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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
Also, the gas network was substantially modified in the 1970s to support natural gas rather than coal gas.
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
And there was a reason that gas explosions and deaths occurred.
We have managed to get gas explosions down to fuckwits tampering with the gas supply in some quite grotesque ways.
That's the thing about progress. It's quite annoying that we can't give cigarettes with asbestos filters, to 14 year olds. Or is it?
Unlike nearly everyone here, I've handle hydrogen, in the lab, in quantity. And been upfront for the safety demos where they show you what happens when you break the rules.
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..
All those data centres will take up space and power though.
Kindle all the books are on the kindle.
My 40,000 tracks of music and 2000+ TV shows on 5 3.5" disks on a server in the corner of my office...
I still say it's excess 'stuff' - I can't believe @Malmesbury will ever listen to all his 100k+ of tracks.
But each to their own - I've got more wine stored away than I'm likely to drink :-(
Always happy to lend a helping hand to someone who needs it.
For a moment I thought you were replying to one of the posts about wanking!
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..
All those data centres will take up space and power though.
Kindle all the books are on the kindle.
My 40,000 tracks of music and 2000+ TV shows on 5 3.5" disks on a server in the corner of my office...
I still say it's excess 'stuff' - I can't believe @Malmesbury will ever listen to all his 100k+ of tracks.
But each to their own - I've got more wine stored away than I'm likely to drink :-(
Always happy to lend a helping hand to someone who needs it.
For a moment I thought you were replying to one of the posts about wanking!
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
1. Elemental hydrogen. Not molecules containing hydrogen atoms.
...I would need bookshelves along every wall in my house if the books on my Kindle were physically in the house...
I'm not seeing the problem. How long have you had this perverse need to see your walls?...
I want space to be able to enter some of the rooms. Seriously we have bookshelves that are triple stacked and I've bought about 2 physical books in the last 8 years...
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
1. Elemental hydrogen. Not molecules containing hydrogen atoms.
3. That was due to the carbon monoxide.
They also died from being ejected from the house at some serious velocity, due to gas leaks meeting Ol' Man Fire.
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.
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
1. Elemental hydrogen. Not molecules containing hydrogen atoms.
3. That was due to the carbon monoxide.
Not just due to the carbon monoxide, no, it was also due to fires.
Hydrogen notoriously is difficult to contain, it leaks much easier than methane, and it is extremely flammable.
As an aside, Meloni in Italy has decided the Online Safety Act was such a good idea, she's going to copy it. So... ladies and gentlemen, should you wish to watch porn in Rome without identifying yourself you'll need a VPN.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
...I would need bookshelves along every wall in my house if the books on my Kindle were physically in the house...
I'm not seeing the problem. How long have you had this perverse need to see your walls?...
I want space to be able to enter some of the rooms. Seriously we have bookshelves that are triple stacked and I've bought about 2 physical books in the last 8 years...
Get rid of all the books that you know that nobody in the house will ever read again.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
If you look at the list of things a Motability car is for, many would not require physical modification to the car. So it is utterly unsurprising that 90% are not modified.
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.
Using your data, growth in the 2000s was what? 2.5%. It hasn't been since Brexit, granted COVID upset the apple cart. Economists have suggested there has been a marked decline in economic activity as a result of Brexit. If Brexit was ever going to be a fantastic economic opportunity that hasn't been delivered. Didn't you acknowledge that there would be an economic cost to Brexit, but you considered what you felt you got in terms of improved sovereignty was worth that cost? Now I appreciated your candour at the time, but I think it disingenuous to suggest one of the current crosses we have to bear isn't long Brexit.
Anyway I am about to fight my way back to the M1 through Heanor's flags of St George.
Growth rates have really slowed down across Western economies (and one would include Japan in that category), since the start of the century.
In the UK we dodged the dotcom bust, but about 2004 the significant growth rates started to disappear and has never really returned at the rates we saw for any length of time. 2008 crash, austerity, brexit, covid, certainly not helped, but there is more fundamental issues.
One idea I have seen raised is that a mistake that Labour and Tories made in the 2008-2012 period was the focus on rather than lays off and companies going bust, big push on keeping more people employed and keeping wages stagnant. On one hand that is perfectly understandable, redundancy is terrible on an individual level. But it also means lots of companies didn't go under or really forced to attack how to become much more efficient. Furlough being another good example of this, that definitely went on far too long and ghost companies / ghost jobs.
Politicans worried about the reputation given to Thatcher in the ‘80s, where serious structural reforms needed to happen but it was pretty awful for those personally affected by the changes.
Almost all economic scenarios have beneficiaries and losers and are ultimately zero-sum.
Politicians, Spin doctors and the media (and indeed not a few economists) don't like this. They want to paint a narrative that things are positive or bleak, as if such things are universally true, which they never are.
For every 'bad' situation (like job losses under Thatcher) there will be always be some doing well out of it.
Even if stuff is net negative *for an entire country* there will be winners elsewhere in the world. Basic maths. Equal and opposite reaction type stuff.
Not accepting this reality results in over-cautious policies *at best* and, quite a lot of the time, crippling inactivity and kicking the can down the road indefinitely.
...I would need bookshelves along every wall in my house if the books on my Kindle were physically in the house...
I'm not seeing the problem. How long have you had this perverse need to see your walls?...
I want space to be able to enter some of the rooms. Seriously we have bookshelves that are triple stacked and I've bought about 2 physical books in the last 8 years...
Get rid of all the books that you know that nobody in the house will ever read again.
Done that already this year - but all I am doing is removing my books which Mrs Eek then instantly fills up again.
...I would need bookshelves along every wall in my house if the books on my Kindle were physically in the house...
I'm not seeing the problem. How long have you had this perverse need to see your walls?...
I want space to be able to enter some of the rooms. Seriously we have bookshelves that are triple stacked and I've bought about 2 physical books in the last 8 years...
Get rid of all the books that you know that nobody in the house will ever read again.
Done that already this year - but all I am doing is removing my books which Mrs Eek then instantly fills up again.
I still need to sell a lot of my old Dr Who books which are quite valuable.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to why there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Because I bet you would prefer to be healthy without a disability car rather than disabled but with 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.
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.
