Off topic: Just had a spam sales call. Flogging some energy stuff or whatever. Hung up halfway through the spiel - but I'm not sure it was a real person - just something about the delivery. I reckon firms are using AI bots to do this now.
They usually start off with some rubbish about responding to my (non-existent) query. Interrupting the spiel with something irrelevant usually triggers a 'sorry to trouble you' line.
And yes, I agree; most of these are AI bots.
Always Indian
Very rarely these days. Many years ago Mrs C & I were in India watching England Cricket and we watched local TV for a bit of a change in the early evenings. There was a series about a lad who trained to do such calls; it was almost as though it was a desirable career path.
Yeah guys, Gavin Newsom’s content is ridiculous. But it’s making you uncomfortable because he’s holding up a mirror to what you tolerate on behalf of partisanship. It jolts people out of their passive acceptance of how insane Trump sounds. https://x.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1957650485575618799
Newsom gets to be a jerk, and claim the (relative) high ground of parody. That's a sweet spot for a politician.
He’s wrestling with a pig, there’s no way he can keep it up for more than a few weeks, and the policy he’s talking about is a blatant and unpopular exercise in Gerrymandering, to make California worse than it is already.
Meanwhile, as he’s playing Twitter games with Texas and the president, his own State is a total mess. Make America California Again really isn’t a popular message.
A week or 2 ago you were claiming that California was already gerrymandered to the max by Dems, despite the fact that redistricting is done by an independent commission in California.
Californians seem to like their independent redistricting, so Newsom's proposed map starts off at a disadvantage. If he can frame it as retaliation for Republican dirty tricks, and a referendum on Trump, I guess he can win the vote on the proposition - so it makes sense to get as much attention for this framing as possible, as early as possible.
'Independent' California - Dem 43 GOP 9 'Gerrymandered' Texas - GOP25 Dem 13
Judge an organisation by its actions not its name.
California has an independent commission in the same way that East Germany was a Democratic Republic.
It’s fine when the Democrats do it as they’re the good guys here.
Yeah guys, Gavin Newsom’s content is ridiculous. But it’s making you uncomfortable because he’s holding up a mirror to what you tolerate on behalf of partisanship. It jolts people out of their passive acceptance of how insane Trump sounds. https://x.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1957650485575618799
Newsom gets to be a jerk, and claim the (relative) high ground of parody. That's a sweet spot for a politician.
He’s wrestling with a pig, there’s no way he can keep it up for more than a few weeks, and the policy he’s talking about is a blatant and unpopular exercise in Gerrymandering, to make California worse than it is already.
Meanwhile, as he’s playing Twitter games with Texas and the president, his own State is a total mess. Make America California Again really isn’t a popular message.
A week or 2 ago you were claiming that California was already gerrymandered to the max by Dems, despite the fact that redistricting is done by an independent commission in California.
Californians seem to like their independent redistricting, so Newsom's proposed map starts off at a disadvantage. If he can frame it as retaliation for Republican dirty tricks, and a referendum on Trump, I guess he can win the vote on the proposition - so it makes sense to get as much attention for this framing as possible, as early as possible.
'Independent' California - Dem 43 GOP 9 'Gerrymandered' Texas - GOP25 Dem 13
Judge an organisation by its actions not its name.
California has an independent commission in the same way that East Germany was a Democratic Republic.
It’s fine when the Democrats do it as they’re the good guys here.
"‘I lost £150,000 to a romance scammer’ When Tracy Hall fell in love with Max Tavita and transferred money to him, she had no idea she was the serial fraudster’s latest victim"
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
Off topic: Just had a spam sales call. Flogging some energy stuff or whatever. Hung up halfway through the spiel - but I'm not sure it was a real person - just something about the delivery. I reckon firms are using AI bots to do this now.
They usually start off with some rubbish about responding to my (non-existent) query. Interrupting the spiel with something irrelevant usually triggers a 'sorry to trouble you' line.
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
Commiserations on your loss. Went through the same in 2022 although as my Dad was a car worker he didn’t leave much and the estate was quite easy for me to deal with, apart from his BMW pension. An organisation with a Frank Spencer like approach to dealing with people.
Just be wary of relatives and money grabbers after a piece of the pie.
Thanks. Yes, families are funny.
I remember a long dispute between fairly distant relatives about a single dining table (which, being brown furniture, would be worth precisely zero now, as discussed last week). I believe my father was one of the executors and he basically washed his hands of it.
In this case, though, I am the last one standing, with no direct heirs. A failed genetic experiment, as it were.
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Yeah guys, Gavin Newsom’s content is ridiculous. But it’s making you uncomfortable because he’s holding up a mirror to what you tolerate on behalf of partisanship. It jolts people out of their passive acceptance of how insane Trump sounds. https://x.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1957650485575618799
Newsom gets to be a jerk, and claim the (relative) high ground of parody. That's a sweet spot for a politician.
He’s wrestling with a pig, there’s no way he can keep it up for more than a few weeks, and the policy he’s talking about is a blatant and unpopular exercise in Gerrymandering, to make California worse than it is already.
Meanwhile, as he’s playing Twitter games with Texas and the president, his own State is a total mess. Make America California Again really isn’t a popular message.
A week or 2 ago you were claiming that California was already gerrymandered to the max by Dems, despite the fact that redistricting is done by an independent commission in California.
Californians seem to like their independent redistricting, so Newsom's proposed map starts off at a disadvantage. If he can frame it as retaliation for Republican dirty tricks, and a referendum on Trump, I guess he can win the vote on the proposition - so it makes sense to get as much attention for this framing as possible, as early as possible.
'Independent' California - Dem 43 GOP 9 'Gerrymandered' Texas - GOP25 Dem 13
Judge an organisation by its actions not its name.
California has an independent commission in the same way that East Germany was a Democratic Republic.
It’s fine when the Democrats do it as they’re the good guys here.
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
Off topic: Just had a spam sales call. Flogging some energy stuff or whatever. Hung up halfway through the spiel - but I'm not sure it was a real person - just something about the delivery. I reckon firms are using AI bots to do this now.
They usually start off with some rubbish about responding to my (non-existent) query. Interrupting the spiel with something irrelevant usually triggers a 'sorry to trouble you' line.
And yes, I agree; most of these are AI bots.
Always Indian
I’d like it if they used AI Dr Binocs, he has a cool voice
Off topic: Just had a spam sales call. Flogging some energy stuff or whatever. Hung up halfway through the spiel - but I'm not sure it was a real person - just something about the delivery. I reckon firms are using AI bots to do this now.
They usually start off with some rubbish about responding to my (non-existent) query. Interrupting the spiel with something irrelevant usually triggers a 'sorry to trouble you' line.
And yes, I agree; most of these are AI bots.
Always Indian
I’d like it if they used AI Dr Binocs, he has a cool voice
A reference to Dr Binocs: a sure sign you have young kids.
Flatlander Sr died last week. I am both sad and relieved as he'd been poorly for quite some time and most definitely wasn't having any fun. I propped him up at home for many years and have no regrets on that score.
Thanks to the current stock market bubble, and no doubt much to HYUFD's disgust, his estate will attract IHT, although it won't be a vast amount in the grand scheme of things. He was not one to plan and as POA there was a limit to what I could do about it.
Do I:
a) Make a deed of variation to set up a charitable organisation to buy a few fields to grow moss / newts / trees or distribute to other organisations doing the same.
b) Pay the government
On the one hand, Rachel from Accounts is desperate and over the last 6 months he definitely incurred costs to the NHS and the local council. And it won't be a Bill Gates style legacy that could make a big difference.
On the other hand, it is the government, isn't it?
Assume that the difference in inheritance won't really change my cheap lifestyle.
I think there is a cap on charitable donations which are free of IHT. Is it 10% of estate? So you may end up paying some anyway.
My motto with charitable organisations is always to make it focused enough to see the difference if possible. A permanent impact is good (eg buy a woodland for the local trust), but shorter term things of a couple of decades are also great - at present I'm quite taken with "friendship benches". We have one locally, which is labelled "sit on this bench if you are happy for people to stop for a chat". And also with benches spaced more often so that less fit or more frail people can take a break.
If it's a local WT, then another torch I currently carry is to get them to identify and publicise accessible walks; there exist standards such as a set called "Mile without Stiles" used by National Parks, and woodland and wildlife trusts need to be on board with this area. Potentially it is easier where the highest hill is about 3ft.
The accessible walks is a good thought as he had to use a mobility scooter for quite a few years and wasn't very good on rough ground before that.
One reason he went to the local WT reserve so much is that it was almost all good tracks.
Commiserations on your loss. Went through the same in 2022 although as my Dad was a car worker he didn’t leave much and the estate was quite easy for me to deal with, apart from his BMW pension. An organisation with a Frank Spencer like approach to dealing with people.
Just be wary of relatives and money grabbers after a piece of the pie.
Thanks. Yes, families are funny.
I remember a long dispute between fairly distant relatives about a single dining table (which, being brown furniture, would be worth precisely zero now, as discussed last week). I believe my father was one of the executors and he basically washed his hands of it.
In this case, though, I am the last one standing, with no direct heirs. A failed genetic experiment, as it were.
All I can say is it gets easier but there will be things that suddenly bring back memories and make you tear up. Something as silly as a pop song.
Yeah guys, Gavin Newsom’s content is ridiculous. But it’s making you uncomfortable because he’s holding up a mirror to what you tolerate on behalf of partisanship. It jolts people out of their passive acceptance of how insane Trump sounds. https://x.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1957650485575618799
Newsom gets to be a jerk, and claim the (relative) high ground of parody. That's a sweet spot for a politician.
He’s wrestling with a pig, there’s no way he can keep it up for more than a few weeks, and the policy he’s talking about is a blatant and unpopular exercise in Gerrymandering, to make California worse than it is already.
Meanwhile, as he’s playing Twitter games with Texas and the president, his own State is a total mess. Make America California Again really isn’t a popular message.
A week or 2 ago you were claiming that California was already gerrymandered to the max by Dems, despite the fact that redistricting is done by an independent commission in California.
Californians seem to like their independent redistricting, so Newsom's proposed map starts off at a disadvantage. If he can frame it as retaliation for Republican dirty tricks, and a referendum on Trump, I guess he can win the vote on the proposition - so it makes sense to get as much attention for this framing as possible, as early as possible.
'Independent' California - Dem 43 GOP 9 'Gerrymandered' Texas - GOP25 Dem 13
Judge an organisation by its actions not its name.
California has an independent commission in the same way that East Germany was a Democratic Republic.
I suppose you think Scotland was gerrymandered when the SNP won 56 seats out of 57 in the 2015 general election?
