It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Let me at it!
Carbon Capture Schemes? gone.
Nuclear power projects - persuade me why they shouldn't be gone....
Carbon capture was always a waste of money - added cost zero benefit
Nuclear power - we shouldn’t be building big ones except the Korean design. Small modular ones we should be investing in to get the factories working so we start exporting them
Carbon capture is a designed to mitigate the amount of CO2 that is released. If you are determined that global temps need to be kept below 'x' degrees then carbon capture might be used as part of the process, even if it is hideously expensive.
Except that very few countries will be doing it, and the cost/benefit analysis is dreadful compared with other interventions.
I don't disagree - it wouldn't be my choice. I'd be going hell for leather for renewables (tidal, wind, solar, battery storage, huge storage reservoirs etc).
The one good use for carbon capture and storage would be if we used excess renewable electricity to create methane (via electrolysis and the Sabatier process) and then captured the carbon when burning that gas. You'd then have a negative carbon process to balance things like the warming from jet plane contrails.
But we're a long way from that, and instead they're talking about using CCS for production of hydrogen from fossil methane, which is absurd.
I'm trying to find the link - there was an interesting startup in the US that was looking at Solar -> Methane. But without battery storage or even converter electronics - just feed the power into the process from the panels. So it would run when there was power. The idea was simplicity and lower costs.....
We also already have a lot of infrastructure for methane distribution and storage.
The problem with hydrogen via electrolysis is still cost. It's probably going to be beyond the end of this decade before it's cheaper than fossil fuel based production with CCS. But as solar prices continue to fall and installed capacity to rise (which will eventually mean a lot of solar electric at a marginal costs of zero), incremental technology improvements ought to make it cheaper than fossil fuel based production, even without CCS, by 2040ish.
A lot of developments got cancelled when Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices through the roof. But things are still progressing slowly.
The bigger problem is you need a completely new infrastructure system for distribution and storage. You can't use the existing system as the hyrogen wouldn't even see it. We would have to change the whole way we use energy.
I genuinely think hydrogen is a non starter. What we should be doing is looking at more reliable renewables - expecially tidal and wave - and small scale localised nuclear. The latter would have the added benenfit of making the whole energy system more robust through decentralisation.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
There you go - that's what;'s wrong in your office.
Why do you think that Stand Up is called Stand Up?
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
Algerian immigrant. Those people on X are total scumbags.
Not just online.
I’m from Sri Lankan heritage. I commanded submarines for the Royal Navy. I’ve served this country almost my entire adult life. And in the last year, I’ve been challenged directly about my skin colour in the UK. Never happened since the 1970's and 80's...
..Has Britain suddenly become racist? I don’t think so. I think pressure, politics, and online rage are dragging old ideas to the surface. Fear is being weaponised. Division is easy currency. https://x.com/SSN14CO/status/1985299647774990358
Friend in a similar situation (UK born, Army then univ teaching). He started getting called N****** openly in the street. Though it began very noticeably with Brexit itself. Maybe they live in different areas, though. Hisd comment was "Haven't heard that for a very long time!"
The core of Russia's disinformation barrage on western minds is that European streets are a hellscape of gangrape, violence and agressive transsexuals.
According to various Russian bloggers, rape in the Russian Army is just discipline and isn't even slightly gay. If you start from that point of view, your world is going to be at bit of angle to sanity.
On topic: I'm not sure I would vote for her, were I in Virginia, but I love Winsome Earle-Sears' biography:
immigrant from Jamaica college graduate electrician Marine corporal Salvation Army "lassie" wife and mother of three children businesswoman legislator lieutenant governor
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
That will end well I am sure, some chums will eb rubbing their hands in anticipation.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
That would require joined up thinking.
When I was a kid, back in the 80s, Thatcher sanctioned the use of generic drugs in the NHS and pushed for more block buyings. There was a bizarre reaction to this. One doctor, on Radio 4, declaimed that "generics are useless".
I asked my father, whose work in medical ethics was extensive what that meant - if the chemical was identical, surely....
My father explained that the generics were useless. At getting freebies from the manufacturers. Conferences at holiday resorts etc.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
That will end well I am sure, some chums will eb rubbing their hands in anticipation.
Shame the Cybertruck isn't legal here. Could get them for sweeties right now
"BBC ‘completely misled’ viewers with edited Trump speech An internal memo criticised the corporation over alleged breaches of impartiality including a Panorama special relating to the Capitol riots" (£)
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
Unless they are in musical theatre...
Hence Kiss Me Kate; The Producers; The Bandwagon... etc.
The best musicals either embrace the utter absurdity of the form, or treat it (comme Les Misérables) as deadly serious.
"BBC ‘completely misled’ viewers with edited Trump speech An internal memo criticised the corporation over alleged breaches of impartiality including a Panorama special relating to the Capitol riots" (£)
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
That would require joined up thinking.
When I was a kid, back in the 80s, Thatcher sanctioned the use of generic drugs in the NHS and pushed for more block buyings. There was a bizarre reaction to this. One doctor, on Radio 4, declaimed that "generics are useless".
I asked my father, whose work in medical ethics was extensive what that meant - if the chemical was identical, surely....
My father explained that the generics were useless. At getting freebies from the manufacturers. Conferences at holiday resorts etc.
Generics can genuinely be less effective if the pharmaceutics is different. Simply having the same active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) isn't always enough. But in general, yes, generics do the job.
Patients can be a challenge though. Many do not like 'change' and so a different packet, from a different manufacturer and heaven forfend a different colour pill can see them traipsing back to the pharmacy for the 'proper' ones.
"BBC ‘completely misled’ viewers with edited Trump speech An internal memo criticised the corporation over alleged breaches of impartiality including a Panorama special relating to the Capitol riots" (£)
The core of Russia's disinformation barrage on western minds is that European streets are a hellscape of gangrape, violence and agressive transsexuals.
According to various Russian bloggers, rape in the Russian Army is just discipline and isn't even slightly gay. If you start from that point of view, your world is going to be at bit of angle to sanity.
ISTR that Ross Kemp did some shows on the toughest prisons in the world. One in South America had the head tough prisoner and his 'wives' - other prisoners he used for sex. All men, but it wasn't gay. Oh no, - they were his wives.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
Unless they are in musical theatre...
Hence Kiss Me Kate; The Producers; The Bandwagon... etc.
Personal preference for my arts to be like normal life. Although that's probably a stretch as I rather like Sci Fi and comedy...
Algerian immigrant. Those people on X are total scumbags.
My comment to my wife when I read the news a few minutes ago... 'Well that is going to completely fuck the brains of the racists now isn't it.'
More importantly the guy really is a hero. A term misused far too often today. Putting yourself in harms way to save others is properly heroic. I hope he pulls through and gets well deserved reward for what he did.
Has to be a George Cross recipient.
Nice day out at the palace, a shiny medal and I think an annuity of £10k a year.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
That would require joined up thinking.
When I was a kid, back in the 80s, Thatcher sanctioned the use of generic drugs in the NHS and pushed for more block buyings. There was a bizarre reaction to this. One doctor, on Radio 4, declaimed that "generics are useless".
I asked my father, whose work in medical ethics was extensive what that meant - if the chemical was identical, surely....
My father explained that the generics were useless. At getting freebies from the manufacturers. Conferences at holiday resorts etc.
Generics can genuinely be less effective if the pharmaceutics is different. Simply having the same active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) isn't always enough. But in general, yes, generics do the job.
Patients can be a challenge though. Many do not like 'change' and so a different packet, from a different manufacturer and heaven forfend a different colour pill can see them traipsing back to the pharmacy for the 'proper' ones.
Oh I fully get that logic - my life depends on this pill so any change is a great cause for concern especially if you don't have much else to do or worry about.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
That would require joined up thinking.
When I was a kid, back in the 80s, Thatcher sanctioned the use of generic drugs in the NHS and pushed for more block buyings. There was a bizarre reaction to this. One doctor, on Radio 4, declaimed that "generics are useless".
I asked my father, whose work in medical ethics was extensive what that meant - if the chemical was identical, surely....
My father explained that the generics were useless. At getting freebies from the manufacturers. Conferences at holiday resorts etc.
Just reading Empire of Pain at present. TLDR - "Who gives a shit about patients if we are making megabucks?"
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
"BBC ‘completely misled’ viewers with edited Trump speech An internal memo criticised the corporation over alleged breaches of impartiality including a Panorama special relating to the Capitol riots" (£)
CBS cut out a presidential meltdown at the end of the interview and took Trump’s own advice to edit out a section where he bragged about the payout he received from their parent company. https://x.com/thedailybeast/status/1985441622515986771
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Let me at it!
Carbon Capture Schemes? gone.
Nuclear power projects - persuade me why they shouldn't be gone....
