". Mrs Foxy and I have four bedrooms, with the spare ones occupied a few weekends a year. It's just not a sensible use of housing stock.
One of the smartest things my folks did was to downsize from their 5 bed country home to a 3 bed* in the centre of Romsey 20 years ago. They are in their late eighties now, have 3 supermarkets and umpteen pubs and restraints within walking distance, and a new social network. I intend to do something similar with Mrs Foxy when I finally stop work.
Agree with all that - we live in a city with everything within a few minutes walk - 8 pubs within 5 minutes walk, for example, so we're already there. Very rarely use a car. *love the typo/autocorrect - restraints within walking distance. We prefer restaurants.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
Because it’s bollocks
Let's ask ChatGPT which is more likely to accurately measure crime trends shall we?
Or do you not want me to do that, because you know it's going to say that I'm right.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
That's not what I said and, despite the evidence to the contrary, I refuse to believe that you are that stupid to think that I did.
Is it better that 100% of rapes are reported to police or 16%?
It is better that there are fewer rapists than more. It is a fucking odd thing to celebrate. You think women are less likely to report rapes in Sweden? why? chances are more English women are being raped and you are celebrating it.
I’m going to get myself banned if I go nearer this topic so I will merely say: Quite so
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
Because it’s bollocks
Nah, the bollocks is the reported data.
Why did so many people, less than ten years ago, when the Me Too movement happened come out and say that they were abused but never reported it?
And why are you now comparing data to ten years ago, pre-Me Too, and pretending nothing has changed in the interval?
Its not our fault you're too thick to understand the data.
Jeff Bezos: "When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."
British Crime Survey data shows a sharp reduction in rape and sexual assault.
So, now the question is which is more likely to be correct, the BCS or police reports?.
Quite a few women of my acquaintance were raped or sexually assaulted decades ago and never reported it. They were either ashamed, confused or blamed themselves, or simply didn't want to repeat the trauma and see a leering rapist get off in court. The vast majority of rapes are not "stranger" rapes.
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
That's not what I said and, despite the evidence to the contrary, I refuse to believe that you are that stupid to think that I did.
Is it better that 100% of rapes are reported to police or 16%?
It is better that there are fewer rapists than more. It is a fucking odd thing to celebrate. You think women are less likely to report rapes in Sweden? why? chances are more English women are being raped and you are celebrating it.
Question: were more people raped by Catholic priests in the 1970s (when the reported level was zero) or now?
You can work it out by comparing reported sore bottoms in the 70s to reported sore bottoms now.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
Question for you
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
Some might be, but millions wouldn't be.
Many people just need a lucky break in order to change their lives.
Lottery millionaires disprove your point sadly the poor that win soon end up poor again
But how much have lotteries around the world contributed to the global inequality of wealth?
Every time one is drawn, millions or ordinary folk are a £/€/$ poorer, and a new millionaire or multi-millionaire is created. Where’s the sense in that?
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
Because it’s bollocks
Let's ask ChatGPT which is more likely to accurately measure crime trends shall we?
Or do you not want me to do that, because you know it's going to say that I'm right.
I’m literally forbidden from talking about this AS YOU WELL KNOW so, with all respect, go jump in a pond
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Londoners would revolt if such a system came in.
So what?
I have an apartment in Central London that I use perhaps 100 days a year. That's not efficient use of housing.
Either I should pay handsomely for the privelege of blocking housing that could be used for someone who lives and works in London, or I should move. My proposal encourages me to move.
Someone who lives in a five bedroom home, where the kids have left home... well, if they want to trade down (and I'm not forcing them), then they shouldn't have to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds to do so. And if they do do so, then they should benefit too from a lower tax bill.
I'm not convinced that stamp duty is as much a deterrent as other considerations. It's not about money. We, a retired couple, live in a larger house than we strictly need. But, until my knees give in, we don't want to move. Two reasons, that I suspect others share: 1. We have kids and grandkids and like to have spare room(s) when they come to stay, particularly the grandkids. 2. The sheer hassle of moving is a real deterrent. One of us (clue: not me) has accumulated so much stuff that the prospect of having to pack everything up is terrifying - and it wouldn't all fit in a smaller space. (No, it can't be thrown away, apparently).