In a way it was because it was 'fixed' for FPTP. The SNP have never managed that proportion of directly elected seats in Scottish elections.
Sure, I'm all in favour of more proportional systems, but you can't just point at numbers of seats won as evidence of gerrymandering.
Here's an article on JD Vance's claim that California is more gerrymandered that Texas:
If fits with the general pattern that "things that Vance says are likely to be false"
California's independent redistricting commission is generally held up as an example of best practice; it's not part of their job to try and make artificial districts to try and counteract the somewhat inefficient Republican vote in California. Comparing them to the former East Germany is just ignorant.
Because the NY Times never write pieces that start with the conclusion “OrangeManBad” and work backwards from there.
I would counter that the “independent” commission in California is nothing of the sort, most of the people who sit on it are polititicians or political appointees. At best you might call it “bipartisan” but it’s a long way away from what the UK would expect “independent” to mean.
They all do it in the US, all of the time, while preaching how virtuous is their own Gerrymandering while decrying the other side going exactly the same thing.
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
"David Cameron’s “bonfire of the quangos” decision to abolish England’s council spending watchdog has left a broken system that is costing taxpayers more money than it was promised to save.
In a highly critical report, academics at the University of Sheffield said the coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had promised savings of £100m a year by abolishing the Audit Commission.
However, replacing the public body with a private-sector model had resulted in “chaos” and soaring costs to audit councils amid the financial crisis hitting England’s town halls."
IIRC at the time there were a number of scandals at the AC. It wasn’t fit for purpose and had to be replaced with something.
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
It was easier in my case because my father had laid out in black and white exactly what charities he wished to benefit and how much, in his will.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
It was easier in my case because my father had laid out in black and white exactly what charities he wished to benefit and how much, in his will.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
Hi Mr F; can I add my condolences.
One issue with charities is that they are not necessarily immortal. My will leaves money to a couple of CABx which have recently merged to form a County-wide one, and I'm not sure I want to continue with the bequest. Obviously that means a codicil or something, but knowing me it'll staying on the back burner until it's too late!
"David Cameron’s “bonfire of the quangos” decision to abolish England’s council spending watchdog has left a broken system that is costing taxpayers more money than it was promised to save.
In a highly critical report, academics at the University of Sheffield said the coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had promised savings of £100m a year by abolishing the Audit Commission.
However, replacing the public body with a private-sector model had resulted in “chaos” and soaring costs to audit councils amid the financial crisis hitting England’s town halls."
IIRC at the time there were a number of scandals at the AC. It wasn’t fit for purpose and had to be replaced with something.
Looking at the list on wikipedia (crude, I know), there are some grumblings about using the AC for wider quality control, and some shock horror stuff about spending on plants and bagels, but it's a stretch from there to not fit for purpose.
And it's an even bigger stretch to get from there to the idea that the current setup isn't a lot worse.
One of the essences of conservatism is that you don't change unless you've got reason to believe that the change will be an improvement.
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
It was easier in my case because my father had laid out in black and white exactly what charities he wished to benefit and how much, in his will.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
IIRC It takes 10% of the estate (not just the IHT-liable bit) to go to charity for IHT on the liable portion of the rest to be cut by 4%. I don't think - pace @MattW if I have not misread - that the 10% is in any way a cap, just a trigge rpoint. HMG website: "The estate can pay Inheritance Tax at a reduced rate of 36% on some assets if you leave 10% or more of the ‘net value’ to charity in your will. (The net value is the estate’s total value minus any debts.)" Which seems not mucvh of a concession if there is not much IHT anyway, ergo is it worth losing much sleep over? Though the newts etc. are a different matter!
Indeed, it's worth considering whether Flatlander could even be better to inherit and then give under Gift Aid (which adds 25% to the charity's take) or the one-off gift of shares or assets procedure - especially if in the higher income tax bracket or sustaining a capital gain, which could apply if the house increased in price between probate and sale and a deed of appropriation was used.
If making a donation to charity from the estate one might consider whether to do some of it as shares rather than as cash. This is a very good way of using up small holdings of shares (often alocattions from privatizations) that would be inconvenient and relatively expensive to sell from within the estate or transfer to a person. Some charities will accept the shares but others aren't set up for that. Rather Sharegift do it and then send the money to one of the charities on their list with a dosh of additional money too. I got them to add one of my preferred charities to their list! Result! https://www.sharegift.org/
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
I'm sorry for your loss. If it was me I'd just pay the tax due and focus on more important things. If you haven't got a burning desire to help a particular cause and in the absence of guidance from your dad before he died I'd say the alternative course isn't worth it. And the government needs the money.
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
It would cause a vicious circle of further inflation. The money supply grow far faster than real output.
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Presumably giving everyone a hike on their savings returns would feed the inflation monster even more, so new hikes would be needed and we'd end up in a cycle of doom.
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
It was easier in my case because my father had laid out in black and white exactly what charities he wished to benefit and how much, in his will.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
Hi Mr F; can I add my condolences.
One issue with charities is that they are not necessarily immortal. My will leaves money to a couple of CABx which have recently merged to form a County-wide one, and I'm not sure I want to continue with the bequest. Obviously that means a codicil or something, but knowing me it'll staying on the back burner until it's too late!
Hear hear.
That sort of thing can be a problem. We're always told to specify charities, but they change or worse. I put that sort of thing in a covering letter of wishes rather tham the will itself. allowing the executors to use their common sense to decide what to do. Much cheaper to update than a codicil, too, and the will specifically refersa to the covering letter.
I had trouble when asked to help with a deceased colleague's will - specifically directing his specialist library to be sold to benefit students etc. Trouble was, the only specialist bookseller had just retired! Fortunately the family accepted my suggestion of auctioning it at the next meeting of a relevbant specialist group, which had a suitable (and very well used) fund at minimal admin cost.
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Because inflation is another way to impose economic reality.
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Annual RPI is currently 4.4%. The best savings rate is 4.75%.
The other answers are wrong. The real reason is savers can't be bothered to get the best rates.
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
It was easier in my case because my father had laid out in black and white exactly what charities he wished to benefit and how much, in his will.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
IIRC It takes 10% of the estate (not just the IHT-liable bit) to go to charity for IHT on the liable portion of the rest to be cut by 4%. I don't think - pace @MattW if I have not misread - that the 10% is in any way a cap, just a trigge rpoint. HMG website: "The estate can pay Inheritance Tax at a reduced rate of 36% on some assets if you leave 10% or more of the ‘net value’ to charity in your will. (The net value is the estate’s total value minus any debts.)" Which seems not mucvh of a concession if there is not much IHT anyway, ergo is it worth losing much sleep over? Though the newts etc. are a different matter!
Indeed, it's worth considering whether Flatlander could even be better to inherit and then give under Gift Aid (which adds 25% to the charity's take) or the one-off gift of shares or assets procedure - especially if in the higher income tax bracket or sustaining a capital gain, which could apply if the house increased in price between probate and sale and a deed of appropriation was used.
If making a donation to charity from the estate one might consider whether to do some of it as shares rather than as cash. This is a very good way of using up small holdings of shares (often alocattions from privatizations) that would be inconvenient and relatively expensive to sell from within the estate or transfer to a person. Some charities will accept the shares but others aren't set up for that. Rather Sharegift do it and then send the money to one of the charities on their list with a dosh of additional money too. I got them to add one of my preferred charities to their list! Result! https://www.sharegift.org/
Gift Aid only works for an income tax payer - and having retired recently I am not currently paying any.
The idea would be to "give away" everything above the tax threshold. It wouldn't be to just reduce the tax rate (which as you point out would need a very large legacy to make direct financial sense).
Anyway, the question was really a moral one. Should I pay HMRC or not?
But talking about Gift Aid reminds me that the government already encourages this kind of thing day in day out, so why worry?
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
"Glenfinnan is full of impossible equations, and here’s another – how do you deal with so many tourists when most of them come at the same time of day?
I arrived in the village in time for the madness of the 11am viaduct crossing of The Jacobite steam train.
I began making my way up to the hillside viewpoint just after 10 to avoid being caught up in a hoard of stragglers that start running down the A830 trunk road when they realise they might miss the key moment.
What I saw as I approached was a sight to behold. There must have been around 1000 people up there, waiting to watch the moment they all remember fondly from the Harry Potter films, when the “Hogwarts Express” crosses the 21-arched viaduct at the foot of Loch Shiel."
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Annual RPI is currently 4.4%. The best savings rate is 4.75%.
The other answers are wrong. The real reason is savers can't be bothered to get the best rates.
No, they are not wrong The savings rates you refer to are paid by private businesses/banks and based off the base rate set primarily according to mandate to combat inflation. A government backed 'match inflation' boost (which appears to be the suggestion) would see banks etc reduce their rates as govt will cover it and lead to hyperinflation.
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
Perhaps residents+visitors would be better, phones being mobile and Scotland having lots of tourists.
The more remote the place, the more important it is to have mobile coverage.
I had to call out Mountain Rescue in a remote area and needed to walk about 1km to find a signal.
Neither myself nor the casualty would have been so keen on going there if it was covered in phone masts.
It's a tricky one. Most years we stay a week in Scotland where there is no internet, no mobile phone and no radio or terrestrial TV reception. Vast areas of Scotland are much more remote than where we stay, actually quite close to civilization.
Yeah guys, Gavin Newsom’s content is ridiculous. But it’s making you uncomfortable because he’s holding up a mirror to what you tolerate on behalf of partisanship. It jolts people out of their passive acceptance of how insane Trump sounds. https://x.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1957650485575618799
Newsom gets to be a jerk, and claim the (relative) high ground of parody. That's a sweet spot for a politician.
He’s wrestling with a pig, there’s no way he can keep it up for more than a few weeks, and the policy he’s talking about is a blatant and unpopular exercise in Gerrymandering, to make California worse than it is already.
Meanwhile, as he’s playing Twitter games with Texas and the president, his own State is a total mess. Make America California Again really isn’t a popular message.
A week or 2 ago you were claiming that California was already gerrymandered to the max by Dems, despite the fact that redistricting is done by an independent commission in California.
Californians seem to like their independent redistricting, so Newsom's proposed map starts off at a disadvantage. If he can frame it as retaliation for Republican dirty tricks, and a referendum on Trump, I guess he can win the vote on the proposition - so it makes sense to get as much attention for this framing as possible, as early as possible.
'Independent' California - Dem 43 GOP 9 'Gerrymandered' Texas - GOP25 Dem 13
Judge an organisation by its actions not its name.
California has an independent commission in the same way that East Germany was a Democratic Republic.
I suppose you think Scotland was gerrymandered when the SNP won 56 seats out of 57 in the 2015 general election?