Using your data, growth in the 2000s was what? 2.5%. It hasn't been since Brexit, granted COVID upset the apple cart. Economists have suggested there has been a marked decline in economic activity as a result of Brexit. If Brexit was ever going to be a fantastic economic opportunity that hasn't been delivered. Didn't you acknowledge that there would be an economic cost to Brexit, but you considered what you felt you got in terms of improved sovereignty was worth that cost? Now I appreciated your candour at the time, but I think it disingenuous to suggest one of the current crosses we have to bear isn't long Brexit.
Anyway I am about to fight my way back to the M1 through Heanor's flags of St George.
Growth rates have really slowed down across Western economies (and one would include Japan in that category), since the start of the century.
In the UK we dodged the dotcom bust, but about 2004 the significant growth rates started to disappear and has never really returned at the rates we saw for any length of time. 2008 crash, austerity, brexit, covid, certainly not helped, but there is more fundamental issues.
One idea I have seen raised is that a mistake that Labour and Tories made in the 2008-2012 period was the focus on rather than lays off and companies going bust, big push on keeping more people employed and keeping wages stagnant. On one hand that is perfectly understandable, redundancy is terrible on an individual level. But it also means lots of companies didn't go under or really forced to attack how to become much more efficient. Furlough being another good example of this, that definitely went on far too long and ghost companies / ghost jobs.
Politicans worried about the reputation given to Thatcher in the ‘80s, where serious structural reforms needed to happen but it was pretty awful for those personally affected by the changes.
Almost all economic scenarios have beneficiaries and losers and are ultimately zero-sum.
Politicians, Spin doctors and the media (and indeed not a few economists) don't like this. They want to paint a narrative that things are positive or bleak, as if such things are universally true, which they never are.
For every 'bad' situation (like job losses under Thatcher) there will be always be some doing well out of it.
Even if stuff is net negative *for an entire country* there will be winners elsewhere in the world. Basic maths. Equal and opposite reaction type stuff.
Not accepting this reality results in over-cautious policies *at best* and, quite a lot of the time, crippling inactivity and kicking the can down the road indefinitely.
Most economic actions are not zero sum, they are positive for both parties, that's why they happen. If both parties didn't gain something out of the trade, then the trade simply would not happen.
That doesn't mean there aren't losers, and there can be, but zero sum is actually quite rare.
The problem is that most actions the government ends up taking are to prevent trades from happening, via either taxation or regulations. Since those trades would have been net positive (or they'd have never happened), then this action by the government results in a net deadweight welfare loss.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
...I would need bookshelves along every wall in my house if the books on my Kindle were physically in the house...
I'm not seeing the problem. How long have you had this perverse need to see your walls?...
I want space to be able to enter some of the rooms. Seriously we have bookshelves that are triple stacked and I've bought about 2 physical books in the last 8 years...
Get rid of all the books that you know that nobody in the house will ever read again.
Done that already this year - but all I am doing is removing my books which Mrs Eek then instantly fills up again.
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
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.
Using your data, growth in the 2000s was what? 2.5%. It hasn't been since Brexit, granted COVID upset the apple cart. Economists have suggested there has been a marked decline in economic activity as a result of Brexit. If Brexit was ever going to be a fantastic economic opportunity that hasn't been delivered. Didn't you acknowledge that there would be an economic cost to Brexit, but you considered what you felt you got in terms of improved sovereignty was worth that cost? Now I appreciated your candour at the time, but I think it disingenuous to suggest one of the current crosses we have to bear isn't long Brexit.
Anyway I am about to fight my way back to the M1 through Heanor's flags of St George.
Growth rates have really slowed down across Western economies (and one would include Japan in that category), since the start of the century.
In the UK we dodged the dotcom bust, but about 2004 the significant growth rates started to disappear and has never really returned at the rates we saw for any length of time. 2008 crash, austerity, brexit, covid, certainly not helped, but there is more fundamental issues.
One idea I have seen raised is that a mistake that Labour and Tories made in the 2008-2012 period was the focus on rather than lays off and companies going bust, big push on keeping more people employed and keeping wages stagnant. On one hand that is perfectly understandable, redundancy is terrible on an individual level. But it also means lots of companies didn't go under or really forced to attack how to become much more efficient. Furlough being another good example of this, that definitely went on far too long and ghost companies / ghost jobs.
Politicans worried about the reputation given to Thatcher in the ‘80s, where serious structural reforms needed to happen but it was pretty awful for those personally affected by the changes.
Almost all economic scenarios have beneficiaries and losers and are ultimately zero-sum.
Politicians, Spin doctors and the media (and indeed not a few economists) don't like this. They want to paint a narrative that things are positive or bleak, as if such things are universally true, which they never are.
For every 'bad' situation (like job losses under Thatcher) there will be always be some doing well out of it.
Even if stuff is net negative *for an entire country* there will be winners elsewhere in the world. Basic maths. Equal and opposite reaction type stuff.
Not accepting this reality results in over-cautious policies *at best* and, quite a lot of the time, crippling inactivity and kicking the can down the road indefinitely.
When you buy a loaf of bread from the supermarket, is that a zero sum transaction? Or was the loaf of bread worth more than the money to you, and the money worth more than the loaf of bread to the seller?
Capitalism is about voluntary exchanges which both the buyer and the seller find utility from.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Person leases a BMW i4 with an £8k down payment, followed by the full PIP payments going into the lease.
They get all the uplift in value between the car they could have got with PIP payments alone VAT free. They get the uplift in maintenance costs VAT free. They get the increased cost of tyres VAT free. They get the increased insurance costs for a more expensive car VAT & insurance tax free etc etc. That’s thousands and thousands of pounds of subsidy.
This seems unfair to most ordinary people driving around in seven year old cars and struggling to make both ends meet. If you can afford to drop £8k into your Mobility vehicle, then why is the state subsidising you even further?
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to why there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Because I bet you would prefer to be healthy without a disability car rather than disabled but with one.
Is this a culture clash between people who are used to commuting by public transport and those used to driving?
If you're used to using public transport then having to buy a car because you can't use public transport looks like an extra cost. But if you live somewhere with minimal public transport then you need a car to be able to work anyway (possibly two for the house if you and your partner work in different directions) and so you feel like a mug seeing other people buy cars with your tax payments.
Especially when ~20% of new cars are bought in that way.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Person leases a BMW i4 with an £8k down payment, followed by the full PIP payments going into the lease.