It's not a silver bullet.
But nothing is.
Will it encourage *some* people to downsize? Yes. Will it also encourage more housebuildng, as the cost of a new home has just falled 7%? Yes.
Bungalows are a pet hate of mine. In the 60s they sprouted like mushrooms all over mid Warwickshire - particularly in death row towns like Kenilworth - and their wasteful footprints drag the Green Belt into play when 'housing need' hits the headlines. My modest proposal is to bulldoze them all and replace them with five-storey neo-Georgian terraces. The ground floor garden flats would be reserved for OAPs and the upper floors will be a net gain. The Green Belt can breathe a sigh of relief.
Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m? Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.
He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.
The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing
If we tax more we will borrow less. A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis
Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax
Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.
So do we, stamp duty
That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.
Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.
We also have council tax
Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.
The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...
And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.
Absolutely.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
Londoners would revolt if such a system came in.
So what?
I have an apartment in Central London that I use perhaps 100 days a year. That's not efficient use of housing.
Either I should pay handsomely for the privelege of blocking housing that could be used for someone who lives and works in London, or I should move. My proposal encourages me to move.
Someone who lives in a five bedroom home, where the kids have left home... well, if they want to trade down (and I'm not forcing them), then they shouldn't have to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds to do so. And if they do do so, then they should benefit too from a lower tax bill.
I'm not convinced that stamp duty is as much a deterrent as other considerations. It's not about money. We, a retired couple, live in a larger house than we strictly need. But, until my knees give in, we don't want to move. Two reasons, that I suspect others share: 1. We have kids and grandkids and like to have spare room(s) when they come to stay, particularly the grandkids. 2. The sheer hassle of moving is a real deterrent. One of us (clue: not me) has accumulated so much stuff that the prospect of having to pack everything up is terrifying - and it wouldn't all fit in a smaller space. (No, it can't be thrown away, apparently).
Good evening
My wife and I are the same, but also our home is the family's home having moved into it nearly 50 years ago just before our third child was born which was the reason to move to a 4 bedroom home
It is full of memories, and of course is a treasure trove of family heirlooms, and our grandchildren delight in popping over to see us
We are both in our 80's, and my knees are a terrible problem but we simply could not move not least because we have no desire to, nothwithstanding the stairs, and this will remain our home until it is inherited by our children, one of whom may well buy it from his siblings
It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.
There's no conflict between feminism and women choosing not to work and look after their kids: the point is that it has to be a choice and not forced. But being beholden to a partner for money can also make them subservient to the partner if the partner is so inclined. Which again is fine if it is a free choice; but also somewhat goes against some feminist thinking.
However, it is interesting to see people say that women should be able to choose not to work, and those who want to ban the hijab, niqab or burqa as they are 'forced' on women.
If a woman can choose to be subservient to a partner in a relationship, why can another woman not choose to wear such headgear?
The issue with the hijab, niquab and burqua....I agree with you if they choose it. However some dont choose that life and have it forced on them. I give an example my son had been dating a girl for a couple of years and they were getting on for two years when they were getting towards two years, she had been round the house lots eaten with us, she was bright. They were getting serious so had to ask her do your parents know, did talk it over with my son first about what might happen. Yes her parents objected 1 month later she had been to pakistan and was married to a cousin she had never met. Now personally I think that might have been forced and now instead of the bright friendly intelligent girl I remember next time I saw her was traipsing along 2m behind her new husband eyes downcast and ignoring all her old friends from school
Indeed. But it's the same with women not working and having to look after loads of babies: some don't choose that life and have it forced upon them.
In fact, that was probably the norm just a few decades ago.
And that's where @HYUFD wants us to return to. And like the burqa etc, it is because of a particular religious interpretation.
I actually agree, you want to have 8 kids, you want to wear a burqa that is fine with me. I just ask how we distinguish between those that do it willingly and those that dont. I am pretty sure my sons ex didnt want the life she now leads
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
Because it’s bollocks
Nah, the bollocks is the reported data.
Why did so many people, less than ten years ago, when the Me Too movement happened come out and say that they were abused but never reported it?
And why are you now comparing data to ten years ago, pre-Me Too, and pretending nothing has changed in the interval?
Its not our fault you're too thick to understand the data.
Jeff Bezos: "When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."