In a way it was because it was 'fixed' for FPTP. The SNP have never managed that proportion of directly elected seats in Scottish elections.
Sure, I'm all in favour of more proportional systems, but you can't just point at numbers of seats won as evidence of gerrymandering.
Here's an article on JD Vance's claim that California is more gerrymandered that Texas:
If fits with the general pattern that "things that Vance says are likely to be false"
California's independent redistricting commission is generally held up as an example of best practice; it's not part of their job to try and make artificial districts to try and counteract the somewhat inefficient Republican vote in California. Comparing them to the former East Germany is just ignorant.
Because the NY Times never write pieces that start with the conclusion “OrangeManBad” and work backwards from there.
I would counter that the “independent” commission in California is nothing of the sort, most of the people who sit on it are polititicians or political appointees. At best you might call it “bipartisan” but it’s a long way away from what the UK would expect “independent” to mean.
They all do it in the US, all of the time, while preaching how virtuous is their own Gerrymandering while decrying the other side going exactly the same thing.
Read the article and tell me what they have got wrong.
Do you have any evidence that California is currently gerrymandered?
You can call it bipartisan if you like, but I don't know why you think UK boundary commissions have nobody appointed by politicians.
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Annual RPI is currently 4.4%. The best savings rate is 4.75%.
The other answers are wrong. The real reason is savers can't be bothered to get the best rates.
No, they are not wrong The savings rates you refer to are paid by private businesses/banks and based off the base rate set primarily according to mandate to combat inflation. A government backed 'match inflation' boost (which appears to be the suggestion) would see banks etc reduce their rates as govt will cover it and lead to hyperinflation.
We read the question differently. I don't know where you get anything to do with the government from the wording.
And the government did use to offer NSI inflation linked trackers. It even made them tax free and paid a bonus on top. Of course if the government wanted to do this it could.
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
It was easier in my case because my father had laid out in black and white exactly what charities he wished to benefit and how much, in his will.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
IIRC It takes 10% of the estate (not just the IHT-liable bit) to go to charity for IHT on the liable portion of the rest to be cut by 4%. I don't think - pace @MattW if I have not misread - that the 10% is in any way a cap, just a trigge rpoint. HMG website: "The estate can pay Inheritance Tax at a reduced rate of 36% on some assets if you leave 10% or more of the ‘net value’ to charity in your will. (The net value is the estate’s total value minus any debts.)" Which seems not mucvh of a concession if there is not much IHT anyway, ergo is it worth losing much sleep over? Though the newts etc. are a different matter!
Indeed, it's worth considering whether Flatlander could even be better to inherit and then give under Gift Aid (which adds 25% to the charity's take) or the one-off gift of shares or assets procedure - especially if in the higher income tax bracket or sustaining a capital gain, which could apply if the house increased in price between probate and sale and a deed of appropriation was used.
If making a donation to charity from the estate one might consider whether to do some of it as shares rather than as cash. This is a very good way of using up small holdings of shares (often alocattions from privatizations) that would be inconvenient and relatively expensive to sell from within the estate or transfer to a person. Some charities will accept the shares but others aren't set up for that. Rather Sharegift do it and then send the money to one of the charities on their list with a dosh of additional money too. I got them to add one of my preferred charities to their list! Result! https://www.sharegift.org/
Gift Aid only works for an income tax payer - and having retired recently I am not currently paying any.
The idea would be to "give away" everything above the tax threshold. It wouldn't be to just reduce the tax rate (which as you point out would need a very large legacy to make direct financial sense).
Anyway, the question was really a moral one. Should I pay HMRC or not?
But talking about Gift Aid reminds me that the government already encourages this kind of thing day in day out, so why worry?
Indeed. I was surprised when I realised the number of concessions on IT and CGT HMG give to the wealthy. Even setting up political think tanks. And let's not forget that gifts to political parties are also free of IHT (not sure if they count as charities for the 4% deduction, though!).
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
"Glenfinnan is full of impossible equations, and here’s another – how do you deal with so many tourists when most of them come at the same time of day?
I arrived in the village in time for the madness of the 11am viaduct crossing of The Jacobite steam train.
I began making my way up to the hillside viewpoint just after 10 to avoid being caught up in a hoard of stragglers that start running down the A830 trunk road when they realise they might miss the key moment.
What I saw as I approached was a sight to behold. There must have been around 1000 people up there, waiting to watch the moment they all remember fondly from the Harry Potter films, when the “Hogwarts Express” crosses the 21-arched viaduct at the foot of Loch Shiel."
Hope there are some public lavs or else there may be a bit of al fresco expelliarmus-ing going on. Perhaps Rowling could contribute to such an edifice (funding not contents).
Flatlander Sr died last week. I am both sad and relieved as he'd been poorly for quite some time and most definitely wasn't having any fun. I propped him up at home for many years and have no regrets on that score.
Thanks to the current stock market bubble, and no doubt much to HYUFD's disgust, his estate will attract IHT, although it won't be a vast amount in the grand scheme of things. He was not one to plan and as POA there was a limit to what I could do about it.
Do I:
a) Make a deed of variation to set up a charitable organisation to buy a few fields to grow moss / newts / trees or distribute to other organisations doing the same.
b) Pay the government
On the one hand, Rachel from Accounts is desperate and over the last 6 months he definitely incurred costs to the NHS and the local council. And it won't be a Bill Gates style legacy that could make a big difference.
On the other hand, it is the government, isn't it?
Assume that the difference in inheritance won't really change my cheap lifestyle.
I think there is a cap on charitable donations which are free of IHT. Is it 10% of estate? So you may end up paying some anyway.
My motto with charitable organisations is always to make it focused enough to see the difference if possible. A permanent impact is good (eg buy a woodland for the local trust), but shorter term things of a couple of decades are also great - at present I'm quite taken with "friendship benches". We have one locally, which is labelled "sit on this bench if you are happy for people to stop for a chat". And also with benches spaced more often so that less fit or more frail people can take a break.
If it's a local WT, then another torch I currently carry is to get them to identify and publicise accessible walks; there exist standards such as a set called "Mile without Stiles" used by National Parks, and woodland and wildlife trusts need to be on board with this area. Potentially it is easier where the highest hill is about 3ft.
The accessible walks is a good thought as he had to use a mobility scooter for quite a few years and wasn't very good on rough ground before that.
One reason he went to the local WT reserve so much is that it was almost all good tracks.
Yes - there's all sorts of things. You can achieve a lot with £500 (eg a leaflet of barrier-free routes) or or £10000 (eg targeted research project, or honorariums for volunteers) or £200000 (eg miles of surfaced path) or any amount in between, or create your micro-charity and give small grants, taking an interest, over a number of years, for small projects, or seed funding that allows match funding (eg aiui the Ramblers' Path Accessibility Fund likes to co-fund to get more bang for the buck). Or could your WT (if it is a big reserve) use a Tramper for people to use - that's the big Mobility Scooters they have at NT Estates which cost £10k each?
You can then pattern that to match your parent's or your own interests - so if he liked archaeology you could put memorial benches on public footpaths at archaeology sites with an information board, or a horizon map like the one on Parliament Hill at a viewpoint.
It's wide open for useful & interesting projects, which could also be a personal interest, whether following my suggestion or any other. Red squirrels is another niche in the Flatlands, where there are aiui isolated colonies.
ATB with this, and you sound to be handling the bereavement comparatively well - but we've been talking about that recently.
It is funny that there is so much coverage by morons who don't understand tech, but they are doing an amazing job of telling the few kids who didn't know that there are services out there that will still enable you to look at boobies.
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
It was easier in my case because my father had laid out in black and white exactly what charities he wished to benefit and how much, in his will.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
IIRC It takes 10% of the estate (not just the IHT-liable bit) to go to charity for IHT on the liable portion of the rest to be cut by 4%. I don't think - pace @MattW if I have not misread - that the 10% is in any way a cap, just a trigge rpoint. HMG website: "The estate can pay Inheritance Tax at a reduced rate of 36% on some assets if you leave 10% or more of the ‘net value’ to charity in your will. (The net value is the estate’s total value minus any debts.)" Which seems not mucvh of a concession if there is not much IHT anyway, ergo is it worth losing much sleep over? Though the newts etc. are a different matter!
Indeed, it's worth considering whether Flatlander could even be better to inherit and then give under Gift Aid (which adds 25% to the charity's take) or the one-off gift of shares or assets procedure - especially if in the higher income tax bracket or sustaining a capital gain, which could apply if the house increased in price between probate and sale and a deed of appropriation was used.
If making a donation to charity from the estate one might consider whether to do some of it as shares rather than as cash. This is a very good way of using up small holdings of shares (often alocattions from privatizations) that would be inconvenient and relatively expensive to sell from within the estate or transfer to a person. Some charities will accept the shares but others aren't set up for that. Rather Sharegift do it and then send the money to one of the charities on their list with a dosh of additional money too. I got them to add one of my preferred charities to their list! Result! https://www.sharegift.org/
Gift Aid only works for an income tax payer - and having retired recently I am not currently paying any.
The idea would be to "give away" everything above the tax threshold. It wouldn't be to just reduce the tax rate (which as you point out would need a very large legacy to make direct financial sense).
Anyway, the question was really a moral one. Should I pay HMRC or not?
But talking about Gift Aid reminds me that the government already encourages this kind of thing day in day out, so why worry?
I never really understand the aversion to paying HMRC. It is health, education, defence, law and order, pensions, social security protecting the vulnerable and less fortunate living around us. A kind of general purpose charity if you like.
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
"Glenfinnan is full of impossible equations, and here’s another – how do you deal with so many tourists when most of them come at the same time of day?
I arrived in the village in time for the madness of the 11am viaduct crossing of The Jacobite steam train.
I began making my way up to the hillside viewpoint just after 10 to avoid being caught up in a hoard of stragglers that start running down the A830 trunk road when they realise they might miss the key moment.
What I saw as I approached was a sight to behold. There must have been around 1000 people up there, waiting to watch the moment they all remember fondly from the Harry Potter films, when the “Hogwarts Express” crosses the 21-arched viaduct at the foot of Loch Shiel."
Not an expert but had a drunken conversation with an engineer who suggested that "more masts" wouldn't fix the problem in Edinburgh, some complicated chat about frequencies etc. It's infuriating though, can't chat nonsense on PB anywhere near the Old Town.
Glenfinnan is exactly the kind of place you'd want a mast - loads of tourists, people live there, relatively cheap to install etc etc. It's 10 miles north in the heart of Knoydart which is an absurd waste of money. MR use radios, satellite comms are already used across the Highlands, you don't need 4G to text 999 with your grid ref, and if you're really worried you should carry a PLB like me when I'm leading a group.