They get all the uplift in value between the car they could have got with PIP payments alone VAT free. They get the uplift in maintenance costs VAT free. They get the increased cost of tyres VAT free. They get the increased insurance costs for a more expensive car VAT & insurance tax free etc etc. That’s thousands and thousands of pounds of subsidy.
This seems unfair to most ordinary people driving around in seven year old cars and struggling to make both ends meet. If you can afford to drop £8k into your Mobility vehicle, then why is the state subsidising you even further?
I will refer to something I told my children a long time ago. life is unfair - deal with it.
So someone who is disabled drives an I4 rather than a Peugeot 3008 (say) - big wow.
In the scheme of things would you prefer to drive your 7 year old car and be fit or be disabled, possibly in constant pain and driving that i4. I suspect you would prefer the i4 but the disable person would swap with you instantly.
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
It sounds like we could use hydrogen in sun-dry ways.
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.
I keep coming back to the AI/robot revolution. I know its sci-fi but in the Star Trek universe no-one has to work, but they can choose to do so. Its some kind of idyllic paradise than we never really see the details of. But if robots in particular become better at doing most manual jobs, added to AI meaning that you can tell 'Home-serve 1000' to do the dishes and they get done, then what will happen to society?
And were is the society of endless leisure? Who pays for it? Who gets what? At the moment we live in a capitalist world, and the rules are easy to understand (if not always fair). You get a job that pays money so you can buy stuff. The state and society looks after those that that doesn't apply to as best it can (give or take).
I know Sean T, once of this parish, was a bit of a Cassandra, but he is right that there are some pretty big shifts coming and not just for travel writers.
There was a video of a robot trying to load a dishwasher last week - got to say paying a person to do it seems a sensible use of a few quid given the cost of the robot and how easy it was for it to get confused.
The Benpointer robot test - load and unload the dishwasher, including collecting the dirty plates etc. and putting the clean ones away.
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
It sounds like we could use hydrogen in sun-dry ways.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
"Water is one-third hydrogen afterall." Lol
I can't think of ANY interpretation of that as correct. By mass H is 2 out of 18. By number of atoms its 2 out of 3.
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.
Using your data, growth in the 2000s was what? 2.5%. It hasn't been since Brexit, granted COVID upset the apple cart. Economists have suggested there has been a marked decline in economic activity as a result of Brexit. If Brexit was ever going to be a fantastic economic opportunity that hasn't been delivered. Didn't you acknowledge that there would be an economic cost to Brexit, but you considered what you felt you got in terms of improved sovereignty was worth that cost? Now I appreciated your candour at the time, but I think it disingenuous to suggest one of the current crosses we have to bear isn't long Brexit.
Anyway I am about to fight my way back to the M1 through Heanor's flags of St George.
Growth rates have really slowed down across Western economies (and one would include Japan in that category), since the start of the century.
In the UK we dodged the dotcom bust, but about 2004 the significant growth rates started to disappear and has never really returned at the rates we saw for any length of time. 2008 crash, austerity, brexit, covid, certainly not helped, but there is more fundamental issues.
One idea I have seen raised is that a mistake that Labour and Tories made in the 2008-2012 period was the focus on rather than lays off and companies going bust, big push on keeping more people employed and keeping wages stagnant. On one hand that is perfectly understandable, redundancy is terrible on an individual level. But it also means lots of companies didn't go under or really forced to attack how to become much more efficient. Furlough being another good example of this, that definitely went on far too long and ghost companies / ghost jobs.
Politicans worried about the reputation given to Thatcher in the ‘80s, where serious structural reforms needed to happen but it was pretty awful for those personally affected by the changes.
Almost all economic scenarios have beneficiaries and losers and are ultimately zero-sum.
Politicians, Spin doctors and the media (and indeed not a few economists) don't like this. They want to paint a narrative that things are positive or bleak, as if such things are universally true, which they never are.
For every 'bad' situation (like job losses under Thatcher) there will be always be some doing well out of it.
Even if stuff is net negative *for an entire country* there will be winners elsewhere in the world. Basic maths. Equal and opposite reaction type stuff.
Not accepting this reality results in over-cautious policies *at best* and, quite a lot of the time, crippling inactivity and kicking the can down the road indefinitely.
When you buy a loaf of bread from the supermarket, is that a zero sum transaction? Or was the loaf of bread worth more than the money to you, and the money worth more than the loaf of bread to the seller?
Capitalism is about voluntary exchanges which both the buyer and the seller find utility from.
Except when you have a monopoly provider like the water companies and it impossible for the purchaser to take their business elsewhere.
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
We can even use some of it that's been prepacked into useful energy storage using carbon, but there are down sides if you do it too much...
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
And there was a reason that gas explosions and deaths occurred.
We have managed to get gas explosions down to fuckwits tampering with the gas supply in some quite grotesque ways.
That's the thing about progress. It's quite annoying that we can't give cigarettes with asbestos filters, to 14 year olds. Or is it?
Unlike nearly everyone here, I've handle hydrogen, in the lab, in quantity. And been upfront for the safety demos where they show you what happens when you break the rules.
Well not unlike me as it happens! I used to test for chemical impurities at Farbwerke Hoechst AG in Frankfurt-a-M as a student trainee, burning the material in a Wickbold combustion apparatus consisting of concentric cylinders through which oxygen and hydrogen (inner tube) were pumped with the organic test material incinerated in the flame for the residue to be measured. So, yes, I have worked with hydrogen in controlled combustion as you claim to have done
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
It sounds like we could use hydrogen in sun-dry ways.
These puns can only go so-lar.
Well yes, because going to far with them leads to lunar see.
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
"Water is one-third hydrogen afterall." Lol
I can't think of ANY interpretation of that as correct. By mass H is 2 out of 18. By number of atoms its 2 out of 3.
Easy to come up with one - It is one third hydrogen, one third oxygen and another third hydrogen.
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
We can even use some of it that's been prepacked into useful energy storage using carbon, but there are down sides if you do it too much...
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Person leases a BMW i4 with an £8k down payment, followed by the full PIP payments going into the lease.
They get all the uplift in value between the car they could have got with PIP payments alone VAT free. They get the uplift in maintenance costs VAT free. They get the increased cost of tyres VAT free. They get the increased insurance costs for a more expensive car VAT & insurance tax free etc etc. That’s thousands and thousands of pounds of subsidy.