Indeed, and the anecdotes are that rapes went unreported in the past.
On an earlier topic: In my not entirely humble opinion, the US could put a colony on the moon in five years, less if Iran, Russia, and China decided to start behaving. (The UK could do it in ten years, and I would be pleased if you did.) The colony could be self supporting in -- at most -- twenty years.
I suppose I should note that the first colonies would be in the moon, not on it.
(A colony on Mars? Ten years, perhaps. Colonies on asteroids? About as long as on Mars, at a guess.)
The Irish mystery continues. What is the Home Office doing and why?
“It would take 5 minutes for any native born Irish person to demonstrate they speak English fluently. There are to my knowledge no exclusive Gaelic speakers. So this is just a route where non-English speakers can come here via Ireland. Why are we doing this?”
Having to pay for and attend an interview/test to prove you can speak English is a pretty substantial and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle for applications.
This has been done because the DUP wanted it to be as easy for an Irish person living in Britain to gain British citizenship as it is for a British person living in Ireland to gain Irish citizenship.
That's it. Your paranoia about a backdoor for non-English speakers gaining British citizenship is a sad reflection of your monomania about immigration.
But it does make it extremely easy for non English speaking Irish people, with no knowledge of the UK, to gain British citizenship. Does it not? Kind of a back door for anyone who wants to become a British citizen but might be rejected by us in these tests
And given that Ireland is handing out passports to refugees like candy, that may be quite a few people
So maybe not so paranoid after all, you craven, pitiful halfwit
Such a person needs several years of residency in Ireland before they can gain Irish citizenship, and then they would need five years of residency in Britain to qualify for British citizenship. This is not some sort of quick-fix loophole, and I seriously doubt that there are going to be large numbers of Irish citizens applying for British citizenship, English-speaking or not.
You're so wrong, so often, and so insecure about it. So lame.
I just want to check
Was it you that said this yesterday? -
“The fact that Britain is top of the [world rape tables] is actually an encouraging sign”
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
The only people mortifyingly stupid would be those who didn't understand the point he was making.
Oh.
By your logic - and that of this thicko @LostPassword - the higher and higher Britain goes in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
Why do you think the British Crime Survey shows a sharp reduction in the number of rapes and sexual assaults in the last 20 years?
Because it’s bollocks
Nah, the bollocks is the reported data.
Why did so many people, less than ten years ago, when the Me Too movement happened come out and say that they were abused but never reported it?
And why are you now comparing data to ten years ago, pre-Me Too, and pretending nothing has changed in the interval?
Its not our fault you're too thick to understand the data.
Jeff Bezos: "When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."
British Crime Survey data shows a sharp reduction in rape and sexual assault.
So, now the question is which is more likely to be correct, the BCS or police reports?.
They're probably both wrong in different ways.
The British Crime Survey talks to the same people every year. It asks them if they've been the victim of a crime. And if so what. It's anonymous. And it is generally considered to be extremely accurate.
In particular, it picks up on crimes that people never bother reporting to the police.
Now, there are some issues with it. If there is a particular group of people who are resistant to being surveyed - say young women, often in care, with low education, and who are very suspicious of the state - then it will miss that group.
But for 95% of the population, it's going to be really accurate.
Comments
The bad thing is, I'm not even surprised. Taxing the rich and redistributing wealth to the poor is the entire point of the Labour Party. Take that away and it's just a bunch of metropolitan elite nostrums...oh.
I've never seen the like (it's the third GAA match I've watched).
Jeez I think I’d retire from PB for a week if I said something that mortifyingly inane and stupid. Impressive
Take half of the wealth in the country of the rich, redistribute it to the poor......wait ten years do you think the poor wont be poor again?
The real way to redistribute wealth is to have a competitive free market with low barriers to entry and high turnover and social mobility - so all have the opportunity to become rich, and wealth does not accumulate with an elite like some sort of embolism. That is what the really rich do not want to happen.
"He became an Irishman through his maternal grandmother. And it was very, very moving, I have to say, to arrive at the place of the memorial to find an Irish flag and only an Irish flag. He had really in the last years, grown very disillusioned with what had happened to Britain and the United Kingdom"
(I guess trust fund kids are the exception.)