I don't see the problem Jenrick thinks the only way the Tories can win the next election is by being to the right of Nigel Farage. And in that photo he is showing that he is.
Reality is think it shows what an impossible task the Tory (and Labour parties) have going forward as we swing from populist party one (who then fail) and we move to populist party 2. Populist party 1 was Bozo's Tory party, populist party 2 is SKS's Labour /not the Tory party.
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Annual RPI is currently 4.4%. The best savings rate is 4.75%.
The other answers are wrong. The real reason is savers can't be bothered to get the best rates.
No, they are not wrong The savings rates you refer to are paid by private businesses/banks and based off the base rate set primarily according to mandate to combat inflation. A government backed 'match inflation' boost (which appears to be the suggestion) would see banks etc reduce their rates as govt will cover it and lead to hyperinflation.
We read the question differently. I don't know where you get anything to do with the government from the wording.
And the government did use to offer NSI inflation linked trackers. It even made them tax free and paid a bonus on top. Of course if the government wanted to do this it could.
Well the question was worded to suggest everyone's money in the bank increases by inflation. That will have to be paid for by government. Businesses/ banks are under no obligation to offer such a rate and once government will ensure Inflation is met they might as well offer nothing at all (whilst advertising it as inflation linked, cheers Rachel). Inflation linked products exist, or can do, sure, but they arent mandatory. Once you guarantee or mandate that everyone's money rises by inflation then you create a problem. And if you try and force banks to offer inflation equivalent rates they'll just stop offering savings products. Banks work off the base rate.
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Annual RPI is currently 4.4%. The best savings rate is 4.75%.
The other answers are wrong. The real reason is savers can't be bothered to get the best rates.
No, they are not wrong The savings rates you refer to are paid by private businesses/banks and based off the base rate set primarily according to mandate to combat inflation. A government backed 'match inflation' boost (which appears to be the suggestion) would see banks etc reduce their rates as govt will cover it and lead to hyperinflation.
We read the question differently. I don't know where you get anything to do with the government from the wording.
And the government did use to offer NSI inflation linked trackers. It even made them tax free and paid a bonus on top. Of course if the government wanted to do this it could.
Well the question was worded to suggest everyone's money in the bank increases by inflation. That will have to be paid for by government. Businesses/ banks are under no obligation to offer such a rate and once government will ensure Inflation is met they might as well offer nothing at all (whilst advertising it as inflation linked, cheers Rachel). Inflation linked products exist, or can do, sure, but they arent mandatory. Once you guarantee or mandate that everyone's money rises by inflation then you create a problem. And if you try and force banks to offer inflation equivalent rates they'll just stop offering savings products. Banks work off the base rate.
The second sentence is a non sequitur.
If I want my money to rise by inflation I need moneysupermarket.com or similar, not the treasury.
Downing Street has created four brand new “digital roles” to beef up its content creation team in efforts to boost Starmer’s image. Alice Hodgson, Head of Digital Communications at No10, posted on LinkedIn this morning:
“We’re looking for creative leaders and makers with big ideas to join the team behind the Prime Minister’s and 10 Downing Street’s digital channels. If you’re passionate about storytelling, visuals, and creating content that reaches millions, this is your chance.”
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
"Glenfinnan is full of impossible equations, and here’s another – how do you deal with so many tourists when most of them come at the same time of day?
I arrived in the village in time for the madness of the 11am viaduct crossing of The Jacobite steam train.
I began making my way up to the hillside viewpoint just after 10 to avoid being caught up in a hoard of stragglers that start running down the A830 trunk road when they realise they might miss the key moment.
What I saw as I approached was a sight to behold. There must have been around 1000 people up there, waiting to watch the moment they all remember fondly from the Harry Potter films, when the “Hogwarts Express” crosses the 21-arched viaduct at the foot of Loch Shiel."
Hope there are some public lavs or else there may be a bit of al fresco expelliarmus-ing going on. Perhaps Rowling could contribute to such an edifice (funding not contents).
Only khazi is in the NTS site (for Charles Stuart's little affair) and you have to pay to get in. Haw!
The NC500 is also causing m or ethan a little local toothsucking - claims that it simply concetrates the tourists into a rat run though IANAE. Some folk unhappy at vans at the bottom of their garden (and quite a bit of the old No 1 and No 2), others unhappy that the tourists have disappeared or simply rush off after one night.
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Annual RPI is currently 4.4%. The best savings rate is 4.75%.
The other answers are wrong. The real reason is savers can't be bothered to get the best rates.
No, they are not wrong The savings rates you refer to are paid by private businesses/banks and based off the base rate set primarily according to mandate to combat inflation. A government backed 'match inflation' boost (which appears to be the suggestion) would see banks etc reduce their rates as govt will cover it and lead to hyperinflation.
We read the question differently. I don't know where you get anything to do with the government from the wording.
And the government did use to offer NSI inflation linked trackers. It even made them tax free and paid a bonus on top. Of course if the government wanted to do this it could.
Well the question was worded to suggest everyone's money in the bank increases by inflation. That will have to be paid for by government. Businesses/ banks are under no obligation to offer such a rate and once government will ensure Inflation is met they might as well offer nothing at all (whilst advertising it as inflation linked, cheers Rachel). Inflation linked products exist, or can do, sure, but they arent mandatory. Once you guarantee or mandate that everyone's money rises by inflation then you create a problem. And if you try and force banks to offer inflation equivalent rates they'll just stop offering savings products. Banks work off the base rate.
The second sentence is a non sequitur.
If I want my money to rise by inflation I need moneysupermarket.com or similar, not the treasury.
If the question is 'is it possible to match inflation with my money?' then the answer is yes, obviously. That wasn't the question though, or certainly not how I read it.
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
"Glenfinnan is full of impossible equations, and here’s another – how do you deal with so many tourists when most of them come at the same time of day?
I arrived in the village in time for the madness of the 11am viaduct crossing of The Jacobite steam train.
I began making my way up to the hillside viewpoint just after 10 to avoid being caught up in a hoard of stragglers that start running down the A830 trunk road when they realise they might miss the key moment.
What I saw as I approached was a sight to behold. There must have been around 1000 people up there, waiting to watch the moment they all remember fondly from the Harry Potter films, when the “Hogwarts Express” crosses the 21-arched viaduct at the foot of Loch Shiel."
Not an expert but had a drunken conversation with an engineer who suggested that "more masts" wouldn't fix the problem in Edinburgh, some complicated chat about frequencies etc. It's infuriating though, can't chat nonsense on PB anywhere near the Old Town.
Glenfinnan is exactly the kind of place you'd want a mast - loads of tourists, people live there, relatively cheap to install etc etc. It's 10 miles north in the heart of Knoydart which is an absurd waste of money. MR use radios, satellite comms are already used across the Highlands, you don't need 4G to text 999 with your grid ref, and if you're really worried you should carry a PLB like me when I'm leading a group.
I would imagine signals bounce everywhere which opens whole set of interference issues - at which point you end up going a lot of smaller lower power masts will fix one problem but create a different one...
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
"Glenfinnan is full of impossible equations, and here’s another – how do you deal with so many tourists when most of them come at the same time of day?
I arrived in the village in time for the madness of the 11am viaduct crossing of The Jacobite steam train.
I began making my way up to the hillside viewpoint just after 10 to avoid being caught up in a hoard of stragglers that start running down the A830 trunk road when they realise they might miss the key moment.
What I saw as I approached was a sight to behold. There must have been around 1000 people up there, waiting to watch the moment they all remember fondly from the Harry Potter films, when the “Hogwarts Express” crosses the 21-arched viaduct at the foot of Loch Shiel."
Not an expert but had a drunken conversation with an engineer who suggested that "more masts" wouldn't fix the problem in Edinburgh, some complicated chat about frequencies etc. It's infuriating though, can't chat nonsense on PB anywhere near the Old Town.
Glenfinnan is exactly the kind of place you'd want a mast - loads of tourists, people live there, relatively cheap to install etc etc. It's 10 miles north in the heart of Knoydart which is an absurd waste of money. MR use radios, satellite comms are already used across the Highlands, you don't need 4G to text 999 with your grid ref, and if you're really worried you should carry a PLB like me when I'm leading a group.
For comedy value - satellite connections may or may not have “landing” in the U.K.
Increasingly, the tech is moving to using laser side links between satellites. So the model of up-and-back-down will change.
So in a short time Der Kidz may be connecting direct to an ISP in another country…
Flatlander Sr died last week. I am both sad and relieved as he'd been poorly for quite some time and most definitely wasn't having any fun. I propped him up at home for many years and have no regrets on that score.
Thanks to the current stock market bubble, and no doubt much to HYUFD's disgust, his estate will attract IHT, although it won't be a vast amount in the grand scheme of things. He was not one to plan and as POA there was a limit to what I could do about it.
Do I:
a) Make a deed of variation to set up a charitable organisation to buy a few fields to grow moss / newts / trees or distribute to other organisations doing the same.
b) Pay the government
On the one hand, Rachel from Accounts is desperate and over the last 6 months he definitely incurred costs to the NHS and the local council. And it won't be a Bill Gates style legacy that could make a big difference.
On the other hand, it is the government, isn't it?
Assume that the difference in inheritance won't really change my cheap lifestyle.
The useless ONS, who were threatening to strike for being asked to be in the office two days a week, show their dedication to perfection by being late with the July retail figures.
If only they realised they served the public not themselves.
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
That reminds me - I wonder what happened to PB's poster Horse? He was a big fan of phone masts IIRC.
This is a Conservative site, we don't want any lefty traitors in our right wing echo chamber!
You keep making this point. Yet scroll through the comments between your post and mine and there are, what, three Tory posters? Plus maybe another two or three broadly-right-wing but not Tory posters? i.e. rather less than half. I can only assume that IRL in your world the expression of non-left-wing opinions is so rare that you percieve the broadly-representative-of-British-opinion-though-Reform-are-underrepresented nature of pb.com as to you strangely right wing.
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
If the account pays interest and the economy supports a positive real interest rate then you should get compensated. Alternatively you can put the savings in a real asset like equities or real estate, which is more likely to preserve the real value of the savings. Your bank account is a liability of the bank so if the government mandated a rise in the bank's liabilities without ensuring a commensurate rise in the bank's assets then the bank would quickly go out of business. Also, inflation is a form of taxation, which delivers seigniorage revenue to the public sector by devaluing existing money holdings. So the partial confiscation of savings is very much a feature not a bug.