This seems unfair to most ordinary people driving around in seven year old cars and struggling to make both ends meet. If you can afford to drop £8k into your Mobility vehicle, then why is the state subsidising you even further?
I will refer to something I told my children a long time ago. life is unfair - deal with it.
So someone who is disabled drives an I4 rather than a Peugeot 3008 (say) - big wow.
In the scheme of things would you prefer to drive your 7 year old car and be fit or be disabled, possibly in constant pain and driving that i4. I suspect you would prefer the i4 but the disable person would swap with you instantly.
I’m explaining to you why this is a live political issue. This is a site about Political Betting after all.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
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.
Using your data, growth in the 2000s was what? 2.5%. It hasn't been since Brexit, granted COVID upset the apple cart. Economists have suggested there has been a marked decline in economic activity as a result of Brexit. If Brexit was ever going to be a fantastic economic opportunity that hasn't been delivered. Didn't you acknowledge that there would be an economic cost to Brexit, but you considered what you felt you got in terms of improved sovereignty was worth that cost? Now I appreciated your candour at the time, but I think it disingenuous to suggest one of the current crosses we have to bear isn't long Brexit.
Anyway I am about to fight my way back to the M1 through Heanor's flags of St George.
Growth rates have really slowed down across Western economies (and one would include Japan in that category), since the start of the century.
In the UK we dodged the dotcom bust, but about 2004 the significant growth rates started to disappear and has never really returned at the rates we saw for any length of time. 2008 crash, austerity, brexit, covid, certainly not helped, but there is more fundamental issues.
One idea I have seen raised is that a mistake that Labour and Tories made in the 2008-2012 period was the focus on rather than lays off and companies going bust, big push on keeping more people employed and keeping wages stagnant. On one hand that is perfectly understandable, redundancy is terrible on an individual level. But it also means lots of companies didn't go under or really forced to attack how to become much more efficient. Furlough being another good example of this, that definitely went on far too long and ghost companies / ghost jobs.
Politicans worried about the reputation given to Thatcher in the ‘80s, where serious structural reforms needed to happen but it was pretty awful for those personally affected by the changes.
Almost all economic scenarios have beneficiaries and losers and are ultimately zero-sum.
Politicians, Spin doctors and the media (and indeed not a few economists) don't like this. They want to paint a narrative that things are positive or bleak, as if such things are universally true, which they never are.
For every 'bad' situation (like job losses under Thatcher) there will be always be some doing well out of it.
Even if stuff is net negative *for an entire country* there will be winners elsewhere in the world. Basic maths. Equal and opposite reaction type stuff.
Not accepting this reality results in over-cautious policies *at best* and, quite a lot of the time, crippling inactivity and kicking the can down the road indefinitely.
When you buy a loaf of bread from the supermarket, is that a zero sum transaction? Or was the loaf of bread worth more than the money to you, and the money worth more than the loaf of bread to the seller?
Capitalism is about voluntary exchanges which both the buyer and the seller find utility from.
Except when you have a monopoly provider like the water companies and it impossible for the purchaser to take their business elsewhere.
There's still consumer surplus in that scenario, otherwise the purchaser wouldn't be buying.
In this case the surplus is represented by not dying of thirst, but every little counts.
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
"Water is one-third hydrogen afterall." Lol
I can't think of ANY interpretation of that as correct. By mass H is 2 out of 18. By number of atoms its 2 out of 3.
Easy to come up with one - It is one third hydrogen, one third oxygen and another third hydrogen.
Thats like the old - I two coins that add up to 25p and one of them isn't a 20p - riddle.
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
We can even use some of it that's been prepacked into useful energy storage using carbon, but there are down sides if you do it too much...
Stored solar, I call it.
You could be on to something with that. Fossil fuels need rebranding!
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
We don't because it is VAT exempt. I am suggesting remove that exemption, take the money that we bring in on VAT and redistribute that either equally or by need amongst the people who qualify.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
I think it's either because it has been set up to be an indirect subsidy of the car market, or because something that was intended to be simple and generous for x% of the population has expanded to where it's being used by y% of the population, where y is much larger than x.
In a fiscal climate where the government has a large deficit and desperately needs money for basic state functions - like the legal system and armed forces - and also wants to increase funds for the NHS to win reelection, it feels like something that's a lot more generous than it needs to be.
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
We can even use some of it that's been prepacked into useful energy storage using carbon, but there are down sides if you do it too much...
Stored solar, I call it.
You could be on to something with that. Fossil fuels need rebranding!
A rebrand might help, but given the ecological damage would continue a new name would be at best coaled comfort.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Person leases a BMW i4 with an £8k down payment, followed by the full PIP payments going into the lease.
They get all the uplift in value between the car they could have got with PIP payments alone VAT free. They get the uplift in maintenance costs VAT free. They get the increased cost of tyres VAT free. They get the increased insurance costs for a more expensive car VAT & insurance tax free etc etc. That’s thousands and thousands of pounds of subsidy.
This seems unfair to most ordinary people driving around in seven year old cars and struggling to make both ends meet. If you can afford to drop £8k into your Mobility vehicle, then why is the state subsidising you even further?
I will refer to something I told my children a long time ago. life is unfair - deal with it.
So someone who is disabled drives an I4 rather than a Peugeot 3008 (say) - big wow.
In the scheme of things would you prefer to drive your 7 year old car and be fit or be disabled, possibly in constant pain and driving that i4. I suspect you would prefer the i4 but the disable person would swap with you instantly.
I’m explaining to you why this is a live political issue. This is a site about Political Betting after all.
It's only a political issue because some people don't want others doing better than themselves - got to say I know someone with a Discovery on Motobility - trust me you wouldn't want what he has - and the reason why he spent £8,000 upfront is because he won't need his pension
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
We can even use some of it that's been prepacked into useful energy storage using carbon, but there are down sides if you do it too much...
Stored solar, I call it.
You could be on to something with that. Fossil fuels need rebranding!
Natural gas is pretty great. I really don't know why enviornmentalists don't like it. And in the long run, solar will outcompete it, but in the medium term, it's cheap, flexible and barely polluting. Not only that, but it will still act as a fabulously efficient battery if there is a sustained period without wind or sun.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
And it ends up with someone who is entitled to PIP but holds down a good job leasing a £165k car but VAT free (£30k in VAT), so a massive reduction in the lease cost.