Carbon capture was always a waste of money - added cost zero benefit
Nuclear power - we shouldn’t be building big ones except the Korean design. Small modular ones we should be investing in to get the factories working so we start exporting them
Carbon capture is a designed to mitigate the amount of CO2 that is released. If you are determined that global temps need to be kept below 'x' degrees then carbon capture might be used as part of the process, even if it is hideously expensive.
Except that very few countries will be doing it, and the cost/benefit analysis is dreadful compared with other interventions.
I don't disagree - it wouldn't be my choice. I'd be going hell for leather for renewables (tidal, wind, solar, battery storage, huge storage reservoirs etc).
The one good use for carbon capture and storage would be if we used excess renewable electricity to create methane (via electrolysis and the Sabatier process) and then captured the carbon when burning that gas. You'd then have a negative carbon process to balance things like the warming from jet plane contrails.
But we're a long way from that, and instead they're talking about using CCS for production of hydrogen from fossil methane, which is absurd.
I'm trying to find the link - there was an interesting startup in the US that was looking at Solar -> Methane. But without battery storage or even converter electronics - just feed the power into the process from the panels. So it would run when there was power. The idea was simplicity and lower costs.....
We also already have a lot of infrastructure for methane distribution and storage.
The problem with hydrogen via electrolysis is still cost. It's probably going to be beyond the end of this decade before it's cheaper than fossil fuel based production with CCS. But as solar prices continue to fall and installed capacity to rise (which will eventually mean a lot of solar electric at a marginal costs of zero), incremental technology improvements ought to make it cheaper than fossil fuel based production, even without CCS, by 2040ish.
A lot of developments got cancelled when Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices through the roof. But things are still progressing slowly.
The bigger problem is you need a completely new infrastructure system for distribution and storage. You can't use the existing system as the hyrogen wouldn't even see it. We would have to change the whole way we use energy.
I genuinely think hydrogen is a non starter. What we should be doing is looking at more reliable renewables - expecially tidal and wave - and small scale localised nuclear. The latter would have the added benenfit of making the whole energy system more robust through decentralisation.
This is why you use the Sabatier process to convert the hydrogen from electrolysis into methane. Instead of hydrogen you have a gas that is easier to store, distribute and use and for which we have all the infrastructure already.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
That would require joined up thinking.
When I was a kid, back in the 80s, Thatcher sanctioned the use of generic drugs in the NHS and pushed for more block buyings. There was a bizarre reaction to this. One doctor, on Radio 4, declaimed that "generics are useless".
I asked my father, whose work in medical ethics was extensive what that meant - if the chemical was identical, surely....
My father explained that the generics were useless. At getting freebies from the manufacturers. Conferences at holiday resorts etc.
Generics can genuinely be less effective if the pharmaceutics is different. Simply having the same active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) isn't always enough. But in general, yes, generics do the job.
Patients can be a challenge though. Many do not like 'change' and so a different packet, from a different manufacturer and heaven forfend a different colour pill can see them traipsing back to the pharmacy for the 'proper' ones.
Given the strength of the placebo effect, the patients may well have a point.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Let me at it!
Carbon Capture Schemes? gone.
Nuclear power projects - persuade me why they shouldn't be gone....
Carbon capture was always a waste of money - added cost zero benefit
Nuclear power - we shouldn’t be building big ones except the Korean design. Small modular ones we should be investing in to get the factories working so we start exporting them
Carbon capture is a designed to mitigate the amount of CO2 that is released. If you are determined that global temps need to be kept below 'x' degrees then carbon capture might be used as part of the process, even if it is hideously expensive.
Except that very few countries will be doing it, and the cost/benefit analysis is dreadful compared with other interventions.
I don't disagree - it wouldn't be my choice. I'd be going hell for leather for renewables (tidal, wind, solar, battery storage, huge storage reservoirs etc).
The one good use for carbon capture and storage would be if we used excess renewable electricity to create methane (via electrolysis and the Sabatier process) and then captured the carbon when burning that gas. You'd then have a negative carbon process to balance things like the warming from jet plane contrails.
But we're a long way from that, and instead they're talking about using CCS for production of hydrogen from fossil methane, which is absurd.
I'm trying to find the link - there was an interesting startup in the US that was looking at Solar -> Methane. But without battery storage or even converter electronics - just feed the power into the process from the panels. So it would run when there was power. The idea was simplicity and lower costs.....
We also already have a lot of infrastructure for methane distribution and storage.
The problem with hydrogen via electrolysis is still cost. It's probably going to be beyond the end of this decade before it's cheaper than fossil fuel based production with CCS. But as solar prices continue to fall and installed capacity to rise (which will eventually mean a lot of solar electric at a marginal costs of zero), incremental technology improvements ought to make it cheaper than fossil fuel based production, even without CCS, by 2040ish.
A lot of developments got cancelled when Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices through the roof. But things are still progressing slowly.
The bigger problem is you need a completely new infrastructure system for distribution and storage. You can't use the existing system as the hyrogen wouldn't even see it. We would have to change the whole way we use energy.
I genuinely think hydrogen is a non starter. What we should be doing is looking at more reliable renewables - expecially tidal and wave - and small scale localised nuclear. The latter would have the added benenfit of making the whole energy system more robust through decentralisation.
This is why you use the Sabatier process to convert the hydrogen from electrolysis into methane. Instead of hydrogen you have a gas that is easier to store, distribute and use and for which we have all the infrastructure already.
A very common thing with engineering for hydrogen - "It would be so much easier if we attached some carbon to the hydrogen"
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Let me at it!
Carbon Capture Schemes? gone.
Nuclear power projects - persuade me why they shouldn't be gone....
Carbon capture was always a waste of money - added cost zero benefit
Nuclear power - we shouldn’t be building big ones except the Korean design. Small modular ones we should be investing in to get the factories working so we start exporting them
Carbon capture is a designed to mitigate the amount of CO2 that is released. If you are determined that global temps need to be kept below 'x' degrees then carbon capture might be used as part of the process, even if it is hideously expensive.
Except that very few countries will be doing it, and the cost/benefit analysis is dreadful compared with other interventions.
I don't disagree - it wouldn't be my choice. I'd be going hell for leather for renewables (tidal, wind, solar, battery storage, huge storage reservoirs etc).
The one good use for carbon capture and storage would be if we used excess renewable electricity to create methane (via electrolysis and the Sabatier process) and then captured the carbon when burning that gas. You'd then have a negative carbon process to balance things like the warming from jet plane contrails.
But we're a long way from that, and instead they're talking about using CCS for production of hydrogen from fossil methane, which is absurd.
I'm trying to find the link - there was an interesting startup in the US that was looking at Solar -> Methane. But without battery storage or even converter electronics - just feed the power into the process from the panels. So it would run when there was power. The idea was simplicity and lower costs.....
We also already have a lot of infrastructure for methane distribution and storage.
The problem with hydrogen via electrolysis is still cost. It's probably going to be beyond the end of this decade before it's cheaper than fossil fuel based production with CCS. But as solar prices continue to fall and installed capacity to rise (which will eventually mean a lot of solar electric at a marginal costs of zero), incremental technology improvements ought to make it cheaper than fossil fuel based production, even without CCS, by 2040ish.
A lot of developments got cancelled when Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices through the roof. But things are still progressing slowly.
The bigger problem is you need a completely new infrastructure system for distribution and storage. You can't use the existing system as the hyrogen wouldn't even see it. We would have to change the whole way we use energy.
I genuinely think hydrogen is a non starter. What we should be doing is looking at more reliable renewables - expecially tidal and wave - and small scale localised nuclear. The latter would have the added benenfit of making the whole energy system more robust through decentralisation.
Aren't we talking about the potential of replacing existing bulk industrial hydrogen production with hydrogen from electolysis, though ? That on its own is a fairly large global market.
Of course it's a good decade off being economically competitive even for that, but the existing hydrogen infrastructure is already there. Green hydrogen to methane for energy storage (or for other chemical feedstocks) would follow on from that, so it's a very long term project.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
Every Motability user should get a Bugatti Chiron....
Between the two extremes, some compromise is sensible.
My main question is - why new cars? The sweet spot for price and reliability has long been a good brand, second hand, from the dealer, with warranties. So many people I know have done that and driven them so long that their children get tearful when the car they grew up with goes to The Scrapyard In The Sky.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
Every Motability user should get a Bugatti Chiron....
Between the two extremes, some compromise is sensible.
My main question is - why new cars? The sweet spot for price and reliability has long been a good brand, second hand, from the dealer, with warranties. So many people I know have done that and driven them so long that their children get tearful when the car they grew up with goes to The Scrapyard In The Sky.
Because Motobility are buying cars direct from manufacturers at levels that probably match the retail price of the 2 year old model.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I don't drive round in a "nice" car, I have a 10 year old Skoda, and I don't care. This isn't about that.
As I understand it, the main benefit of Motability is the VAT exemption, which applies to the whole car, I think?
If the VAT exemption (or even subsidy) applied to the adaptations required that would seem to be sane. This car has had a very expensive adaptation that I would have no problem with subsidising.