Yeah guys, Gavin Newsom’s content is ridiculous. But it’s making you uncomfortable because he’s holding up a mirror to what you tolerate on behalf of partisanship. It jolts people out of their passive acceptance of how insane Trump sounds. https://x.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1957650485575618799
Newsom gets to be a jerk, and claim the (relative) high ground of parody. That's a sweet spot for a politician.
He’s wrestling with a pig, there’s no way he can keep it up for more than a few weeks, and the policy he’s talking about is a blatant and unpopular exercise in Gerrymandering, to make California worse than it is already.
Meanwhile, as he’s playing Twitter games with Texas and the president, his own State is a total mess. Make America California Again really isn’t a popular message.
A week or 2 ago you were claiming that California was already gerrymandered to the max by Dems, despite the fact that redistricting is done by an independent commission in California.
Californians seem to like their independent redistricting, so Newsom's proposed map starts off at a disadvantage. If he can frame it as retaliation for Republican dirty tricks, and a referendum on Trump, I guess he can win the vote on the proposition - so it makes sense to get as much attention for this framing as possible, as early as possible.
'Independent' California - Dem 43 GOP 9 'Gerrymandered' Texas - GOP25 Dem 13
Judge an organisation by its actions not its name.
California has an independent commission in the same way that East Germany was a Democratic Republic.
I suppose you think Scotland was gerrymandered when the SNP won 56 seats out of 57 in the 2015 general election?
In a way it was because it was 'fixed' for FPTP. The SNP have never managed that proportion of directly elected seats in Scottish elections.
Sure, I'm all in favour of more proportional systems, but you can't just point at numbers of seats won as evidence of gerrymandering.
Here's an article on JD Vance's claim that California is more gerrymandered that Texas:
If fits with the general pattern that "things that Vance says are likely to be false"
California's independent redistricting commission is generally held up as an example of best practice; it's not part of their job to try and make artificial districts to try and counteract the somewhat inefficient Republican vote in California. Comparing them to the former East Germany is just ignorant.
Newsom’s proposed gerrymander is more blatantly unfair than Texas’.
In an even year, you’d expect the Democrats to win about 58% to 37% for the Republicans in California, and about 43% to 54% in Texas.
Newsom’s gerrymander splits the seats in the proportions 92:8, whereas Texas’ will split them 1:2.
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
It was easier in my case because my father had laid out in black and white exactly what charities he wished to benefit and how much, in his will.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
Hi Mr F; can I add my condolences.
One issue with charities is that they are not necessarily immortal. My will leaves money to a couple of CABx which have recently merged to form a County-wide one, and I'm not sure I want to continue with the bequest. Obviously that means a codicil or something, but knowing me it'll staying on the back burner until it's too late!
The other way round that is to choose a charity which is not going anywhere.
My 2 favourite smallish charities with an outsized impact where I donate each year are Wheels for Wellbeing and the Open Spaces Society. The latter has been in being since 1865, and are defenders of Commons and Village Greens and woodlands and footpaths - their case officers do 1000 cases a year from small to large, and they are long term and strategic. In the Flatlands (ish) they beat Nicholas von Hoogstraten. It's a bit undignified of me to mention a specific charity, but I'll take the embarrassment for the publicity !
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
"Glenfinnan is full of impossible equations, and here’s another – how do you deal with so many tourists when most of them come at the same time of day?
I arrived in the village in time for the madness of the 11am viaduct crossing of The Jacobite steam train.
I began making my way up to the hillside viewpoint just after 10 to avoid being caught up in a hoard of stragglers that start running down the A830 trunk road when they realise they might miss the key moment.
What I saw as I approached was a sight to behold. There must have been around 1000 people up there, waiting to watch the moment they all remember fondly from the Harry Potter films, when the “Hogwarts Express” crosses the 21-arched viaduct at the foot of Loch Shiel."
A pedant writes: Glenfinnan is the head of Loch Shiel. The foot of Loch Shiel is at Acharacle.
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
It was easier in my case because my father had laid out in black and white exactly what charities he wished to benefit and how much, in his will.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
IIRC It takes 10% of the estate (not just the IHT-liable bit) to go to charity for IHT on the liable portion of the rest to be cut by 4%. I don't think - pace @MattW if I have not misread - that the 10% is in any way a cap, just a trigge rpoint. HMG website: "The estate can pay Inheritance Tax at a reduced rate of 36% on some assets if you leave 10% or more of the ‘net value’ to charity in your will. (The net value is the estate’s total value minus any debts.)" Which seems not mucvh of a concession if there is not much IHT anyway, ergo is it worth losing much sleep over? Though the newts etc. are a different matter!
Indeed, it's worth considering whether Flatlander could even be better to inherit and then give under Gift Aid (which adds 25% to the charity's take) or the one-off gift of shares or assets procedure - especially if in the higher income tax bracket or sustaining a capital gain, which could apply if the house increased in price between probate and sale and a deed of appropriation was used.
If making a donation to charity from the estate one might consider whether to do some of it as shares rather than as cash. This is a very good way of using up small holdings of shares (often alocattions from privatizations) that would be inconvenient and relatively expensive to sell from within the estate or transfer to a person. Some charities will accept the shares but others aren't set up for that. Rather Sharegift do it and then send the money to one of the charities on their list with a dosh of additional money too. I got them to add one of my preferred charities to their list! Result! https://www.sharegift.org/
Gift Aid only works for an income tax payer - and having retired recently I am not currently paying any.
The idea would be to "give away" everything above the tax threshold. It wouldn't be to just reduce the tax rate (which as you point out would need a very large legacy to make direct financial sense).
Anyway, the question was really a moral one. Should I pay HMRC or not?
But talking about Gift Aid reminds me that the government already encourages this kind of thing day in day out, so why worry?
Indeed. I was surprised when I realised the number of concessions on IT and CGT HMG give to the wealthy. Even setting up political think tanks. And let's not forget that gifts to political parties are also free of IHT (not sure if they count as charities for the 4% deduction, though!).
One thing I will not be doing is leaving any money to a political party - either my father's or mine!
The whole system needs reform. There are too many clauses for this that and the other - presumably added thanks to whoever was lobbying the government of the day.
If there were no exceptions I'd just have paid up and not worried about it, but to be honest IHT needs to go - to be replaced with something with more granularity such as a LVT. At least it wouldn't be additional hassle when you least need it.
Flatlander Sr died last week. I am both sad and relieved as he'd been poorly for quite some time and most definitely wasn't having any fun. I propped him up at home for many years and have no regrets on that score.
Thanks to the current stock market bubble, and no doubt much to HYUFD's disgust, his estate will attract IHT, although it won't be a vast amount in the grand scheme of things. He was not one to plan and as POA there was a limit to what I could do about it.
Do I:
a) Make a deed of variation to set up a charitable organisation to buy a few fields to grow moss / newts / trees or distribute to other organisations doing the same.
b) Pay the government
On the one hand, Rachel from Accounts is desperate and over the last 6 months he definitely incurred costs to the NHS and the local council. And it won't be a Bill Gates style legacy that could make a big difference.
On the other hand, its the government, isn't it?
Assume that the difference in inheritance won't really change my cheap lifestyle.
We’re there any charitable causes that mattered to him personally? If so, then sure. Otherwise I think I’d probably pay the IHT.
He showed no inclination to give money away, although one thing he did do was visit the local WT reserve a lot.
I have no immediate heirs and what I can't spend will end up with such causes anyway, so it would be nice to do something now.
However, my dilemma is that doing so would be at least partially for me, and a deed of variation should be done acting as him.
My mum, on the other hand, did not even like visiting National Trust properties because they were the product of punitive IHT, and some of the legacy would have been originally hers. I'm not sure why she had that attitude as the owner of an average semi-detached but she definitely did. So perhaps that's how I justify it.
Another illustration of IHT as voluntary, and why it should perhaps be abolished. I could do without this nonsense...
Yeah guys, Gavin Newsom’s content is ridiculous. But it’s making you uncomfortable because he’s holding up a mirror to what you tolerate on behalf of partisanship. It jolts people out of their passive acceptance of how insane Trump sounds. https://x.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1957650485575618799
Newsom gets to be a jerk, and claim the (relative) high ground of parody. That's a sweet spot for a politician.
He’s wrestling with a pig, there’s no way he can keep it up for more than a few weeks, and the policy he’s talking about is a blatant and unpopular exercise in Gerrymandering, to make California worse than it is already.
Meanwhile, as he’s playing Twitter games with Texas and the president, his own State is a total mess. Make America California Again really isn’t a popular message.
A week or 2 ago you were claiming that California was already gerrymandered to the max by Dems, despite the fact that redistricting is done by an independent commission in California.
Californians seem to like their independent redistricting, so Newsom's proposed map starts off at a disadvantage. If he can frame it as retaliation for Republican dirty tricks, and a referendum on Trump, I guess he can win the vote on the proposition - so it makes sense to get as much attention for this framing as possible, as early as possible.
'Independent' California - Dem 43 GOP 9 'Gerrymandered' Texas - GOP25 Dem 13
Judge an organisation by its actions not its name.
California has an independent commission in the same way that East Germany was a Democratic Republic.
I suppose you think Scotland was gerrymandered when the SNP won 56 seats out of 57 in the 2015 general election?
In a way it was because it was 'fixed' for FPTP. The SNP have never managed that proportion of directly elected seats in Scottish elections.
Sure, I'm all in favour of more proportional systems, but you can't just point at numbers of seats won as evidence of gerrymandering.
Here's an article on JD Vance's claim that California is more gerrymandered that Texas:
If fits with the general pattern that "things that Vance says are likely to be false"
California's independent redistricting commission is generally held up as an example of best practice; it's not part of their job to try and make artificial districts to try and counteract the somewhat inefficient Republican vote in California. Comparing them to the former East Germany is just ignorant.
Newsom’s proposed gerrymander is more blatantly unfair than Texas’.
In an even year, you’d expect the Democrats to win about 58% to 37% for the Republicans in California, and about 43% to 54% in Texas.
Newsom’s gerrymander splits the seats in the proportions 92:8, whereas Texas’ will split them 1:2.
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Annual RPI is currently 4.4%. The best savings rate is 4.75%.
The other answers are wrong. The real reason is savers can't be bothered to get the best rates.
No, they are not wrong The savings rates you refer to are paid by private businesses/banks and based off the base rate set primarily according to mandate to combat inflation. A government backed 'match inflation' boost (which appears to be the suggestion) would see banks etc reduce their rates as govt will cover it and lead to hyperinflation.
We read the question differently. I don't know where you get anything to do with the government from the wording.
And the government did use to offer NSI inflation linked trackers. It even made them tax free and paid a bonus on top. Of course if the government wanted to do this it could.