Better to either put a limit on an unmodified car at say £40k, limit it to British-made cars (which should be blindingly obvious!) or simply scrap the VAT exemption and raise the PIP to compensate.
This must be costing the Treasury billions, given that one in six new cars sold now come under this scheme.
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
"Water is one-third hydrogen afterall." Lol
I can't think of ANY interpretation of that as correct. By mass H is 2 out of 18. By number of atoms its 2 out of 3.
Easy to come up with one - It is one third hydrogen, one third oxygen and another third hydrogen.
Thats like the old - I two coins that add up to 25p and one of them isn't a 20p - riddle.
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
It sounds like we could use hydrogen in sun-dry ways.
These puns can only go so-lar.
Well yes, because going to far with them leads to lunar see.
Presumably a lunar see is where the church sends its more eccentric bishops.
On Tuesday, District Judge Sam Goozee found Robinson not guilty of failing to comply with the counter-terrorism powers during the incident on July 28 last year.
Mr Goozee said: “I cannot put out of my mind that it was actually what you stood for and your political beliefs that acted for the principle reason for this stop.”
I don't have a clue what the Judge means. "Protected characteristic" is the language of the Equality Act. What protected characteristic?
There's a bit of a whiff of police cockup about this imo. If he had an illegal amount of cash on him for export undeclared, why was that not charged?
Presumably the protected characteristic is political belief?
Anyway, Robinson must be relieved. Now he can concentrate on the ongoing legal fight over whether he is hiding any money with his insolvency that he owes in libel damages, and his trial due next year on harassment charges.
I don't see how political belief is a protected characteristic under terrorism law, and it seems quite reasonable to treat a career violent criminal, fraudster, bankrupt driving a Bentley with suspicion.
GB News were saying he was selected on the basis of "political belief" not something else, which I can't remember.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
And it ends up with someone who is entitled to PIP but holds down a good job leasing a £165k car but VAT free (£30k in VAT), so a massive reduction in the lease cost.
Better to either put a limit on an unmodified car at say £40k, limit it to British-made cars (which should be blindingly obvious!) or simply scrap the VAT exemption and raise the PIP to compensate.
This must be costing the Treasury billions, given that one in six new cars sold now come under this scheme.
Who is leasing a £165k car - because I would love to see the example of that..
I'm going to say prove it or we've found you out as a bullshit merchant...
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
"Water is one-third hydrogen afterall." Lol
I can't think of ANY interpretation of that as correct. By mass H is 2 out of 18. By number of atoms its 2 out of 3.
Easy to come up with one - It is one third hydrogen, one third oxygen and another third hydrogen.
Regarding dangers of hydrogen in domestic gas citing town gas 1) Town gas was much more poisonous due to a high CO content - natural gas with added hydrogen won't have this issue 2) Gas appliance maintenance was much worse, particularly in rental properties 3) Most town gas related deaths were CO poisoning
From wikipedia In Hong Kong, town gas is produced from naphtha and natural gas. Its major components are hydrogen (49%), methane (28.5%), carbon dioxide (19.5%) and a small amount of carbon monoxide (3%).[3]
If domestic gas can be 49% hydrogen in Hong Kong, why couldn't it work in UK?
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
"Water is one-third hydrogen afterall." Lol
I can't think of ANY interpretation of that as correct. By mass H is 2 out of 18. By number of atoms its 2 out of 3.
Easy to come up with one - It is one third hydrogen, one third oxygen and another third hydrogen.
Regarding dangers of hydrogen in domestic gas citing town gas 1) Town gas was much more poisonous due to a high CO content - natural gas with added hydrogen won't have this issue 2) Gas appliance maintenance was much worse, particularly in rental properties 3) Most town gas related deaths were CO poisoning
From wikipedia In Hong Kong, town gas is produced from naphtha and natural gas. Its major components are hydrogen (49%), methane (28.5%), carbon dioxide (19.5%) and a small amount of carbon monoxide (3%).[3]
If domestic gas can be 49% hydrogen in Hong Kong, why couldn't it work in UK?
At a cursory look, accidental Hong Kong carbon monoxide poisoning deaths are significantly higher than the UK by perhaps 2-3x the rate.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
And it ends up with someone who is entitled to PIP but holds down a good job leasing a £165k car but VAT free (£30k in VAT), so a massive reduction in the lease cost.
Better to either put a limit on an unmodified car at say £40k, limit it to British-made cars (which should be blindingly obvious!) or simply scrap the VAT exemption and raise the PIP to compensate.
This must be costing the Treasury billions, given that one in six new cars sold now come under this scheme.
Who is leasing a £165k car - because I would love to see the example of that...
There doesn’t appear to be an upper value on the car allowed through the 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.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
And it ends up with someone who is entitled to PIP but holds down a good job leasing a £165k car but VAT free (£30k in VAT), so a massive reduction in the lease cost.
Better to either put a limit on an unmodified car at say £40k, limit it to British-made cars (which should be blindingly obvious!) or simply scrap the VAT exemption and raise the PIP to compensate.
This must be costing the Treasury billions, given that one in six new cars sold now come under this scheme.
There are many other thing to be addressed - such as clip on wheelchairs, e-wheelchairs, and e-cycles not being available on Motability.
It's not a trivial question - these can be typically £2k to £5k each, increase radius of practical autonomy from perhaps a mile or two to more than ten miles (figures from a friend who lives in London), and can entirely remove the need for a motor vehicle.
Such solutions are far more cost-effective as a use of PIP funds.
On motability, one discrepancy of ideology that amuses me is that many on the left see inequality in incomes as an issue, but fail to see that inequalities provided by entitlements can be incredibly gauling.
For reference, I have a family member who is a mechanic. Him and his mates constantly see customers walking off with cars that they themselves couldn't afford to drive....
On motability, one discrepancy of ideology that amuses me is that many on the left see inequality in incomes as an issue, but fail to see that inequalities provided by entitlements can be incredibly gauling.
For reference, I have a family member who is a mechanic. Him and his mates constantly see customers walking off with cars that they themselves couldn't afford to drive....
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
You are suggesting that we base the UK power supply on a a nuclear reactor for which there is no paperwork on record? No environmental impact study? Not even a study of the impact on equality?
What kind of heartless Neon Fascist MAGA DOGE deregulating maniac are you? Have you no thought for the hundreds of lawyers children who may have to be driven to school in the same Porsche two days in a row, because of the lack of 3 Billion year ongoing public enquiry into building such a system!?!