And an apology; I shouldn't have written "frauds". Alleged would have been more accurate.
There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.
Complete madness.
For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)
It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".
We brexited so that Freedom of Movement would end. And yet we have FoM with Ireland - so all of those 650,000 can move to the UK should they wish. And as Ireland seems to have an open door policy with regards to migrants we can expect this figure to rise
Truth is a future Reform government will have to look at the Common Travel Area - and bring it to an end, I believe. Enough
Meanwhile this legislation goes in the opposite direction. Opening OUR door even wider. Insane
I mean, imagine taking Rees-Mogg's wealth off him so he actually had to try and earn a living.
The wankerness maybe became more obvious, is all
Out now.
Women have qualities far more reaching than either, intelligence, wit, wisdom, attitude to start with
The issue is that supply is nowhere near demand. There are not enough buildings.
If there were more supply then people wouldn't need to max out their mortgage as they could afford a different home instead.
If there were more supply then not as many people would go in to let as buy to let isn't as attractive when you don't have any tenants in your empty property as would-be tenants are now actually-owners instead.
However, it is interesting to see people say that women should be able to choose not to work, and those who want to ban the hijab, niqab or burqa as they are 'forced' on women.
If a woman can choose to be subservient to a partner in a relationship, why can another woman not choose to wear such headgear?
The entire property market needs a price collapse. Which will only happen with a tremendous shock to supply and demand.
Oh.
I have an apartment in Central London that I use perhaps 100 days a year. That's not efficient use of housing.
Either I should pay handsomely for the privelege of blocking housing that could be used for someone who lives and works in London, or I should move. My proposal encourages me to move.
Someone who lives in a five bedroom home, where the kids have left home... well, if they want to trade down (and I'm not forcing them), then they shouldn't have to pay tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds to do so. And if they do do so, then they should benefit too from a lower tax bill.
People spend a higher proportion of income on property than before, that's not because of 2 earner families, its because supply and demand is broken by an imbalanced market and too many restrictions preventing prices from falling down to a free market equilibrium.
I believe 1% tax on property would be enough to abolish not just Stamp Duty but Council Tax too.
I worked as an academic, civil servant, author, publisher and then a teacher and have founded my own very successful international tutoring business which in five years has grown from me working with one person to an organisation with clients on five continents employing multiple tutors.
Your point being?
If only 1 earner was the norm only 1 earner would be needed to buy the average house, hence reducing average house prices without even a single new home being built
1) I did inherit a fair sum from my parents, without which I would probably have been much more reluctant to branch out and start my own business. But the money from the business was earned by work, not by speculating that inheritance as Mogg's was;
2) I may be partly prejudiced against Mogg because he has a striking (and entirely chance) resemblance to a former individual I worked for whom I happen to know wasn't safe around children. However, this doesn't alter the fact he's an entitled and not very intelligent twat.
3) Every time I think of Mogg and how much I dislike him, I'm forced to remind myself that his niece is a *lot* worse.
1. We have kids and grandkids and like to have spare room(s) when they come to stay, particularly the grandkids.
2. The sheer hassle of moving is a real deterrent. One of us (clue: not me) has accumulated so much stuff that the prospect of having to pack everything up is terrifying - and it wouldn't all fit in a smaller space. (No, it can't be thrown away, apparently).
All very good, you did a bit of work in education but you did not earn as much as Rees Mogg and most people will have heard of Rees Mogg, they won't have heard of you.
Not that there is anything wrong with inherited wealth anyway unless you are a communist, as you state you even inherit something yourself
in terms of reported rapes the better and better it is, and if we end up with 1000x the reported rapes of any other country this is evermore “encouraging” coz it shows our women are increasingly confident
Presumably the goal is 4 thousand rapes a minute. Then we will be the most sexually enlightened place in the visible universe
No, it wouldn't, since not everyone is buying from any amounts of earners - or mortgages. You'd simply have landlords snapping up more homes, cash only, and more people paying their income on rent.
Oh, what an I saying. You're just an odious troll who has driven countless interesting people away from this site with your boring bad faith arguments.
I can see your gravestone now: "He argued with people online until they gave up out of boredom and disgust."
Great legacy.
Many people just need a lucky break in order to change their lives.
Only a moron would conflate reported rapes with actual ones. Oh.