Well the question was worded to suggest everyone's money in the bank increases by inflation. That will have to be paid for by government. Businesses/ banks are under no obligation to offer such a rate and once government will ensure Inflation is met they might as well offer nothing at all (whilst advertising it as inflation linked, cheers Rachel). Inflation linked products exist, or can do, sure, but they arent mandatory. Once you guarantee or mandate that everyone's money rises by inflation then you create a problem. And if you try and force banks to offer inflation equivalent rates they'll just stop offering savings products. Banks work off the base rate.
If you want returns in excess of inflation then invest, not save. Help the economy, not the banks.
Yeah guys, Gavin Newsom’s content is ridiculous. But it’s making you uncomfortable because he’s holding up a mirror to what you tolerate on behalf of partisanship. It jolts people out of their passive acceptance of how insane Trump sounds. https://x.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1957650485575618799
Newsom gets to be a jerk, and claim the (relative) high ground of parody. That's a sweet spot for a politician.
He’s wrestling with a pig, there’s no way he can keep it up for more than a few weeks, and the policy he’s talking about is a blatant and unpopular exercise in Gerrymandering, to make California worse than it is already.
Meanwhile, as he’s playing Twitter games with Texas and the president, his own State is a total mess. Make America California Again really isn’t a popular message.
A week or 2 ago you were claiming that California was already gerrymandered to the max by Dems, despite the fact that redistricting is done by an independent commission in California.
Californians seem to like their independent redistricting, so Newsom's proposed map starts off at a disadvantage. If he can frame it as retaliation for Republican dirty tricks, and a referendum on Trump, I guess he can win the vote on the proposition - so it makes sense to get as much attention for this framing as possible, as early as possible.
'Independent' California - Dem 43 GOP 9 'Gerrymandered' Texas - GOP25 Dem 13
Judge an organisation by its actions not its name.
California has an independent commission in the same way that East Germany was a Democratic Republic.
I suppose you think Scotland was gerrymandered when the SNP won 56 seats out of 57 in the 2015 general election?
In a way it was because it was 'fixed' for FPTP. The SNP have never managed that proportion of directly elected seats in Scottish elections.
Sure, I'm all in favour of more proportional systems, but you can't just point at numbers of seats won as evidence of gerrymandering.
Here's an article on JD Vance's claim that California is more gerrymandered that Texas:
If fits with the general pattern that "things that Vance says are likely to be false"
California's independent redistricting commission is generally held up as an example of best practice; it's not part of their job to try and make artificial districts to try and counteract the somewhat inefficient Republican vote in California. Comparing them to the former East Germany is just ignorant.
Newsom’s proposed gerrymander is more blatantly unfair than Texas’.
In an even year, you’d expect the Democrats to win about 58% to 37% for the Republicans in California, and about 43% to 54% in Texas.
Newsom’s gerrymander splits the seats in the proportions 92:8, whereas Texas’ will split them 1:2.
As Sean Connery once said "he pulls a knife, you pull a gun"
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
It was easier in my case because my father had laid out in black and white exactly what charities he wished to benefit and how much, in his will.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
IIRC It takes 10% of the estate (not just the IHT-liable bit) to go to charity for IHT on the liable portion of the rest to be cut by 4%. I don't think - pace @MattW if I have not misread - that the 10% is in any way a cap, just a trigge rpoint. HMG website: "The estate can pay Inheritance Tax at a reduced rate of 36% on some assets if you leave 10% or more of the ‘net value’ to charity in your will. (The net value is the estate’s total value minus any debts.)" Which seems not mucvh of a concession if there is not much IHT anyway, ergo is it worth losing much sleep over? Though the newts etc. are a different matter!
Indeed, it's worth considering whether Flatlander could even be better to inherit and then give under Gift Aid (which adds 25% to the charity's take) or the one-off gift of shares or assets procedure - especially if in the higher income tax bracket or sustaining a capital gain, which could apply if the house increased in price between probate and sale and a deed of appropriation was used.
If making a donation to charity from the estate one might consider whether to do some of it as shares rather than as cash. This is a very good way of using up small holdings of shares (often alocattions from privatizations) that would be inconvenient and relatively expensive to sell from within the estate or transfer to a person. Some charities will accept the shares but others aren't set up for that. Rather Sharegift do it and then send the money to one of the charities on their list with a dosh of additional money too. I got them to add one of my preferred charities to their list! Result! https://www.sharegift.org/
Gift Aid only works for an income tax payer - and having retired recently I am not currently paying any.
The idea would be to "give away" everything above the tax threshold. It wouldn't be to just reduce the tax rate (which as you point out would need a very large legacy to make direct financial sense).
Anyway, the question was really a moral one. Should I pay HMRC or not?
But talking about Gift Aid reminds me that the government already encourages this kind of thing day in day out, so why worry?
Indeed. I was surprised when I realised the number of concessions on IT and CGT HMG give to the wealthy. Even setting up political think tanks. And let's not forget that gifts to political parties are also free of IHT (not sure if they count as charities for the 4% deduction, though!).
One thing I will not be doing is leaving any money to a political party - either my father's or mine!
The whole system needs reform. There are too many clauses for this that and the other - presumably added thanks to whoever was lobbying the government of the day.
If there were no exceptions I'd just have paid up and not worried about it, but to be honest IHT needs to go - to be replaced with something with more granularity such as a LVT. At least it wouldn't be additional hassle when you least need it.
Don't the Conservatives get more money from dead people and the living? Or is that their supporters are the living dead?
Can anyone explain why if inflation is say 5% the value of everyone's bank accounts cannot also rise by 5% in order to compensate people for the loss of value of their savings?
Annual RPI is currently 4.4%. The best savings rate is 4.75%.
The other answers are wrong. The real reason is savers can't be bothered to get the best rates.
No, they are not wrong The savings rates you refer to are paid by private businesses/banks and based off the base rate set primarily according to mandate to combat inflation. A government backed 'match inflation' boost (which appears to be the suggestion) would see banks etc reduce their rates as govt will cover it and lead to hyperinflation.
We read the question differently. I don't know where you get anything to do with the government from the wording.
And the government did use to offer NSI inflation linked trackers. It even made them tax free and paid a bonus on top. Of course if the government wanted to do this it could.
Well the question was worded to suggest everyone's money in the bank increases by inflation. That will have to be paid for by government. Businesses/ banks are under no obligation to offer such a rate and once government will ensure Inflation is met they might as well offer nothing at all (whilst advertising it as inflation linked, cheers Rachel). Inflation linked products exist, or can do, sure, but they arent mandatory. Once you guarantee or mandate that everyone's money rises by inflation then you create a problem. And if you try and force banks to offer inflation equivalent rates they'll just stop offering savings products. Banks work off the base rate.
If you want returns in excess of inflation then invest, not save. Help the economy, not the banks.
"David Cameron’s “bonfire of the quangos” decision to abolish England’s council spending watchdog has left a broken system that is costing taxpayers more money than it was promised to save.
In a highly critical report, academics at the University of Sheffield said the coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had promised savings of £100m a year by abolishing the Audit Commission.
However, replacing the public body with a private-sector model had resulted in “chaos” and soaring costs to audit councils amid the financial crisis hitting England’s town halls."
IIRC at the time there were a number of scandals at the AC. It wasn’t fit for purpose and had to be replaced with something.
Any links to substantiate that? The Wikipedia entry has very little under criticism and controversy and the replacement seems to be a failure
Yeah guys, Gavin Newsom’s content is ridiculous. But it’s making you uncomfortable because he’s holding up a mirror to what you tolerate on behalf of partisanship. It jolts people out of their passive acceptance of how insane Trump sounds. https://x.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1957650485575618799
Newsom gets to be a jerk, and claim the (relative) high ground of parody. That's a sweet spot for a politician.
He’s wrestling with a pig, there’s no way he can keep it up for more than a few weeks, and the policy he’s talking about is a blatant and unpopular exercise in Gerrymandering, to make California worse than it is already.
Meanwhile, as he’s playing Twitter games with Texas and the president, his own State is a total mess. Make America California Again really isn’t a popular message.
A week or 2 ago you were claiming that California was already gerrymandered to the max by Dems, despite the fact that redistricting is done by an independent commission in California.
Californians seem to like their independent redistricting, so Newsom's proposed map starts off at a disadvantage. If he can frame it as retaliation for Republican dirty tricks, and a referendum on Trump, I guess he can win the vote on the proposition - so it makes sense to get as much attention for this framing as possible, as early as possible.
'Independent' California - Dem 43 GOP 9 'Gerrymandered' Texas - GOP25 Dem 13
Judge an organisation by its actions not its name.
California has an independent commission in the same way that East Germany was a Democratic Republic.
I suppose you think Scotland was gerrymandered when the SNP won 56 seats out of 57 in the 2015 general election?
In a way it was because it was 'fixed' for FPTP. The SNP have never managed that proportion of directly elected seats in Scottish elections.
Sure, I'm all in favour of more proportional systems, but you can't just point at numbers of seats won as evidence of gerrymandering.
Here's an article on JD Vance's claim that California is more gerrymandered that Texas:
If fits with the general pattern that "things that Vance says are likely to be false"
California's independent redistricting commission is generally held up as an example of best practice; it's not part of their job to try and make artificial districts to try and counteract the somewhat inefficient Republican vote in California. Comparing them to the former East Germany is just ignorant.
Newsom’s proposed gerrymander is more blatantly unfair than Texas’.
In an even year, you’d expect the Democrats to win about 58% to 37% for the Republicans in California, and about 43% to 54% in Texas.
Newsom’s gerrymander splits the seats in the proportions 92:8, whereas Texas’ will split them 1:2.
You might be right, but can you show your workings for those figures
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
That reminds me - I wonder what happened to PB's poster Horse? He was a big fan of phone masts IIRC.
This is a Conservative site, we don't want any lefty traitors in our right wing echo chamber!
You keep making this point. Yet scroll through the comments between your post and mine and there are, what, three Tory posters? Plus maybe another two or three broadly-right-wing but not Tory posters? i.e. rather less than half. I can only assume that IRL in your world the expression of non-left-wing opinions is so rare that you percieve the broadly-representative-of-British-opinion-though-Reform-are-underrepresented nature of pb.com as to you strangely right wing.
If you multiply frequency of posting by poster the majority of posts will not be left of centre. I suspect you also inaccurately added some right-minded posters into the wrong-minded poster column. You have also picked a moment in the decade when Leon is offline. When he is on, the frequency of right wing post is manifoldly increased.