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
And it ends up with someone who is entitled to PIP but holds down a good job leasing a £165k car but VAT free (£30k in VAT), so a massive reduction in the lease cost.
Better to either put a limit on an unmodified car at say £40k, limit it to British-made cars (which should be blindingly obvious!) or simply scrap the VAT exemption and raise the PIP to compensate.
This must be costing the Treasury billions, given that one in six new cars sold now come under this scheme.
There are many other thing to be addressed - such as clip on wheelchairs, e-wheelchairs, and e-cycles not being available on Motability.
It's not a trivial question - these can be typically £2k to £5k each, increase radius of practical autonomy from perhaps a mile or two to more than ten miles (figures from a friend who lives in London), and can entirely remove the need for a motor vehicle.
Such solutions are far more cost-effective as a use of PIP funds.
You’d have thought so. Especially as you can get an e-cycle on the cycle to work scheme.
On Tuesday, District Judge Sam Goozee found Robinson not guilty of failing to comply with the counter-terrorism powers during the incident on July 28 last year.
Mr Goozee said: “I cannot put out of my mind that it was actually what you stood for and your political beliefs that acted for the principle reason for this stop.”
I don't have a clue what the Judge means. "Protected characteristic" is the language of the Equality Act. What protected characteristic?
There's a bit of a whiff of police cockup about this imo. If he had an illegal amount of cash on him for export undeclared, why was that not charged?
Presumably the protected characteristic is political belief?
Anyway, Robinson must be relieved. Now he can concentrate on the ongoing legal fight over whether he is hiding any money with his insolvency that he owes in libel damages, and his trial due next year on harassment charges.
I don't see how political belief is a protected characteristic under terrorism law, and it seems quite reasonable to treat a career violent criminal, fraudster, bankrupt driving a Bentley with suspicion.
GB News were saying he was selected on the basis of "political belief" not something else, which I can't remember.
Personally I think the Judge is off his rocker.
I'm surprised Cyclefree isn't all over this after the Supreme Court ruling on the primacy of birth certificates because presumably the "protected characteristic" is that Judge has determined he's a (you're banned Ed).
The Judge is an idiot, if a convicted criminal driving a high value car that isn't theirs across the border isn't reasonable grounds for plod to make a stop then what is?
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
You are suggesting that we base the UK power supply on a a nuclear reactor for which there is no paperwork on record? No environmental impact study? Not even a study of the impact on equality?
What kind of heartless Neon Fascist MAGA DOGE deregulating maniac are you? Have you no thought for the hundreds of lawyers children who may have to be driven to school in the same Porsche two days in a row, because of the lack of 3 Billion year ongoing public enquiry into building such a system!?!
Shut it down now!
Light seasonality is obviously racist. And some of the world poorest nations are exposed to far more damaging radiation than the rich first world.
On motability, one discrepancy of ideology that amuses me is that many on the left see inequality in incomes as an issue, but fail to see that inequalities provided by entitlements can be incredibly gauling.
For reference, I have a family member who is a mechanic. Him and his mates constantly see customers walking off with cars that they themselves couldn't afford to drive....
It's a strange focus.
Were he a disabled person in a similar job, his household would be (according to median figures which I accept do not tell the full story) around 10k per annum worse off in terms of income he would have had to spend on matters imposed by his disability - in the absence of measures such as PIP).
(Which would be transport, but also things such as adaptations, extra taxis, workmen for minor jobs he would not be able to do himself, heating because he needs to be warmer, and so on.)
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
And it ends up with someone who is entitled to PIP but holds down a good job leasing a £165k car but VAT free (£30k in VAT), so a massive reduction in the lease cost.
Better to either put a limit on an unmodified car at say £40k, limit it to British-made cars (which should be blindingly obvious!) or simply scrap the VAT exemption and raise the PIP to compensate.
This must be costing the Treasury billions, given that one in six new cars sold now come under this scheme.
There are many other thing to be addressed - such as clip on wheelchairs, e-wheelchairs, and e-cycles not being available on Motability.
It's not a trivial question - these can be typically £2k to £5k each, increase radius of practical autonomy from perhaps a mile or two to more than ten miles (figures from a friend who lives in London), and can entirely remove the need for a motor vehicle.
Such solutions are far more cost-effective as a use of PIP funds.
You’d have thought so. Especially as you can get an e-cycle on the cycle to work scheme.
But not if eg you are self-employed (unless it has changed and I missed it) or if not employed.
One of the points campaign groups make is that the cycle-to-work scheme only addresses disabled people who work - who are the ones who need such a scheme least.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
And it ends up with someone who is entitled to PIP but holds down a good job leasing a £165k car but VAT free (£30k in VAT), so a massive reduction in the lease cost.
Better to either put a limit on an unmodified car at say £40k, limit it to British-made cars (which should be blindingly obvious!) or simply scrap the VAT exemption and raise the PIP to compensate.
This must be costing the Treasury billions, given that one in six new cars sold now come under this scheme.
We won't be raising PIP any time soon. More likely we'll be institutionalising people tbh.
I'm a bit smoothbrain on this, I don't know too much about it as the people I work with invariably rely on public transport, but if you just removed the VAT exemption wouldn't that simply reduce the options in the cars they can afford, which just means trimming down the list of options without excluding people from getting a car that performs the necessary functions? So form suffers, but not function.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
And it ends up with someone who is entitled to PIP but holds down a good job leasing a £165k car but VAT free (£30k in VAT), so a massive reduction in the lease cost.
Better to either put a limit on an unmodified car at say £40k, limit it to British-made cars (which should be blindingly obvious!) or simply scrap the VAT exemption and raise the PIP to compensate.
This must be costing the Treasury billions, given that one in six new cars sold now come under this scheme.
There are many other thing to be addressed - such as clip on wheelchairs, e-wheelchairs, and e-cycles not being available on Motability.
It's not a trivial question - these can be typically £2k to £5k each, increase radius of practical autonomy from perhaps a mile or two to more than ten miles (figures from a friend who lives in London), and can entirely remove the need for a motor vehicle.
Such solutions are far more cost-effective as a use of PIP funds.
You’d have thought so. Especially as you can get an e-cycle on the cycle to work scheme.