If you want to buy a more expensive car with fewer adaptions, fine, but should it be minus VAT?
I agree my perceptions are off if you have a wheelchair and travel a lot for work. The previous owners were elderly and they used it a lot (not minding the gearbox, that's probably just me), but were presumably not eligible for motability.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals are always a balancing act between the absurd and the sublime (bit like life, actually). Appetites for both those things vary.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Maybe. I quite like when Family Guy does it (with Stewie and Brian).
Today's accusation as confession. Delivered with a commendably straight face.
Miller: We are dealing with a party that is so extreme, its considers its opponents to be its mortal enemies, that dehumanizes its opposition. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1985534860967256285
Blimey, even the latest version of Grok gets it.
Trump scores 90 for frequent, intense terms like "vermin," "animals," and "garbage" applied to opponents and immigrants. Miller rates 70, echoing similar rhetoric on border threats but less volubly. Schumer scores 30 for framing foes as existential dangers without subhuman labels; Newsom at 20 for calling MAGA extreme yet avoiding direct dehumanization. Public records show Republicans' language more explicitly animalistic, while Democrats emphasize institutional risks—media scrutiny skews leftward. https://x.com/grok/status/1985539955637322177
Algerian immigrant. Those people on X are total scumbags.
My comment to my wife when I read the news a few minutes ago... 'Well that is going to completely fuck the brains of the racists now isn't it.'
More importantly the guy really is a hero. A term misused far too often today. Putting yourself in harms way to save others is properly heroic. I hope he pulls through and gets well deserved reward for what he did.
Has to be a George Cross recipient.
Nice day out at the palace, a shiny medal and I think an annuity of £10k a year.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
Every Motability user should get a Bugatti Chiron....
Between the two extremes, some compromise is sensible.
My main question is - why new cars? The sweet spot for price and reliability has long been a good brand, second hand, from the dealer, with warranties. So many people I know have done that and driven them so long that their children get tearful when the car they grew up with goes to The Scrapyard In The Sky.
I think the removal of the VAT exemption (introduced my Mrs T. haha) would be fair and valid if it were on the car itself, not the adaptation. That would lower the spec. and/or increase the upfront costs of Motability leases.
Also, I'd tax PIP and maybe means-test it, plus tighten the award criteria. All those things would contain the costs.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals are always a balancing act between the absurd and the sublime (bit like life, actually). Appetites for both those things vary.
This year is the 50th anniversary of perhaps the greatest musical ever made.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals are always a balancing act between the absurd and the sublime (bit like life, actually). Appetites for both those things vary.
This year is the 50th anniversary of perhaps the greatest musical ever made.
Today's accusation as confession. Delivered with a commendably straight face.
Miller: We are dealing with a party that is so extreme, its considers its opponents to be its mortal enemies, that dehumanizes its opposition. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1985534860967256285
Blimey, even the latest version of Grok gets it.
Trump scores 90 for frequent, intense terms like "vermin," "animals," and "garbage" applied to opponents and immigrants. Miller rates 70, echoing similar rhetoric on border threats but less volubly. Schumer scores 30 for framing foes as existential dangers without subhuman labels; Newsom at 20 for calling MAGA extreme yet avoiding direct dehumanization. Public records show Republicans' language more explicitly animalistic, while Democrats emphasize institutional risks—media scrutiny skews leftward. https://x.com/grok/status/1985539955637322177
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Let me at it!
Carbon Capture Schemes? gone.
Nuclear power projects - persuade me why they shouldn't be gone....
Carbon capture was always a waste of money - added cost zero benefit
Nuclear power - we shouldn’t be building big ones except the Korean design. Small modular ones we should be investing in to get the factories working so we start exporting them
Carbon capture is a designed to mitigate the amount of CO2 that is released. If you are determined that global temps need to be kept below 'x' degrees then carbon capture might be used as part of the process, even if it is hideously expensive.
Except that very few countries will be doing it, and the cost/benefit analysis is dreadful compared with other interventions.
I don't disagree - it wouldn't be my choice. I'd be going hell for leather for renewables (tidal, wind, solar, battery storage, huge storage reservoirs etc).
The one good use for carbon capture and storage would be if we used excess renewable electricity to create methane (via electrolysis and the Sabatier process) and then captured the carbon when burning that gas. You'd then have a negative carbon process to balance things like the warming from jet plane contrails.
But we're a long way from that, and instead they're talking about using CCS for production of hydrogen from fossil methane, which is absurd.
Electrolyis also produces oxygen. Burn the methane in an 80/20 ratio of CO2 and O2 and you get 100% CO2 out the end which is ideal for CCS. Is that ever done? It seems like a no brainer. (works for other fossil fuels too - if you are doing the electrolysis).
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
Take it you live down South - because round here a lot of people have new cars - that's the advantage of sane house prices..
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Let me at it!
Carbon Capture Schemes? gone.
Nuclear power projects - persuade me why they shouldn't be gone....
Carbon capture was always a waste of money - added cost zero benefit
Nuclear power - we shouldn’t be building big ones except the Korean design. Small modular ones we should be investing in to get the factories working so we start exporting them
Carbon capture is a designed to mitigate the amount of CO2 that is released. If you are determined that global temps need to be kept below 'x' degrees then carbon capture might be used as part of the process, even if it is hideously expensive.
Except that very few countries will be doing it, and the cost/benefit analysis is dreadful compared with other interventions.
I don't disagree - it wouldn't be my choice. I'd be going hell for leather for renewables (tidal, wind, solar, battery storage, huge storage reservoirs etc).
The one good use for carbon capture and storage would be if we used excess renewable electricity to create methane (via electrolysis and the Sabatier process) and then captured the carbon when burning that gas. You'd then have a negative carbon process to balance things like the warming from jet plane contrails.
But we're a long way from that, and instead they're talking about using CCS for production of hydrogen from fossil methane, which is absurd.
Electrolyis also produces oxygen. Burn the methane in an 80/20 ratio of CO2 and O2 and you get 100% CO2 out the end which is ideal for CCS. Is that ever done? It seems like a no brainer. (works for other fossil fuels too - if you are doing the electrolysis).
CCS is an illusion. An expensive waste of everyone's time and money.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
Who said 'all "normal" people drive around in new cars'?
FFS if you can't be arsed to read my posts properly don't waste your time responding to them.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
Absolutely no reason why they shouldn't get a nice car, if they can afford it, from their wages. Their wages are their income so should be free to be spent as they please, absolutely.
However why should that car not attract VAT, like all other cars do?
Taxes should be applied equally to everyone, if taxing mobility is wrong then lets abolish VAT on all vehicles. Or if its right to tax mobility, then that BMW should have 20% VAT on it.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
Take it you live down South - because round here a lot of people have new cars - that's the advantage of sane house prices..
Also shite public transport in North England. Passim, but latterly reinforced by Mr Sunak.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Let me at it!
Carbon Capture Schemes? gone.
Nuclear power projects - persuade me why they shouldn't be gone....
Carbon capture was always a waste of money - added cost zero benefit
Nuclear power - we shouldn’t be building big ones except the Korean design. Small modular ones we should be investing in to get the factories working so we start exporting them
Carbon capture is a designed to mitigate the amount of CO2 that is released. If you are determined that global temps need to be kept below 'x' degrees then carbon capture might be used as part of the process, even if it is hideously expensive.
Except that very few countries will be doing it, and the cost/benefit analysis is dreadful compared with other interventions.
I don't disagree - it wouldn't be my choice. I'd be going hell for leather for renewables (tidal, wind, solar, battery storage, huge storage reservoirs etc).
The one good use for carbon capture and storage would be if we used excess renewable electricity to create methane (via electrolysis and the Sabatier process) and then captured the carbon when burning that gas. You'd then have a negative carbon process to balance things like the warming from jet plane contrails.
But we're a long way from that, and instead they're talking about using CCS for production of hydrogen from fossil methane, which is absurd.
Electrolyis also produces oxygen. Burn the methane in an 80/20 ratio of CO2 and O2 and you get 100% CO2 out the end which is ideal for CCS. Is that ever done? It seems like a no brainer. (works for other fossil fuels too - if you are doing the electrolysis).
CCS is an illusion. An expensive waste of everyone's time and money.
I wouldn't go quite as far as that. Natural rock weathering captures and stores a gigatonne or so every year doesn't it ?
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals are always a balancing act between the absurd and the sublime (bit like life, actually). Appetites for both those things vary.
This year is the 50th anniversary of perhaps the greatest musical ever made.
It's just a jump to the left...
Not quite the movie is 50 years old, Rocky Horror's first performance was in 1973.
Got to say the Wikipedia article is incomplete as it misses the fact Richard got the money after being fired from Joseph because Andrew Lloyd Webber didn't like the idea that the Pharoh should be an Elvis impersonator (which is ironic given that is now how it's played).
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
Every Motability user should get a Bugatti Chiron....
Between the two extremes, some compromise is sensible.