Sorry to hear about your loss Flatlander. I hope you will give him a good send off and make it memorable.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
Ha, yes, I am aware that many charities are less than transparent about what they actually do and am not a big fan of many.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
It was easier in my case because my father had laid out in black and white exactly what charities he wished to benefit and how much, in his will.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
IIRC It takes 10% of the estate (not just the IHT-liable bit) to go to charity for IHT on the liable portion of the rest to be cut by 4%. I don't think - pace @MattW if I have not misread - that the 10% is in any way a cap, just a trigge rpoint. HMG website: "The estate can pay Inheritance Tax at a reduced rate of 36% on some assets if you leave 10% or more of the ‘net value’ to charity in your will. (The net value is the estate’s total value minus any debts.)" Which seems not mucvh of a concession if there is not much IHT anyway, ergo is it worth losing much sleep over? Though the newts etc. are a different matter!
Indeed, it's worth considering whether Flatlander could even be better to inherit and then give under Gift Aid (which adds 25% to the charity's take) or the one-off gift of shares or assets procedure - especially if in the higher income tax bracket or sustaining a capital gain, which could apply if the house increased in price between probate and sale and a deed of appropriation was used.
If making a donation to charity from the estate one might consider whether to do some of it as shares rather than as cash. This is a very good way of using up small holdings of shares (often alocattions from privatizations) that would be inconvenient and relatively expensive to sell from within the estate or transfer to a person. Some charities will accept the shares but others aren't set up for that. Rather Sharegift do it and then send the money to one of the charities on their list with a dosh of additional money too. I got them to add one of my preferred charities to their list! Result! https://www.sharegift.org/
Gift Aid only works for an income tax payer - and having retired recently I am not currently paying any.
The idea would be to "give away" everything above the tax threshold. It wouldn't be to just reduce the tax rate (which as you point out would need a very large legacy to make direct financial sense).
Anyway, the question was really a moral one. Should I pay HMRC or not?
But talking about Gift Aid reminds me that the government already encourages this kind of thing day in day out, so why worry?
Indeed. I was surprised when I realised the number of concessions on IT and CGT HMG give to the wealthy. Even setting up political think tanks. And let's not forget that gifts to political parties are also free of IHT (not sure if they count as charities for the 4% deduction, though!).
One thing I will not be doing is leaving any money to a political party - either my father's or mine!
The whole system needs reform. There are too many clauses for this that and the other - presumably added thanks to whoever was lobbying the government of the day.
If there were no exceptions I'd just have paid up and not worried about it, but to be honest IHT needs to go - to be replaced with something with more granularity such as a LVT. At least it wouldn't be additional hassle when you least need it.
+ It would be fun watching the Conservatives deal with Labour being the ones to do it. Subverts expectations.
(1% council (property value) tax would cover IHT, CGT and Stamp Duty. Would be the biggest budget out-of-hat moment ever)
Yeah guys, Gavin Newsom’s content is ridiculous. But it’s making you uncomfortable because he’s holding up a mirror to what you tolerate on behalf of partisanship. It jolts people out of their passive acceptance of how insane Trump sounds. https://x.com/SarahLongwell25/status/1957650485575618799
Newsom gets to be a jerk, and claim the (relative) high ground of parody. That's a sweet spot for a politician.
He’s wrestling with a pig, there’s no way he can keep it up for more than a few weeks, and the policy he’s talking about is a blatant and unpopular exercise in Gerrymandering, to make California worse than it is already.
Meanwhile, as he’s playing Twitter games with Texas and the president, his own State is a total mess. Make America California Again really isn’t a popular message.
A week or 2 ago you were claiming that California was already gerrymandered to the max by Dems, despite the fact that redistricting is done by an independent commission in California.
Californians seem to like their independent redistricting, so Newsom's proposed map starts off at a disadvantage. If he can frame it as retaliation for Republican dirty tricks, and a referendum on Trump, I guess he can win the vote on the proposition - so it makes sense to get as much attention for this framing as possible, as early as possible.
'Independent' California - Dem 43 GOP 9 'Gerrymandered' Texas - GOP25 Dem 13
Judge an organisation by its actions not its name.
California has an independent commission in the same way that East Germany was a Democratic Republic.
I suppose you think Scotland was gerrymandered when the SNP won 56 seats out of 57 in the 2015 general election?
In a way it was because it was 'fixed' for FPTP. The SNP have never managed that proportion of directly elected seats in Scottish elections.
Sure, I'm all in favour of more proportional systems, but you can't just point at numbers of seats won as evidence of gerrymandering.
Here's an article on JD Vance's claim that California is more gerrymandered that Texas:
If fits with the general pattern that "things that Vance says are likely to be false"
California's independent redistricting commission is generally held up as an example of best practice; it's not part of their job to try and make artificial districts to try and counteract the somewhat inefficient Republican vote in California. Comparing them to the former East Germany is just ignorant.
Newsom’s proposed gerrymander is more blatantly unfair than Texas’.
In an even year, you’d expect the Democrats to win about 58% to 37% for the Republicans in California, and about 43% to 54% in Texas.
Newsom’s gerrymander splits the seats in the proportions 92:8, whereas Texas’ will split them 1:2.
As Sean Connery once said "he pulls a knife, you pull a gun"
There's no point trying to play the beautiful game against this manifestation of the GOP. The absolute imperative is to win.
1) the old birds whinging about the shit, impersonal funeral and 2) anyone who says 'that's less than I thought' whilst paying through the nose for life cover.
Thank you for your attention to this doesn't matter
Why was Jenrick boasting about opening new hotels every month? Because people did not want potentially illegal immigrants wandering the streets or cluttering the doorways of their shops, I suppose. So he found the solution to one problem, more secure accommodation, by creating another.
The absolute failure, however, for which he bore at least some responsibility (no doubt the Treasury and resources did too) was the grinding to a halt of our immigration assessment system, whether in original determinations, dealing with appeals, actually implementing the decisions made and getting people back on planes where they came from. The only success I can think of from the last government in this area was the deal with Albania. It should have been a model, not unique.
The current government has made modest progress in dealing with appeals and deportations but it is a pale shadow of what is needed. In my view the only realistic approach is an amnesty for most of those who have not been removed in 10 years or more and try to focus resources on the new arrivals/overstayers etc.
Isn't the bigger problem that many-to-most asylum applicants turn out to have a perfectly valid case under the established rules and the last government was terrified of acknowledging that? Hence keeping people in limbo, until they could be magicked away to Africa.
The rules are a load of bollox from from 70+ years ago , be as well saying we should bring back deportation. They are economic immigrants , illegally entering Britain and abusing the lax rules. You shoudl not just be able to travel through a shedload of safe countries to the one of your choice and say you want to live here free on state subsidies. Anyone who thinks that is sensible is not right in the head. Bigger problem is the state largesse they get from UK and hence the stampede to get here.
They are not economic immigrants. They are overwhelmingly young men of fighting age who are fleeing either conscription or (worse) its gangster equivalent.
1) the old birds whinging about the shit, impersonal funeral and 2) anyone who says 'that's less than I thought' whilst paying through the nose for life cover.
Thank you for your attention to this doesn't matter
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
That reminds me - I wonder what happened to PB's poster Horse? He was a big fan of phone masts IIRC.
This is a Conservative site, we don't want any lefty traitors in our right wing echo chamber!
You keep making this point. Yet scroll through the comments between your post and mine and there are, what, three Tory posters? Plus maybe another two or three broadly-right-wing but not Tory posters? i.e. rather less than half. I can only assume that IRL in your world the expression of non-left-wing opinions is so rare that you percieve the broadly-representative-of-British-opinion-though-Reform-are-underrepresented nature of pb.com as to you strangely right wing.
If you multiply frequency of posting by poster the majority of posts will not be left of centre. I suspect you also inaccurately added some right-minded posters into the wrong-minded poster column. You have also picked a moment in the decade when Leon is offline. When he is on, the frequency of right wing post is manifoldly increased.
Well a full statistical analysis would be hard to do - but just looking at today, I don't think you're right. And even when Leon is at his most present, I think it would be pushing it to say he makes up more than 5% of the traffic - hardly enough to swing the balance. And he's hardly 'Tory'. And he generates as many left-wing posts shouting him down as he posts himself. But just take a scroll through the last three hours or so - you'd be hard pushed to call it a Tory echo chamber without really stretching the definition of 'Tory' to include 'anyone who isn't MexicanPete'.
Some brilliant news to cheer everyone up - some of Scotland's most stunning landscapes (heart of the Cairngorms at Luibeg and Ryvoan, Glencoe, Torridon etc) have been saved from bespoilment by 25m phone masts. We don't put enough value on these areas and forget that people come here to enjoy them, not scroll through TikTok.
(The issue was it was measured by landmass coverage rather than residents, so we were spending millions to install generators and masts in the middle of nowhere)
"Glenfinnan is full of impossible equations, and here’s another – how do you deal with so many tourists when most of them come at the same time of day?
I arrived in the village in time for the madness of the 11am viaduct crossing of The Jacobite steam train.
I began making my way up to the hillside viewpoint just after 10 to avoid being caught up in a hoard of stragglers that start running down the A830 trunk road when they realise they might miss the key moment.
What I saw as I approached was a sight to behold. There must have been around 1000 people up there, waiting to watch the moment they all remember fondly from the Harry Potter films, when the “Hogwarts Express” crosses the 21-arched viaduct at the foot of Loch Shiel."
It's definitely getting worse! despite the new car parks, signage and parking attendants put in, we couldn't find any space there a few weeks back, though with school holidays, and it being a Saturday in July we were asking for trouble. Not a Potter buff myself, was only planning on going to the visitor centre.
Anyone thinking of going to to see the Jacobite train, try a weekday in October, the train runs til the weekend the clocks change. Not really any easy answer to the extreme tourism question, they'll be pretty limited for extension to parking space in Glenfinnan now.
Re the phone masts - coverage in remote parts of the west coast is definitely much better than it was even 5 years ago, hopefully satellites can help nail the worst blackspots. Seems to be a lot of hillwalkers run into trouble where coverage is worst
1) the old birds whinging about the shit, impersonal funeral and 2) anyone who says 'that's less than I thought' whilst paying through the nose for life cover.
Thank you for your attention to this doesn't matter
1) the old birds whinging about the shit, impersonal funeral and 2) anyone who says 'that's less than I thought' whilst paying through the nose for life cover.
Thank you for your attention to this doesn't matter
You can add people who refer to their family in ads as 'my lot' . Fuck right off.
1) the old birds whinging about the shit, impersonal funeral and 2) anyone who says 'that's less than I thought' whilst paying through the nose for life cover.
Thank you for your attention to this doesn't matter
Can I interest you in a free SunLife Parker pen?
Just for enquiring?