Ten years ago was before the Me Too movement etc when a lot of women started coming out of the woodwork and saying that they had been abused and never reported it. A lot of work has gone in the past decade into encouraging women to come forward to report abuse if it happens.
But nothing is.
Will it encourage *some* people to downsize? Yes.
Will it also encourage more housebuildng, as the cost of a new home has just falled 7%? Yes.
This year, the couple did something very sensible; they put out both flags on the 1st — and on the 4th.
Our enemies want to divide us, so it is good to see even small efforts fighting their attempts.
(I took some photos of the flags both days; I'll try to post one tomorrow.)
Most home buyers are now 2 earner couples, landlords are specialist buy to let and 50 years ago when most home buyers were 1 earner couples house prices were lower and there were no more landlords than now
Women are not forced into the workplace. It's a free choice if they want a career or if they want to be a stay at home mum.
Thats what Pankhurst fought for, choice, and I thought that Conservatives were in favour of choice.
I don’t say this nastily. Your CV is genuinely impressive. Well done. I admire anyone who gets up and goes, like you
But doomed nonetheless
Is it better that 100% of rapes are reported to police or 16%?
Competition drives prices down. 50 years ago a TV a fraction of the quality of the one you can get affordably today, would cost much more in real terms than one does today. Why hasn't the fact that people have two incomes increased the price of televisions like it has property? Because competition has boosted their quality and their supply.
Technology has improved across the board. It should be cheaper today to build a home than it was 50 years ago thanks to technological improvements - its not, not because of the cost of materials, but because of the cost of the land. Even without building anything, the land costs too much.
That's got sod all to do with the amount of incomes of earners and everything to do with the supply and demand of land with permission. Permission is tightly controlled which means it costs too much, that's the effect of state controlled restrictions - and why I oppose state planning and controls across the board in the economy - and why all right wingers typically do, except for this one area where you oppose a free market.
Why did so many people, less than ten years ago, when the Me Too movement happened come out and say that they were abused but never reported it?
And why are you now comparing data to ten years ago, pre-Me Too, and pretending nothing has changed in the interval?
Its not our fault you're too thick to understand the data.
One of the smartest things my folks did was to downsize from their 5 bed country home to a 3 bed* in the centre of Romsey 20 years ago. They are in their late eighties now, have 3 supermarkets and umpteen pubs and restraints within walking distance, and a new social network. I intend to do something similar with Mrs Foxy when I finally stop work.
The Great Gatsby was just one of a hundred Gilded Age stories describing rich kids from the Mid-West heading 'back east' to blow grandpa's money on high life in the Hamptons. It almost makes one believe in Karma.
As they probably also say in Lancashire (I'm guessing here) 'There's nowt new under the sun'.
We didn't 50 years ago but still had lower prices as fewer 2 earner couples were buying
So, now the question is which is more likely to be correct, the BCS or police reports?.
In fact, that was probably the norm just a few decades ago.
And that's where @HYUFD wants us to return to. And like the burqa etc, it is because of a particular religious interpretation.
*love the typo/autocorrect - restraints within walking distance. We prefer restaurants.
Or do you not want me to do that, because you know it's going to say that I'm right.
Every time one is drawn, millions or ordinary folk are a £/€/$ poorer, and a new millionaire or multi-millionaire is created. Where’s the sense in that?
My wife and I are the same, but also our home is the family's home having moved into it nearly 50 years ago just before our third child was born which was the reason to move to a 4 bedroom home
It is full of memories, and of course is a treasure trove of family heirlooms, and our grandchildren delight in popping over to see us
We are both in our 80's, and my knees are a terrible problem but we simply could not move not least because we have no desire to, nothwithstanding the stairs, and this will remain our home until it is inherited by our children, one of whom may well buy it from his siblings
I suppose I should note that the first colonies would be in the moon, not on it.
(A colony on Mars? Ten years, perhaps. Colonies on asteroids? About as long as on Mars, at a guess.)
In particular, it picks up on crimes that people never bother reporting to the police.
Now, there are some issues with it. If there is a particular group of people who are resistant to being surveyed - say young women, often in care, with low education, and who are very suspicious of the state - then it will miss that group.
But for 95% of the population, it's going to be really accurate.