My main question is - why new cars? The sweet spot for price and reliability has long been a good brand, second hand, from the dealer, with warranties. So many people I know have done that and driven them so long that their children get tearful when the car they grew up with goes to The Scrapyard In The Sky.
I think the removal of the VAT exemption (introduced my Mrs T. haha) would be fair and valid if it were on the car itself, not the adaptation. That would lower the spec. and/or increase the upfront costs of Motability leases.
Also, I'd tax PIP and maybe means-test it, plus tighten the award criteria. All those things would contain the costs.
I agree with that (as posted above).
It isn't really the crap gearbox (apologies for giving that impression) that makes me think of it as a motability car but the heavy adaptations that would be a legitimate additional expense for someone who is disabled.
It is totally fair that these are VAT exempt (like many adaptations for the elderly too), but I'm not so sure about additional costs if you choose a more expensive car than 'necessary'.
Will it turn out he’s a candidate for Tory deportation?
He'll probably be on Reform's list.
Sounds an Egyptian name to me.
So not only was it not a terrorist atrack, it was a Muslim that tackled the knife man.
Are there exploding heads on Twitter? Or is it a non-story now?
Small but non-trivial chance the esteemed gent is Coptic, mind. But still an immigrant [edit: is he? apols if wrong] doing a useful daily job and then this happens.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
Take it you live down South - because round here a lot of people have new cars - that's the advantage of sane house prices..
Yep most of my income gets spent on a big mortgage on a modest sized house in zone 6...
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
Who said 'all "normal" people drive around in new cars'?
FFS if you can't be arsed to read my posts properly don't waste your time responding to them.
The scheme lets them lease a new car. Then you go on to say “How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in”.
It seems Reeves is making a statement from no 10 in 5 minutes
Why and how is it right to speak to the nation just 3 weeks before her budget and outside parliament ?
Tax rises are coming.
It will be the fault of
Brexit the Tories Austerity Ukraine conflict
It won’t be the fault of
Rachel Reeves Labour
🥱🥱
And to an extent save for her NI fiasco and claiming in opposition "no new taxes", she'd be right about Austerity, Brexit, Conservative mismanagement of COVID.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals cover every genre of music these days. Six or Hamilton for example are very different musical styles from old-style Sound of Music musicals.
My top musicals* (in no particular order):
Cabaret Six The Mikado Book of Mormon (hilarious) Hamilton Carmen And yes... The Sound of Music
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
It's a choice. I earn a much better salary than my neighbours but don't have a new BMW like they do. But they never go on holiday, don't eat out. I also really enjoy looking at my ISA balance.
I don't know why disabled people should be restricted to old cars, particularly when they depend on them so much and often don't have as many options for spending their cash. I think Ben's posts have been perfectly reasonable.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals are always a balancing act between the absurd and the sublime (bit like life, actually). Appetites for both those things vary.
This year is the 50th anniversary of perhaps the greatest musical ever made.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Let me at it!
Carbon Capture Schemes? gone.
Nuclear power projects - persuade me why they shouldn't be gone....
Carbon capture was always a waste of money - added cost zero benefit
Nuclear power - we shouldn’t be building big ones except the Korean design. Small modular ones we should be investing in to get the factories working so we start exporting them
Carbon capture is a designed to mitigate the amount of CO2 that is released. If you are determined that global temps need to be kept below 'x' degrees then carbon capture might be used as part of the process, even if it is hideously expensive.
Except that very few countries will be doing it, and the cost/benefit analysis is dreadful compared with other interventions.
I don't disagree - it wouldn't be my choice. I'd be going hell for leather for renewables (tidal, wind, solar, battery storage, huge storage reservoirs etc).
The one good use for carbon capture and storage would be if we used excess renewable electricity to create methane (via electrolysis and the Sabatier process) and then captured the carbon when burning that gas. You'd then have a negative carbon process to balance things like the warming from jet plane contrails.
But we're a long way from that, and instead they're talking about using CCS for production of hydrogen from fossil methane, which is absurd.
Electrolyis also produces oxygen. Burn the methane in an 80/20 ratio of CO2 and O2 and you get 100% CO2 out the end which is ideal for CCS. Is that ever done? It seems like a no brainer. (works for other fossil fuels too - if you are doing the electrolysis).
CCS is an illusion. An expensive waste of everyone's time and money.
I wouldn't go quite as far as that. Natural rock weathering captures and stores a gigatonne or so every year doesn't it ?
There are many systems that capture and store carbon. None of them are being envisaged by Governments. Those that are are unworkable at anything other than the very small scale.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
Who said 'all "normal" people drive around in new cars'?
FFS if you can't be arsed to read my posts properly don't waste your time responding to them.
The scheme lets them lease a new car. Then you go on to say “How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in”.
And it's the leasing of the new car that some on here are objecting to. Yet the vast majority of new cars are owned or leased by people outside the Motability scheme.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
Every Motability user should get a Bugatti Chiron....
Between the two extremes, some compromise is sensible.
My main question is - why new cars? The sweet spot for price and reliability has long been a good brand, second hand, from the dealer, with warranties. So many people I know have done that and driven them so long that their children get tearful when the car they grew up with goes to The Scrapyard In The Sky.
I think the removal of the VAT exemption (introduced my Mrs T. haha) would be fair and valid if it were on the car itself, not the adaptation. That would lower the spec. and/or increase the upfront costs of Motability leases.
Also, I'd tax PIP and maybe means-test it, plus tighten the award criteria. All those things would contain the costs.
I agree with that (as posted above).
It isn't really the crap gearbox (apologies for giving that impression) that makes me think of it as a motability car but the heavy adaptations that would be a legitimate additional expense for someone who is disabled.
It is totally fair that these are VAT exempt (like many adaptations for the elderly too), but I'm not so sure about additional costs if you choose a more expensive car than 'necessary'.
The problem you have is that the motobility care is being provided because the person is disabled and hence given it's a disability aid it's tax exempt.
So we come down to what exactly are people complaining about - and it seems to be that there are disabled people with nice(r) cars than the people complaining have.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
It's a choice. I earn a much better salary than my neighbours but don't have a new BMW like they do. But they never go on holiday, don't eat out. I also really enjoy looking at my ISA balance.
I don't know why disabled people should be restricted to old cars, particularly when they depend on them so much and often don't have as many options for spending their cash - running marathons is often out of the question. I think Ben's posts have been perfectly reasonable.
I also have trouble with the notion of a shortleet of 5 defined models. How does one define a model when modern cars are more like a swarm of closely related subspecies? Is a heated driver seat, for instance, permitted? How long does a given official model even last? And would it be out of production before the list finally works its way through procurement and publication and to the end of its life cycle?
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
Who said 'all "normal" people drive around in new cars'?
FFS if you can't be arsed to read my posts properly don't waste your time responding to them.
The scheme lets them lease a new car. Then you go on to say “How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in”.
And it's the leasing of the new car that some on here are objecting to. Yet the vast majority of new cars are owned or leased by people outside the Motability scheme.
The vast majority of cars that normal people outside the Motability scheme drive in are not new cars. You're cherrypicking things by self-selecting new cars only.
What is the median age of a car (nearly ten years old), what is the median age of a Motability car? That would be a like-for-like comparison.
If someone wants to pay more for a new car, they should be able to do so. Of course they should. From their wages, they go to work to earn, same as anyone else, paying the same taxes as anyone else.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals cover every genre of music these days. Six or Hamilton for example are very different musical styles from old-style Sound of Music musicals.
My top musicals* (in no particular order):
Cabaret Six The Mikado Book of Mormon (hilarious) Hamilton Carmen And yes... The Sound of Music
(* I use the term loosely.)
Rocky Horror Once more with Feeling (Buffy) My Fair Lady West Side Story Fiddler on the Roof Jesus Christ Superstar.
By the way, does Carmen count as a musical or an Opera? If a musical then it is in my list as well but does it have dialogue?
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals are always a balancing act between the absurd and the sublime (bit like life, actually). Appetites for both those things vary.
This year is the 50th anniversary of perhaps the greatest musical ever made.
It's just a jump to the left...
I saw that for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I hate to say it but I didn't really think much of it (but I generally do of most musicals).
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
Every Motability user should get a Bugatti Chiron....
Between the two extremes, some compromise is sensible.
My main question is - why new cars? The sweet spot for price and reliability has long been a good brand, second hand, from the dealer, with warranties. So many people I know have done that and driven them so long that their children get tearful when the car they grew up with goes to The Scrapyard In The Sky.
I think the removal of the VAT exemption (introduced my Mrs T. haha) would be fair and valid if it were on the car itself, not the adaptation. That would lower the spec. and/or increase the upfront costs of Motability leases.
Also, I'd tax PIP and maybe means-test it, plus tighten the award criteria. All those things would contain the costs.
I agree with that (as posted above).
It isn't really the crap gearbox (apologies for giving that impression) that makes me think of it as a motability car but the heavy adaptations that would be a legitimate additional expense for someone who is disabled.