Absolutely no obligation, but you do need to enter all your details so you can be hassled day and night until you sign on the dotted line with your new Parker pen. Sign here please...
1) the old birds whinging about the shit, impersonal funeral and 2) anyone who says 'that's less than I thought' whilst paying through the nose for life cover.
Thank you for your attention to this doesn't matter
Can I interest you in a free SunLife Parker pen?
Just for enquiring?
Absolutely no obligation, but you do need to enter all your details so you can be hassled day and night until you sign on the dotted line with your new Parker pen. Sign here please...
Comments
When Tracy Hall fell in love with Max Tavita and transferred money to him, she had no idea she was the serial fraudster’s latest victim"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/relationships/i-lost-150000-pounds-to-a-romance-scammer
I remember a long dispute between fairly distant relatives about a single dining table (which, being brown furniture, would be worth precisely zero now, as discussed last week). I believe my father was one of the executors and he basically washed his hands of it.
In this case, though, I am the last one standing, with no direct heirs. A failed genetic experiment, as it were.
About Charities - DYOR. The title is simply a tax wrapper. There’s a lot with high overheads and low impact. There are many more now who are doing outsourced work for HMG so you just be subsidising HMG again, indirectly.
In this case my thought is a trust which could do its own specific work. Mrs Flatlander is already a trustee on a land management charity (mostly restoring wetlands along a river course) and has lots of connections with the local wildlife trusts.
Whether it is what my father would have wanted is a different question. He didn't offer an opinion on much.
(That channel's really good; as is Science Max)
One reason he went to the local WT reserve so much is that it was almost all good tracks.
I would counter that the “independent” commission in California is nothing of the sort, most of the people who sit on it are polititicians or political appointees. At best you might call it “bipartisan” but it’s a long way away from what the UK would expect “independent” to mean.
They all do it in the US, all of the time, while preaching how virtuous is their own Gerrymandering while decrying the other side going exactly the same thing.
But the thought occurs that if the money is now going to be yours, you have no other use for it and do not wish to hand it to the Treasury, you could use it to do a cause that would in itself be good anyway even if you are not sure what your father’s own views would have been. That would not be a bad thing. Could be accessible paths, nature reserves, mobility scooter charities…
American definition of rural though, so each satellite probably copes with half a dozen at a time.
Their existing emergency SMS feature has been a big success with first responders.
Neither myself nor the casualty would have been so keen on going there if it was covered in phone masts.
Quite the shock of beer prices compared to Ukraine though! £5 a pint in the hotel, perhaps local bars will be cheaper.
One issue with charities is that they are not necessarily immortal. My will leaves money to a couple of CABx which have recently merged to form a County-wide one, and I'm not sure I want to continue with the bequest.
Obviously that means a codicil or something, but knowing me it'll staying on the back burner until it's too late!
And it's an even bigger stretch to get from there to the idea that the current setup isn't a lot worse.
One of the essences of conservatism is that you don't change unless you've got reason to believe that the change will be an improvement.
https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax
Indeed, it's worth considering whether Flatlander could even be better to inherit and then give under Gift Aid (which adds 25% to the charity's take) or the one-off gift of shares or assets procedure - especially if in the higher income tax bracket or sustaining a capital gain, which could apply if the house increased in price between probate and sale and a deed of appropriation was used.
If making a donation to charity from the estate one might consider whether to do some of it as shares rather than as cash. This is a very good way of using up small holdings of shares (often alocattions from privatizations) that would be inconvenient and relatively expensive to sell from within the estate or transfer to a person. Some charities will accept the shares but others aren't set up for that. Rather Sharegift do it and then send the money to one of the charities on their list with a dosh of additional money too. I got them to add one of my preferred charities to their list! Result! https://www.sharegift.org/
That sort of thing can be a problem. We're always told to specify charities, but they change or worse. I put that sort of thing in a covering letter of wishes rather tham the will itself. allowing the executors to use their common sense to decide what to do. Much cheaper to update than a codicil, too, and the will specifically refersa to the covering letter.
I had trouble when asked to help with a deceased colleague's will - specifically directing his specialist library to be sold to benefit students etc. Trouble was, the only specialist bookseller had just retired! Fortunately the family accepted my suggestion of auctioning it at the next meeting of a relevbant specialist group, which had a suitable (and very well used) fund at minimal admin cost.
The other answers are wrong. The real reason is savers can't be bothered to get the best rates.
The idea would be to "give away" everything above the tax threshold. It wouldn't be to just reduce the tax rate (which as you point out would need a very large legacy to make direct financial sense).
Anyway, the question was really a moral one. Should I pay HMRC or not?
But talking about Gift Aid reminds me that the government already encourages this kind of thing day in day out, so why worry?
And this ... https://www.thenational.scot/news/25393981.went-glenfinnan-see-harry-potter-tourism-chaos---verdict/
"Glenfinnan is full of impossible equations, and here’s another – how do you deal with so many tourists when most of them come at the same time of day?
I arrived in the village in time for the madness of the 11am viaduct crossing of The Jacobite steam train.
I began making my way up to the hillside viewpoint just after 10 to avoid being caught up in a hoard of stragglers that start running down the A830 trunk road when they realise they might miss the key moment.
What I saw as I approached was a sight to behold. There must have been around 1000 people up there, waiting to watch the moment they all remember fondly from the Harry Potter films, when the “Hogwarts Express” crosses the 21-arched viaduct at the foot of Loch Shiel."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo
The savings rates you refer to are paid by private businesses/banks and based off the base rate set primarily according to mandate to combat inflation.
A government backed 'match inflation' boost (which appears to be the suggestion) would see banks etc reduce their rates as govt will cover it and lead to hyperinflation.
Do you have any evidence that California is currently gerrymandered?
You can call it bipartisan if you like, but I don't know why you think UK boundary commissions have nobody appointed by politicians.
And the government did use to offer NSI inflation linked trackers. It even made them tax free and paid a bonus on top. Of course if the government wanted to do this it could.
Perhaps Rowling could contribute to such an edifice (funding not contents).
You can then pattern that to match your parent's or your own interests - so if he liked archaeology you could put memorial benches on public footpaths at archaeology sites with an information board, or a horizon map like the one on Parliament Hill at a viewpoint.
It's wide open for useful & interesting projects, which could also be a personal interest, whether following my suggestion or any other. Red squirrels is another niche in the Flatlands, where there are aiui isolated colonies.
ATB with this, and you sound to be handling the bereavement comparatively well - but we've been talking about that recently.
Glenfinnan is exactly the kind of place you'd want a mast - loads of tourists, people live there, relatively cheap to install etc etc. It's 10 miles north in the heart of Knoydart which is an absurd waste of money. MR use radios, satellite comms are already used across the Highlands, you don't need 4G to text 999 with your grid ref, and if you're really worried you should carry a PLB like me when I'm leading a group.
Reality is think it shows what an impossible task the Tory (and Labour parties) have going forward as we swing from populist party one (who then fail) and we move to populist party 2. Populist party 1 was Bozo's Tory party, populist party 2 is SKS's Labour /not the Tory party.
If I want my money to rise by inflation I need moneysupermarket.com or similar, not the treasury.
“We’re looking for creative leaders and makers with big ideas to join the team behind the Prime Minister’s and 10 Downing Street’s digital channels. If you’re passionate about storytelling, visuals, and creating content that reaches millions, this is your chance.”
More economic growth via government spending....
The NC500 is also causing m or ethan a little local toothsucking - claims that it simply concetrates the tourists into a rat run though IANAE. Some folk unhappy at vans at the bottom of their garden (and quite a bit of the old No 1 and No 2), others unhappy that the tourists have disappeared or simply rush off after one night.
Increasingly, the tech is moving to using laser side links between satellites. So the model of up-and-back-down will change.
So in a short time Der Kidz may be connecting direct to an ISP in another country…
Ban on gravity promised, ban on gravity delivered.
If only they realised they served the public not themselves.
https://x.com/mrmbrown/status/1957735811283100113?s=61
Action required
I’m stunned.
In an even year, you’d expect the Democrats to win about 58% to 37% for the Republicans in California, and about 43% to 54% in Texas.
Newsom’s gerrymander splits the seats in the proportions 92:8, whereas Texas’ will split them 1:2.
My 2 favourite smallish charities with an outsized impact where I donate each year are Wheels for Wellbeing and the Open Spaces Society. The latter has been in being since 1865, and are defenders of Commons and Village Greens and woodlands and footpaths - their case officers do 1000 cases a year from small to large, and they are long term and strategic. In the Flatlands (ish) they beat Nicholas von Hoogstraten. It's a bit undignified of me to mention a specific charity, but I'll take the embarrassment for the publicity !
The whole system needs reform. There are too many clauses for this that and the other - presumably added thanks to whoever was lobbying the government of the day.
If there were no exceptions I'd just have paid up and not worried about it, but to be honest IHT needs to go - to be replaced with something with more granularity such as a LVT. At least it wouldn't be additional hassle when you least need it.
In addition to the issues of low staff wages and modern slavery or "volunteers"
The Wikipedia entry has very little under criticism and controversy and the replacement seems to be a failure
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audit_Commission_(United_Kingdom)#:~:text=Criticism and controversy,-The commission had&text=In 2009, the commission caused,they collapsed in October 2008.
Trump outs Ainsley Earhardt for being in a relationship with Sean Hannity live on Fox & Friends. Lawrence Jones immediately changes the topic.
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lwqw2szlud2a
(1% council (property value) tax would cover IHT, CGT and Stamp Duty. Would be the biggest budget out-of-hat moment ever)
1) the old birds whinging about the shit, impersonal funeral and
2) anyone who says 'that's less than I thought' whilst paying through the nose for life cover.
Thank you for your attention to this doesn't matter
Government has hit a new low matching Rishi before he lost 251 seats level
Forensic
But just take a scroll through the last three hours or so - you'd be hard pushed to call it a Tory echo chamber without really stretching the definition of 'Tory' to include 'anyone who isn't MexicanPete'.
Ref 28 (=)
Lab 21 (=)
Con 18 (+1)
LD 15 (-1)
Green 10 (=)
SNP 3 (=)
PC 1(=)
Others 5 (+1)
Takes one to know one?
Anyone thinking of going to to see the Jacobite train, try a weekday in October, the train runs til the weekend the clocks change.
Not really any easy answer to the extreme tourism question, they'll be pretty limited for extension to parking space in Glenfinnan now.
Re the phone masts - coverage in remote parts of the west coast is definitely much better than it was even 5 years ago, hopefully satellites can help nail the worst blackspots. Seems to be a lot of hillwalkers run into trouble where coverage is worst