But not if eg you are self-employed (unless it has changed and I missed it) or if not employed.
One of the points campaign groups make is that the cycle-to-work scheme only addresses disabled people who work - who are the ones who need such a scheme least.
I don’t disagree, I think it’s bizarre as you can get it on cycle to work and I can imagine older people would like an electric cart or wheelchair too
On Tuesday, District Judge Sam Goozee found Robinson not guilty of failing to comply with the counter-terrorism powers during the incident on July 28 last year.
Mr Goozee said: “I cannot put out of my mind that it was actually what you stood for and your political beliefs that acted for the principle reason for this stop.”
I don't have a clue what the Judge means. "Protected characteristic" is the language of the Equality Act. What protected characteristic?
There's a bit of a whiff of police cockup about this imo. If he had an illegal amount of cash on him for export undeclared, why was that not charged?
Presumably the protected characteristic is political belief?
Anyway, Robinson must be relieved. Now he can concentrate on the ongoing legal fight over whether he is hiding any money with his insolvency that he owes in libel damages, and his trial due next year on harassment charges.
I don't see how political belief is a protected characteristic under terrorism law, and it seems quite reasonable to treat a career violent criminal, fraudster, bankrupt driving a Bentley with suspicion.
GB News were saying he was selected on the basis of "political belief" not something else, which I can't remember.
Personally I think the Judge is off his rocker.
I'm surprised Cyclefree isn't all over this after the Supreme Court ruling on the primacy of birth certificates because presumably the "protected characteristic" is that Judge has determined he's a (you're banned Ed).
The Judge is an idiot, if a convicted criminal driving a high value car that isn't theirs across the border isn't reasonable grounds for plod to make a stop then what is?
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.
Which can be repurposed for hydrogen.
Only if you ignore the safety protocols for hydrogen.
The town gas we had before North Sea gas came on stream was roughly half hydrogen aiui
A comment made a few times, which ignores 3 critical factors.
1: Half hydrogen is very different to fully hydrogen. Water is one-third hydrogen afterall.
2: Homes were much better ventilated (read: much worse insulated) then.
3: Many more people died then due to gas leaks etc in the home than would happen today, despite points 1 and 2.
"Water is one-third hydrogen afterall." Lol
I can't think of ANY interpretation of that as correct. By mass H is 2 out of 18. By number of atoms its 2 out of 3.
Easy to come up with one - It is one third hydrogen, one third oxygen and another third hydrogen.
Regarding dangers of hydrogen in domestic gas citing town gas 1) Town gas was much more poisonous due to a high CO content - natural gas with added hydrogen won't have this issue 2) Gas appliance maintenance was much worse, particularly in rental properties 3) Most town gas related deaths were CO poisoning
From wikipedia In Hong Kong, town gas is produced from naphtha and natural gas. Its major components are hydrogen (49%), methane (28.5%), carbon dioxide (19.5%) and a small amount of carbon monoxide (3%).[3]
If domestic gas can be 49% hydrogen in Hong Kong, why couldn't it work in UK?
At a cursory look, accidental Hong Kong carbon monoxide poisoning deaths are significantly higher than the UK by perhaps 2-3x the rate.
But hydrogen doesn't contain CO, so diluting natural gas with hydrogen is not going to increase the CO content is it?
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of There are many other thing to be addressed - such as clip on wheelchairs, e-wheelchairs, and e-cycles not being available on Motability.
It's not a trivial question - these can be typically £2k to £5k each, increase radius of practical autonomy from perhaps a mile or two to more than ten miles (figures from a friend who lives in London), and can entirely remove the need for a motor vehicle.
Scooters, too. Easy to ride (no foot controls), practical, cheap to run, and capable of much longer journeys than an e-bike.
Decent petrol and electric ones can be had for £2500-3500 brand new.
What are the GOP's chances of winning the New York City mayoral election?
Not a Lot, echoing the ghost of Paul Daniels.
President Trump has publicly told them to vote for Andrew Cuomo - the "not a Communist" Democrat who is running as an Independent. AIUI Cuomo is with the dodginess party.
So, I think @SandyRentool is right to trumpet hydrogren as a fuel source.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
You are suggesting that we base the UK power supply on a a nuclear reactor for which there is no paperwork on record? No environmental impact study? Not even a study of the impact on equality?
What kind of heartless Neon Fascist MAGA DOGE deregulating maniac are you? Have you no thought for the hundreds of lawyers children who may have to be driven to school in the same Porsche two days in a row, because of the lack of 3 Billion year ongoing public enquiry into building such a system!?!
Shut it down now!
It emits dangerous radiation already, sure. I have to wear protective clothing and salves in unscreened environments, with a significantly increased cancer risk.
But at least I can't ingest or breathe the actual carcinogen. Nor does it penetrate the skin.
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.
Using your data, growth in the 2000s was what? 2.5%. It hasn't been since Brexit, granted COVID upset the apple cart. Economists have suggested there has been a marked decline in economic activity as a result of Brexit. If Brexit was ever going to be a fantastic economic opportunity that hasn't been delivered. Didn't you acknowledge that there would be an economic cost to Brexit, but you considered what you felt you got in terms of improved sovereignty was worth that cost? Now I appreciated your candour at the time, but I think it disingenuous to suggest one of the current crosses we have to bear isn't long Brexit.
Anyway I am about to fight my way back to the M1 through Heanor's flags of St George.
Growth rates have really slowed down across Western economies (and one would include Japan in that category), since the start of the century.
In the UK we dodged the dotcom bust, but about 2004 the significant growth rates started to disappear and has never really returned at the rates we saw for any length of time. 2008 crash, austerity, brexit, covid, certainly not helped, but there is more fundamental issues.
One idea I have seen raised is that a mistake that Labour and Tories made in the 2008-2012 period was the focus on rather than lays off and companies going bust, big push on keeping more people employed and keeping wages stagnant. On one hand that is perfectly understandable, redundancy is terrible on an individual level. But it also means lots of companies didn't go under or really forced to attack how to become much more efficient. Furlough being another good example of this, that definitely went on far too long and ghost companies / ghost jobs.
Politicans worried about the reputation given to Thatcher in the ‘80s, where serious structural reforms needed to happen but it was pretty awful for those personally affected by the changes.
Almost all economic scenarios have beneficiaries and losers and are ultimately zero-sum.