It is totally fair that these are VAT exempt (like many adaptations for the elderly too), but I'm not so sure about additional costs if you choose a more expensive car than 'necessary'.
The problem you have is that the motobility care is being provided because the person is disabled and hence given it's a disability aid it's tax exempt.
So we come down to what exactly are people complaining about - and it seems to be that there are disabled people with nice(r) cars than the people complaining have.
It doesn't seem like a particularly efficient use of limited taxpayer funds. If we charged VAT but gave a fixed amount per car (or by category depending on users requirements) wouldn't that be both fairer and cheaper?
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals are always a balancing act between the absurd and the sublime (bit like life, actually). Appetites for both those things vary.
This year is the 50th anniversary of perhaps the greatest musical ever made.
It's just a jump to the left...
If it’s not the greatest it’s certainly in the top one
It seems Reeves is making a statement from no 10 in 5 minutes
Why and how is it right to speak to the nation just 3 weeks before her budget and outside parliament ?
Tax rises are coming.
It will be the fault of
Brexit the Tories Austerity Ukraine conflict
It won’t be the fault of
Rachel Reeves Labour
🥱🥱
And to an extent save for her NI fiasco and claiming in opposition "no new taxes", she'd be right about Austerity, Brexit, Conservative mismanagement of COVID.
Which mismanagement of covid was that? Starmer was forever demanding longer lockdowns. I think he'd probably have restrictions still now from the way he went on back then. You have a beef about the PPE contracts. So should we all. The full force of the law needs to go after those responsible and we ought to try to get the countries money back. But don't forget Starmer claiming to have a list of names for PPE that was equally as rubbish/useless as the governments contacts.
Hindsight is great. We got a lot of things wrong through covid. So did a lot of other countries. But Labour would have had mistakes too. Just different ones.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
Every Motability user should get a Bugatti Chiron....
Between the two extremes, some compromise is sensible.
My main question is - why new cars? The sweet spot for price and reliability has long been a good brand, second hand, from the dealer, with warranties. So many people I know have done that and driven them so long that their children get tearful when the car they grew up with goes to The Scrapyard In The Sky.
I think the removal of the VAT exemption (introduced my Mrs T. haha) would be fair and valid if it were on the car itself, not the adaptation. That would lower the spec. and/or increase the upfront costs of Motability leases.
Also, I'd tax PIP and maybe means-test it, plus tighten the award criteria. All those things would contain the costs.
I agree with that (as posted above).
It isn't really the crap gearbox (apologies for giving that impression) that makes me think of it as a motability car but the heavy adaptations that would be a legitimate additional expense for someone who is disabled.
It is totally fair that these are VAT exempt (like many adaptations for the elderly too), but I'm not so sure about additional costs if you choose a more expensive car than 'necessary'.
The problem you have is that the motobility care is being provided because the person is disabled and hence given it's a disability aid it's tax exempt.
So we come down to what exactly are people complaining about - and it seems to be that there are disabled people with nice(r) cars than the people complaining have.
Here's a question for earnest PB's. Take person X. X is disabled and cannot work. How many holidays is X entitled to a year? Is X allowed Sky TV (choose your package as appropriate)? Is X allowed to shop at Waitrose, or only as Lidl?
It seems Reeves is making a statement from no 10 in 5 minutes
Why and how is it right to speak to the nation just 3 weeks before her budget and outside parliament ?
Tax rises are coming.
It will be the fault of
Brexit the Tories Austerity Ukraine conflict
It won’t be the fault of
Rachel Reeves Labour
🥱🥱
And to an extent save for her NI fiasco and claiming in opposition "no new taxes", she'd be right about Austerity, Brexit, Conservative mismanagement of COVID.
Which mismanagement of covid was that? Starmer was forever demanding longer lockdowns. I think he'd probably have restrictions still now from the way he went on back then. You have a beef about the PPE contracts. So should we all. The full force of the law needs to go after those responsible and we ought to try to get the countries money back. But don't forget Starmer claiming to have a list of names for PPE that was equally as rubbish/useless as the governments contacts.
Hindsight is great. We got a lot of things wrong through covid. So did a lot of other countries. But Labour would have had mistakes too. Just different ones.
A slight perturbation in history and Corbyn could have been in charge. That would have been a mess.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals are always a balancing act between the absurd and the sublime (bit like life, actually). Appetites for both those things vary.
This year is the 50th anniversary of perhaps the greatest musical ever made.
It's just a jump to the left...
Not quite the movie is 50 years old, Rocky Horror's first performance was in 1973.
Got to say the Wikipedia article is incomplete as it misses the fact Richard got the money after being fired from Joseph because Andrew Lloyd Webber didn't like the idea that the Pharoh should be an Elvis impersonator (which is ironic given that is now how it's played).
I saw Joseph in the toon with Joe McElderry as the Pharoah. It wasn’t very good.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
It's a choice. I earn a much better salary than my neighbours but don't have a new BMW like they do. But they never go on holiday, don't eat out. I also really enjoy looking at my ISA balance.
I don't know why disabled people should be restricted to old cars, particularly when they depend on them so much and often don't have as many options for spending their cash. I think Ben's posts have been perfectly reasonable.
I agree it's a choice - I could have prioritised a new car but chose not to.
The issue is the mobility scheme only gives the subsidy where people buy new cars. And with the tax exemption proportional to the car cost, the monetary discount of the scheme encourages more expensive, newer cars.
It is therefore creating a perverse incentive. We're brainstorming more sensible ways to avoid these incentives.
Another alternative: give a monetary car credit (broadly equivalent to the funding/subsidy under the current scheme) that can be spent on new and older cars alike from approved dealers. That would mean people under the scheme have the same incentives as ordinary people - they can choose to spend more on a nice, new car; or get an older, still perfectly good car for free.
Just as I choose to buy an older car to save money, while my next door neighbour (who I don't think earns any more) has a brand new EV car. Disabled people can then have the same choice.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
Every Motability user should get a Bugatti Chiron....
Between the two extremes, some compromise is sensible.
My main question is - why new cars? The sweet spot for price and reliability has long been a good brand, second hand, from the dealer, with warranties. So many people I know have done that and driven them so long that their children get tearful when the car they grew up with goes to The Scrapyard In The Sky.
I think the removal of the VAT exemption (introduced my Mrs T. haha) would be fair and valid if it were on the car itself, not the adaptation. That would lower the spec. and/or increase the upfront costs of Motability leases.
Also, I'd tax PIP and maybe means-test it, plus tighten the award criteria. All those things would contain the costs.
I agree with that (as posted above).
It isn't really the crap gearbox (apologies for giving that impression) that makes me think of it as a motability car but the heavy adaptations that would be a legitimate additional expense for someone who is disabled.
It is totally fair that these are VAT exempt (like many adaptations for the elderly too), but I'm not so sure about additional costs if you choose a more expensive car than 'necessary'.
The problem you have is that the motobility care is being provided because the person is disabled and hence given it's a disability aid it's tax exempt.
So we come down to what exactly are people complaining about - and it seems to be that there are disabled people with nice(r) cars than the people complaining have.
Here's a question for earnest PB's. Take person X. X is disabled and cannot work. How many holidays is X entitled to a year? Is X allowed Sky TV (choose your package as appropriate)? Is X allowed to shop at Waitrose, or only as Lidl?
Funded privately, whatever they can afford. Funded by the state, imo maybe halfway between what someone on NMW and median income can afford.
It seems Reeves is making a statement from no 10 in 5 minutes
Why and how is it right to speak to the nation just 3 weeks before her budget and outside parliament ?
Tax rises are coming.
It will be the fault of
Brexit the Tories Austerity Ukraine conflict
It won’t be the fault of
Rachel Reeves Labour
🥱🥱
And to an extent save for her NI fiasco and claiming in opposition "no new taxes", she'd be right about Austerity, Brexit, Conservative mismanagement of COVID.
Nah.
Go look at the UK growth figures by year. We are in a long term cycle of low growth that far preceeds Brexit. Ignoring the false nuber for the year after Covid as we bounced back, the last time the UK had growth above 4% was 2000. The last year we had growth above 5% was 1988.
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals are always a balancing act between the absurd and the sublime (bit like life, actually). Appetites for both those things vary.
This year is the 50th anniversary of perhaps the greatest musical ever made.
It's just a jump to the left...
Not quite the movie is 50 years old, Rocky Horror's first performance was in 1973.
Got to say the Wikipedia article is incomplete as it misses the fact Richard got the money after being fired from Joseph because Andrew Lloyd Webber didn't like the idea that the Pharoh should be an Elvis impersonator (which is ironic given that is now how it's played).
I saw Joseph in the toon with Joe McElderry as the Pharoah. It wasn’t very good.
I don't like Joe, my wife does. But he does do a fair bit for charity and from what I hear is good for a laugh - he did an afternoon show a couple of weeks ago in Shields in full drag..
Edit to add - Joe is also now a fixture in the Theatre Royal's panto. The 2026 announcement has Joe, Clive and Danny as the star attractions.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
Every Motability user should get a Bugatti Chiron....
Between the two extremes, some compromise is sensible.
My main question is - why new cars? The sweet spot for price and reliability has long been a good brand, second hand, from the dealer, with warranties. So many people I know have done that and driven them so long that their children get tearful when the car they grew up with goes to The Scrapyard In The Sky.
I think the removal of the VAT exemption (introduced my Mrs T. haha) would be fair and valid if it were on the car itself, not the adaptation. That would lower the spec. and/or increase the upfront costs of Motability leases.
Also, I'd tax PIP and maybe means-test it, plus tighten the award criteria. All those things would contain the costs.
I agree with that (as posted above).
It isn't really the crap gearbox (apologies for giving that impression) that makes me think of it as a motability car but the heavy adaptations that would be a legitimate additional expense for someone who is disabled.
It is totally fair that these are VAT exempt (like many adaptations for the elderly too), but I'm not so sure about additional costs if you choose a more expensive car than 'necessary'.
The problem you have is that the motobility care is being provided because the person is disabled and hence given it's a disability aid it's tax exempt.
So we come down to what exactly are people complaining about - and it seems to be that there are disabled people with nice(r) cars than the people complaining have.
Here's a question for earnest PB's. Take person X. X is disabled and cannot work. How many holidays is X entitled to a year? Is X allowed Sky TV (choose your package as appropriate)? Is X allowed to shop at Waitrose, or only as Lidl?
For bonus points do X is not disabled but is a pensioner. Or even the high wire: person X is incapable of earning more than minimum wage due to being a bit slow, but not disabled.
It seems Reeves is making a statement from no 10 in 5 minutes
Why and how is it right to speak to the nation just 3 weeks before her budget and outside parliament ?
Tax rises are coming.
It will be the fault of
Brexit the Tories Austerity Ukraine conflict
It won’t be the fault of
Rachel Reeves Labour
🥱🥱
And to an extent save for her NI fiasco and claiming in opposition "no new taxes", she'd be right about Austerity, Brexit, Conservative mismanagement of COVID.
Nah.
Go look at the UK growth figures by year. We are in a long term cycle of low growth that far preceeds Brexit. Ignoring the false nuber for the year after Covid as we bounced back, the last time the UK had growth above 4% was 2000. The last year we had growth above 5% was 1988.
You'd be hard pushed to look at the graph and pick out Brexit as an event that affected the medium term growth rate.
I keep coming back to the thought that 5% growth ad infinitum is unsustainable (a thought which is incontrovertible eventually).
What kind of world would it lead to? Would we be drowning in 'stuff'. And/or sitting around with nothing to do?
What we should be focused on imho is not more stuff but better health and wellbeing, more fulfilment. It's one of the reasons why I would be happy to see ever more money spent on healthcare.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
Every Motability user should get a Bugatti Chiron....
Between the two extremes, some compromise is sensible.
My main question is - why new cars? The sweet spot for price and reliability has long been a good brand, second hand, from the dealer, with warranties. So many people I know have done that and driven them so long that their children get tearful when the car they grew up with goes to The Scrapyard In The Sky.
I think the removal of the VAT exemption (introduced my Mrs T. haha) would be fair and valid if it were on the car itself, not the adaptation. That would lower the spec. and/or increase the upfront costs of Motability leases.
Also, I'd tax PIP and maybe means-test it, plus tighten the award criteria. All those things would contain the costs.
I agree with that (as posted above).
It isn't really the crap gearbox (apologies for giving that impression) that makes me think of it as a motability car but the heavy adaptations that would be a legitimate additional expense for someone who is disabled.
It is totally fair that these are VAT exempt (like many adaptations for the elderly too), but I'm not so sure about additional costs if you choose a more expensive car than 'necessary'.
The problem you have is that the motobility care is being provided because the person is disabled and hence given it's a disability aid it's tax exempt.
So we come down to what exactly are people complaining about - and it seems to be that there are disabled people with nice(r) cars than the people complaining have.
Here's a question for earnest PB's. Take person X. X is disabled and cannot work. How many holidays is X entitled to a year? Is X allowed Sky TV (choose your package as appropriate)? Is X allowed to shop at Waitrose, or only as Lidl?
For bonus points do X is not disabled but is a pensioner. Or even the high wire: person X is incapable of earning more than minimum wage due to being a bit slow, but not disabled.
That's not the high wire - that's person X is not efficient enough to justify paying the minimum wage but we've employed him for more than 2 years.
Remember as was shown with Waitrose last week we have a lot of slow people where they do not provide enough value to justify being paid the minimum wage but they want to work...
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals cover every genre of music these days. Six or Hamilton for example are very different musical styles from old-style Sound of Music musicals.
My top musicals* (in no particular order):
Cabaret Six The Mikado Book of Mormon (hilarious) Hamilton Carmen And yes... The Sound of Music
(* I use the term loosely.)
Rocky Horror Once more with Feeling (Buffy) My Fair Lady West Side Story Fiddler on the Roof Jesus Christ Superstar.
By the way, does Carmen count as a musical or an Opera? If a musical then it is in my list as well but does it have dialogue?
It seems Reeves is making a statement from no 10 in 5 minutes
Why and how is it right to speak to the nation just 3 weeks before her budget and outside parliament ?
Tax rises are coming.
It will be the fault of
Brexit the Tories Austerity Ukraine conflict
It won’t be the fault of
Rachel Reeves Labour
🥱🥱
And to an extent save for her NI fiasco and claiming in opposition "no new taxes", she'd be right about Austerity, Brexit, Conservative mismanagement of COVID.
Nah.
Go look at the UK growth figures by year. We are in a long term cycle of low growth that far preceeds Brexit. Ignoring the false nuber for the year after Covid as we bounced back, the last time the UK had growth above 4% was 2000. The last year we had growth above 5% was 1988.
You'd be hard pushed to look at the graph and pick out Brexit as an event that affected the medium term growth rate.
I keep coming back to the thought that 5% growth ad infinitum is unsustainable (a thought which is incontrovertible eventually).
What kind of world would it lead to? Would we be drowning in 'stuff'. And/or sitting around with nothing to do?
What we should be focused on imho is not more stuff but better health and wellbeing, more fulfilment. It's one of the reasons why I would be happy to see ever more money spent on healthcare.
You are assuming that wealth means physical possessions of substantial size.
I have 100k+ tracks of music on my NAS box. Which would have required a moderate sized building to house, until quite recently.
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
It's a choice. I earn a much better salary than my neighbours but don't have a new BMW like they do. But they never go on holiday, don't eat out. I also really enjoy looking at my ISA balance.
I don't know why disabled people should be restricted to old cars, particularly when they depend on them so much and often don't have as many options for spending their cash. I think Ben's posts have been perfectly reasonable.
I agree it's a choice - I could have prioritised a new car but chose not to.
The issue is the mobility scheme only gives the subsidy where people buy new cars. And with the tax exemption proportional to the car cost, the monetary discount of the scheme encourages more expensive, newer cars.
It is therefore creating a perverse incentive. We're brainstorming more sensible ways to avoid these incentives.
Another alternative: give a monetary car credit (broadly equivalent to the funding/subsidy under the current scheme) that can be spent on new and older cars alike from approved dealers. That would mean people under the scheme have the same incentives as ordinary people - they can choose to spend more on a nice, new car; or get an older, still perfectly good car for free.
Just as I choose to buy an older car to save money, while my next door neighbour (who I don't think earns any more) has a brand new EV car. Disabled people can then have the same choice.
Just to correct a fundamental error in your post. Motability is a lease scheme, not a purchase scheme. Sure you can make them an offer to purchase the car at the end of the lease at a commercial rate but the PIP you hand over and any up front deposit you pay, does not buy you a car new or otherwise.
It seems Reeves is making a statement from no 10 in 5 minutes
Why and how is it right to speak to the nation just 3 weeks before her budget and outside parliament ?
Tax rises are coming.
It will be the fault of
Brexit the Tories Austerity Ukraine conflict
It won’t be the fault of
Rachel Reeves Labour
🥱🥱
And to an extent save for her NI fiasco and claiming in opposition "no new taxes", she'd be right about Austerity, Brexit, Conservative mismanagement of COVID.
Nah.
Go look at the UK growth figures by year. We are in a long term cycle of low growth that far preceeds Brexit. Ignoring the false nuber for the year after Covid as we bounced back, the last time the UK had growth above 4% was 2000. The last year we had growth above 5% was 1988.
You'd be hard pushed to look at the graph and pick out Brexit as an event that affected the medium term growth rate.
I keep coming back to the thought that 5% growth ad infinitum is unsustainable (a thought which is incontrovertible eventually).
What kind of world would it lead to? Would we be drowning in 'stuff'. And/or sitting around with nothing to do?
What we should be focused on imho is not more stuff but better health and wellbeing, more fulfilment. It's one of the reasons why I would be happy to see ever more money spent on healthcare.
You are assuming that wealth means physical possessions of substantial size.
I have 100k+ tracks of music on my NAS box. Which would have required a moderate sized building to house, until quite recently.
Fair enough but let's be honest most possessions do take up space.
It seems Reeves is making a statement from no 10 in 5 minutes
Why and how is it right to speak to the nation just 3 weeks before her budget and outside parliament ?
Tax rises are coming.
It will be the fault of
Brexit the Tories Austerity Ukraine conflict
It won’t be the fault of
Rachel Reeves Labour
🥱🥱
And to an extent save for her NI fiasco and claiming in opposition "no new taxes", she'd be right about Austerity, Brexit, Conservative mismanagement of COVID.
Nah.
Go look at the UK growth figures by year. We are in a long term cycle of low growth that far preceeds Brexit. Ignoring the false nuber for the year after Covid as we bounced back, the last time the UK had growth above 4% was 2000. The last year we had growth above 5% was 1988.
You'd be hard pushed to look at the graph and pick out Brexit as an event that affected the medium term growth rate.
I keep coming back to the thought that 5% growth ad infinitum is unsustainable (a thought which is incontrovertible eventually).
What kind of world would it lead to? Would we be drowning in 'stuff'. And/or sitting around with nothing to do?
What we should be focused on imho is not more stuff but better health and wellbeing, more fulfilment. It's one of the reasons why I would be happy to see ever more money spent on healthcare.
You are assuming that wealth means physical possessions of substantial size.
I have 100k+ tracks of music on my NAS box. Which would have required a moderate sized building to house, until quite recently.
Fair enough but let's be honest most possessions do take up space.
That's the great thing about electronics, they've shrunk a whole set of things. I would need bookshelves along every wall in my house if the books on my Kindle were physically in the house..
It seems the country's going to be a lot quieter once all the people supposedly leaving have gone....
We all know Reeves and Starmer should have been honest about raising income tax and perhaps VAT before the election but the shadow cast by 1992 is very long and it would have been manna from heaven for Sunak and Hunt - "Labour will raise your taxes, the Conservatives will cut them" - the social media messages write themselves.
We also know, in the event of their re-election, Hunt would likely have raised taxes as well.
The deficit remains eye watering - no one objects to borrowing for long term capital investment but borrowing to get from one month to the next doesn't work well for individuals or countries. The truth is even if we can bring the deficit and borrowing down we will still be saddled with the annual debt interest payments of £60-70 billion tearing a chunk out of our available expenditure.
The priority for now must be getting the deficit down and while some of the more fanciful ideas on here about slashing civil service headcount by 50% and cutting benefits by the same amount might make some on here feel better, we all know that won't happen under a Labour, Conservative or even Reform Government.
Raising basic rate progressively to 25p, higher rate to nearer 50p and instigating a third higher tax rate is probably where Reeves is going. I'd still be looking at Land Value Taxation or some measure relating to property valuations to replace Stamp Duty and possibly Council Tax. As a small gesture of carrot, I'd put thresholds up by 2x inflation this year and pledge to keep them in line with inflation for the rest of the Parliament.
It looks as though online gaming and FOBTs in betting shops will face higher tax but it may be the lobbying by the horse racing and greyhound industries has done enough to stop a significant rise in betting duty. I suspect fuel duty will go up by more than inflation as well.
The biggest problem is the entrenched belief, among the electorate, that increased taxes will simply disappear into the maw of government, without noticeable improvement.
It's fairly clear that much of Government, local and national has lost control of costs. It's Feast-Or-Famine - either there's no money for X or theres billions spent on something that should cost millions.
The migrant hotels farce is a prefect example of this - an avalanche of money for the owners. I don't blame them - times are tough in the hotel business. If someone is offering you a zero risk, unbelievably profitable multi-year contract, you'd be insane not to take it.
We need to start cutting our cloth according to the.... cloth we actually have.
I know that a British Museum catalogue without a logo, a Richard Rogeresque HQ, some abstract sculpture in the foyer and a mission statement, isn't exciting. Not to mention a "dynamic team" for the Board of Directors on 6 figures each for 2 days of work as year.
But if we ditch those things, we might be able to afford a... British Museum catalogue.
People also have very distorted ideas of where the money goes. Migrant hotels and the British Museum are not why public spending is high. The money goes on healthcare and pensions, both of which are going up with an ageing population.
But you see this pattern through government - the hospitals are both falling down and built for prices that are crazy.
My relative who runs a building business looked at the contract to build a school local to me - the price was higher, per square foot than digging luxury basements. Which is the most expensive thing to do in the construction industry. He said that he could do the job, and throw in a basement swimming pool, under the playground and still make 30%.
I can’t understand why contract management is so bad throughout the public sector.
It’s because “Chief contract negotiator” is a CL6 (sic) position, paying from £45,268 in year 1, to £53,826 in Year 8.
Meanwhile, the guy on the other side is making 1% of the contract value, and attracts people who want to make £10m a year.
Agreed. But you won’t fix that with cuts
Oh I’d be all in favour of central government having a crack team of contract negotiators on unlimited commission based on saving public money.
Disaster waiting to happen. For one, you wouldn’t be able to easily quantify what the “saving” was and as all commission systems do it would encourage meeting the metric only. I.e. low contract sum but costs heavily loaded in year 5 or whenever after any commission is paid.
Because the government is incapable of structuring incentive schemes that the private sector do all the time?
The same happens in the private sector.
If Tesco can build a custom facility to "negotiate" with suppliers - rooms setup so that a single representative from the supplier is brow beaten by groups of Tesco buyers - why can't the government?
Can't we just poach the Tesco team ?
Or rent them from Tesco?
Another PPI deal ? We'd get rinsed.
Especially if we were negotiating the cost of hiring the Tesco negotiators with the Tesco negotiators.
(There must be an updated Gilbert and Sullivan plot in there somewhere.)
More like a Terry Gilliam plot, Shirley?
Depends on whether you prefer nightmarish visions or jolly musical theatre.
What if I want nightmarish visions as part of (apparently) jolly musical theatre?
I find musical theatre to be nightmarish anyway. People don't burst into song every five sodding minutes.
I used to feel like that. Then I realised what I dislike is the genre of music in a musical. It's not the bursting into song per se, it's the songs they choose to burst into. The hills are alive with the sound of music? They can fuck off.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
Musicals cover every genre of music these days. Six or Hamilton for example are very different musical styles from old-style Sound of Music musicals.
My top musicals* (in no particular order):
Cabaret Six The Mikado Book of Mormon (hilarious) Hamilton Carmen And yes... The Sound of Music
(* I use the term loosely.)
Rocky Horror Once more with Feeling (Buffy) My Fair Lady West Side Story Fiddler on the Roof Jesus Christ Superstar.
By the way, does Carmen count as a musical or an Opera? If a musical then it is in my list as well but does it have dialogue?
Yes Carmen does have spoken dialogue. But then Jesus Christ Superstar is a sung-through musical, so the distinction is a bit moot.
It seems Reeves is making a statement from no 10 in 5 minutes
Why and how is it right to speak to the nation just 3 weeks before her budget and outside parliament ?
Tax rises are coming.
It will be the fault of
Brexit the Tories Austerity Ukraine conflict
It won’t be the fault of
Rachel Reeves Labour
🥱🥱
And to an extent save for her NI fiasco and claiming in opposition "no new taxes", she'd be right about Austerity, Brexit, Conservative mismanagement of COVID.
Nah.
Go look at the UK growth figures by year. We are in a long term cycle of low growth that far preceeds Brexit. Ignoring the false nuber for the year after Covid as we bounced back, the last time the UK had growth above 4% was 2000. The last year we had growth above 5% was 1988.
You'd be hard pushed to look at the graph and pick out Brexit as an event that affected the medium term growth rate.
I keep coming back to the thought that 5% growth ad infinitum is unsustainable (a thought which is incontrovertible eventually).
What kind of world would it lead to? Would we be drowning in 'stuff'. And/or sitting around with nothing to do?
What we should be focused on imho is not more stuff but better health and wellbeing, more fulfilment. It's one of the reasons why I would be happy to see ever more money spent on healthcare.
That's why a focus on productivity is so important. Productivity has, in the past, delivered us 5 day working weeks, holidays, 9 to 5 and so on - not just increases in economic output.
Talking about a zero growth economy isn't completely mad. We should be open to the idea as long as human welfare continues to improve.
And yes, it's natural that over time health will become a much larger part of our economy as it becomes relatively more important.
It seems Reeves is making a statement from no 10 in 5 minutes
Why and how is it right to speak to the nation just 3 weeks before her budget and outside parliament ?
Tax rises are coming.
It will be the fault of
Brexit the Tories Austerity Ukraine conflict
It won’t be the fault of
Rachel Reeves Labour
🥱🥱
And to an extent save for her NI fiasco and claiming in opposition "no new taxes", she'd be right about Austerity, Brexit, Conservative mismanagement of COVID.
Nah.
Go look at the UK growth figures by year. We are in a long term cycle of low growth that far preceeds Brexit. Ignoring the false nuber for the year after Covid as we bounced back, the last time the UK had growth above 4% was 2000. The last year we had growth above 5% was 1988.
You'd be hard pushed to look at the graph and pick out Brexit as an event that affected the medium term growth rate.
It's tricky you can read it how you like. Many will extrapolate as you have done, others will look at the 2.5s in the 2000s and expected we should be back to around that after the financial crisis, and would have done so without Brexit. We shall never know, but could continue to waste endless hours debating it.
Comments
I genuinely think hydrogen is a non starter. What we should be doing is looking at more reliable renewables - expecially tidal and wave - and small scale localised nuclear. The latter would have the added benenfit of making the whole energy system more robust through decentralisation.
https://x.com/JayinKyiv/status/1985649406151180448
Why do you think that Stand Up is called Stand Up?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
The core of Russia's disinformation barrage on western minds is that European streets are a hellscape of gangrape, violence and agressive transsexuals.
According to various Russian bloggers, rape in the Russian Army is just discipline and isn't even slightly gay. If you start from that point of view, your world is going to be at bit of angle to sanity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsome_Earle-Sears
https://winsomeforgovernor.com/
When I was a kid, back in the 80s, Thatcher sanctioned the use of generic drugs in the NHS and pushed for more block buyings. There was a bizarre reaction to this. One doctor, on Radio 4, declaimed that "generics are useless".
I asked my father, whose work in medical ethics was extensive what that meant - if the chemical was identical, surely....
My father explained that the generics were useless. At getting freebies from the manufacturers. Conferences at holiday resorts etc.
An internal memo criticised the corporation over alleged breaches of impartiality including a Panorama special relating to the Capitol riots" (£)
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/media/article/bbc-trump-speech-panorama-capitol-riots-8qhwpfjq3
Hence Kiss Me Kate; The Producers; The Bandwagon... etc.
The best musicals either embrace the utter absurdity of the form, or treat it (comme Les Misérables) as deadly serious.
You can’t just splice people’s speeches together to reinforce your point.
Patients can be a challenge though. Many do not like 'change' and so a different packet, from a different manufacturer and heaven forfend a different colour pill can see them traipsing back to the pharmacy for the 'proper' ones.
Nice day out at the palace, a shiny medal and I think an annuity of £10k a year.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
https://x.com/thedailybeast/status/1985441622515986771
See the move to methane in rocketry.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
That on its own is a fairly large global market.
Of course it's a good decade off being economically competitive even for that, but the existing hydrogen infrastructure is already there.
Green hydrogen to methane for energy storage (or for other chemical feedstocks) would follow on from that, so it's a very long term project.
Between the two extremes, some compromise is sensible.
My main question is - why new cars? The sweet spot for price and reliability has long been a good brand, second hand, from the dealer, with warranties. So many people I know have done that and driven them so long that their children get tearful when the car they grew up with goes to The Scrapyard In The Sky.
There was a cartoon musical by Bob Godfrey (animator of Rhubarb and Custard) on the life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, called 'Great'. Only 30 minutes long, but thoroughly enjoyable. "You'll never get under the Thames, they said; he said 'Just wait and see!; Just give me a rope and a little bit of chain and I'll do it after tea'".
As I understand it, the main benefit of Motability is the VAT exemption, which applies to the whole car, I think?
If the VAT exemption (or even subsidy) applied to the adaptations required that would seem to be sane. This car has had a very expensive adaptation that I would have no problem with subsidising.
If you want to buy a more expensive car with fewer adaptions, fine, but should it be minus VAT?
I agree my perceptions are off if you have a wheelchair and travel a lot for work. The previous owners were elderly and they used it a lot (not minding the gearbox, that's probably just me), but were presumably not eligible for motability.
Appetites for both those things vary.
Delivered with a commendably straight face.
Miller: We are dealing with a party that is so extreme, its considers its opponents to be its mortal enemies, that dehumanizes its opposition.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1985534860967256285
Blimey, even the latest version of Grok gets it.
Trump scores 90 for frequent, intense terms like "vermin," "animals," and "garbage" applied to opponents and immigrants. Miller rates 70, echoing similar rhetoric on border threats but less volubly. Schumer scores 30 for framing foes as existential dangers without subhuman labels; Newsom at 20 for calling MAGA extreme yet avoiding direct dehumanization. Public records show Republicans' language more explicitly animalistic, while Democrats emphasize institutional risks—media scrutiny skews leftward.
https://x.com/grok/status/1985539955637322177
Also, I'd tax PIP and maybe means-test it, plus tighten the award criteria. All those things would contain the costs.
It's just a jump to the left...
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
So not only was it not a terrorist atrack, it was a Muslim that tackled the knife man.
Are there exploding heads on Twitter? Or is it a non-story now?
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-10-29/why-are-foreign-criminals-being-paid-to-leave-the-uk
FFS if you can't be arsed to read my posts properly don't waste your time responding to them.
However why should that car not attract VAT, like all other cars do?
Taxes should be applied equally to everyone, if taxing mobility is wrong then lets abolish VAT on all vehicles. Or if its right to tax mobility, then that BMW should have 20% VAT on it.
Natural rock weathering captures and stores a gigatonne or so every year doesn't it ?
Got to say the Wikipedia article is incomplete as it misses the fact Richard got the money after being fired from Joseph because Andrew Lloyd Webber didn't like the idea that the Pharoh should be an Elvis impersonator (which is ironic given that is now how it's played).
It isn't really the crap gearbox (apologies for giving that impression) that makes me think of it as a motability car but the heavy adaptations that would be a legitimate additional expense for someone who is disabled.
It is totally fair that these are VAT exempt (like many adaptations for the elderly too), but I'm not so sure about additional costs if you choose a more expensive car than 'necessary'.
Have they finally realised its a non starter?
My top musicals* (in no particular order):
Cabaret
Six
The Mikado
Book of Mormon (hilarious)
Hamilton
Carmen
And yes... The Sound of Music
(* I use the term loosely.)
I don't know why disabled people should be restricted to old cars, particularly when they depend on them so much and often don't have as many options for spending their cash. I think Ben's posts have been perfectly reasonable.
So we come down to what exactly are people complaining about - and it seems to be that there are disabled people with nice(r) cars than the people complaining have.
What is the median age of a car (nearly ten years old), what is the median age of a Motability car? That would be a like-for-like comparison.
If someone wants to pay more for a new car, they should be able to do so. Of course they should. From their wages, they go to work to earn, same as anyone else, paying the same taxes as anyone else.
Once more with Feeling (Buffy)
My Fair Lady
West Side Story
Fiddler on the Roof
Jesus Christ Superstar.
By the way, does Carmen count as a musical or an Opera? If a musical then it is in my list as well but does it have dialogue?
Hindsight is great. We got a lot of things wrong through covid. So did a lot of other countries. But Labour would have had mistakes too. Just different ones.
The issue is the mobility scheme only gives the subsidy where people buy new cars. And with the tax exemption proportional to the car cost, the monetary discount of the scheme encourages more expensive, newer cars.
It is therefore creating a perverse incentive. We're brainstorming more sensible ways to avoid these incentives.
Another alternative: give a monetary car credit (broadly equivalent to the funding/subsidy under the current scheme) that can be spent on new and older cars alike from approved dealers. That would mean people under the scheme have the same incentives as ordinary people - they can choose to spend more on a nice, new car; or get an older, still perfectly good car for free.
Just as I choose to buy an older car to save money, while my next door neighbour (who I don't think earns any more) has a brand new EV car. Disabled people can then have the same choice.
Go look at the UK growth figures by year. We are in a long term cycle of low growth that far preceeds Brexit. Ignoring the false nuber for the year after Covid as we bounced back, the last time the UK had growth above 4% was 2000. The last year we had growth above 5% was 1988.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/gbr/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-rate
You'd be hard pushed to look at the graph and pick out Brexit as an event that affected the medium term growth rate.
Edit to add - Joe is also now a fixture in the Theatre Royal's panto. The 2026 announcement has Joe, Clive and Danny as the star attractions.
What kind of world would it lead to? Would we be drowning in 'stuff'. And/or sitting around with nothing to do?
What we should be focused on imho is not more stuff but better health and wellbeing, more fulfilment. It's one of the reasons why I would be happy to see ever more money spent on healthcare.
Remember as was shown with Waitrose last week we have a lot of slow people where they do not provide enough value to justify being paid the minimum wage but they want to work...
I have 100k+ tracks of music on my NAS box. Which would have required a moderate sized building to house, until quite recently.
Talking about a zero growth economy isn't completely mad. We should be open to the idea as long as human welfare continues to improve.
And yes, it's natural that over time health will become a much larger part of our economy as it becomes relatively more important.