Politicians, Spin doctors and the media (and indeed not a few economists) don't like this. They want to paint a narrative that things are positive or bleak, as if such things are universally true, which they never are.
For every 'bad' situation (like job losses under Thatcher) there will be always be some doing well out of it.
Even if stuff is net negative *for an entire country* there will be winners elsewhere in the world. Basic maths. Equal and opposite reaction type stuff.
Not accepting this reality results in over-cautious policies *at best* and, quite a lot of the time, crippling inactivity and kicking the can down the road indefinitely.
When you buy a loaf of bread from the supermarket, is that a zero sum transaction? Or was the loaf of bread worth more than the money to you, and the money worth more than the loaf of bread to the seller?
Capitalism is about voluntary exchanges which both the buyer and the seller find utility from.
Except when you have a monopoly provider like the water companies and it impossible for the purchaser to take their business elsewhere.
On motability, one discrepancy of ideology that amuses me is that many on the left see inequality in incomes as an issue, but fail to see that inequalities provided by entitlements can be incredibly gauling.
For reference, I have a family member who is a mechanic. Him and his mates constantly see customers walking off with cars that they themselves couldn't afford to drive....
It's a strange focus.
Were he a disabled person in a similar job, his household would be (according to median figures which I accept do not tell the full story) around 10k per annum worse off in terms of income he would have had to spend on matters imposed by his disability - in the absence of measures such as PIP).
(Which would be transport, but also things such as adaptations, extra taxis, workmen for minor jobs he would not be able to do himself, heating because he needs to be warmer, and so on.)
About the most SW1 answer imaginable, and utterly failing to understand the mentality of the working man on the clapham omnibus.
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.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
And it ends up with someone who is entitled to PIP but holds down a good job leasing a £165k car but VAT free (£30k in VAT), so a massive reduction in the lease cost.
Better to either put a limit on an unmodified car at say £40k, limit it to British-made cars (which should be blindingly obvious!) or simply scrap the VAT exemption and raise the PIP to compensate.
This must be costing the Treasury billions, given that one in six new cars sold now come under this scheme.
We won't be raising PIP any time soon. More likely we'll be institutionalising people tbh.
I'm a bit smoothbrain on this, I don't know too much about it as the people I work with invariably rely on public transport, but if you just removed the VAT exemption wouldn't that simply reduce the options in the cars they can afford, which just means trimming down the list of options without excluding people from getting a car that performs the necessary functions? So form suffers, but not function.
Correct. It’s the top-ups and the VAT exemption that are the issues.
Comments
We have managed to get gas explosions down to fuckwits tampering with the gas supply in some quite grotesque ways.
That's the thing about progress. It's quite annoying that we can't give cigarettes with asbestos filters, to 14 year olds. Or is it?
Unlike nearly everyone here, I've handle hydrogen, in the lab, in quantity. And been upfront for the safety demos where they show you what happens when you break the rules.
3. That was due to the carbon monoxide.
Hydrogen notoriously is difficult to contain, it leaks much easier than methane, and it is extremely flammable.
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Almost all economic scenarios have beneficiaries and losers and are ultimately zero-sum.
Politicians, Spin doctors and the media (and indeed not a few economists) don't like this. They want to paint a narrative that things are positive or bleak, as if such things are universally true, which they never are.
For every 'bad' situation (like job losses under Thatcher) there will be always be some doing well out of it.
Even if stuff is net negative *for an entire country* there will be winners elsewhere in the world. Basic maths. Equal and opposite reaction type stuff.
Not accepting this reality results in over-cautious policies *at best* and, quite a lot of the time, crippling inactivity and kicking the can down the road indefinitely.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to why there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Because I bet you would prefer to be healthy without a disability car rather than disabled but with one.
TIL that Coca Cola has an executive who is solely in charge of their relationship with McDonalds
https://x.com/otis_reid/status/1985482354186731876
That doesn't mean there aren't losers, and there can be, but zero sum is actually quite rare.
The problem is that most actions the government ends up taking are to prevent trades from happening, via either taxation or regulations. Since those trades would have been net positive (or they'd have never happened), then this action by the government results in a net deadweight welfare loss.
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Capitalism is about voluntary exchanges which both the buyer and the seller find utility from.
They get all the uplift in value between the car they could have got with PIP payments alone VAT free. They get the uplift in maintenance costs VAT free. They get the increased cost of tyres VAT free. They get the increased insurance costs for a more expensive car VAT & insurance tax free etc etc. That’s thousands and thousands of pounds of subsidy.
This seems unfair to most ordinary people driving around in seven year old cars and struggling to make both ends meet. If you can afford to drop £8k into your Mobility vehicle, then why is the state subsidising you even further?
If you're used to using public transport then having to buy a car because you can't use public transport looks like an extra cost. But if you live somewhere with minimal public transport then you need a car to be able to work anyway (possibly two for the house if you and your partner work in different directions) and so you feel like a mug seeing other people buy cars with your tax payments.
Especially when ~20% of new cars are bought in that way.
That a company has a dedicated account manager for a major client really shouldn’t be news.
So someone who is disabled drives an I4 rather than a Peugeot 3008 (say) - big wow.
In the scheme of things would you prefer to drive your 7 year old car and be fit or be disabled, possibly in constant pain and driving that i4. I suspect you would prefer the i4 but the disable person would swap with you instantly.
He's right.
Humanity should take advantage of a giant hydrogen fusion plant, situated suitably off planet, and use the energy it generates via some form of transfer over the visible (and invisible) light spectrum.
We should then capture this energy in various ways: perhaps using some method to lock the energy up in chemical bonds, or perhaps using the impact of it heating gases, causing them to expand (and therefore move around...) perhaps we could use some form of propeller system to turn that into electricity. It may even be possible to capture the energy even more directly, using some form of 'panel'.
I realise this all sounds like science fiction, but hydrogren power is possible.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
In this case the surplus is represented by not dying of thirst, but every little counts.
In a fiscal climate where the government has a large deficit and desperately needs money for basic state functions - like the legal system and armed forces - and also wants to increase funds for the NHS to win reelection, it feels like something that's a lot more generous than it needs to be.
Better to either put a limit on an unmodified car at say £40k, limit it to British-made cars (which should be blindingly obvious!) or simply scrap the VAT exemption and raise the PIP to compensate.
This must be costing the Treasury billions, given that one in six new cars sold now come under this scheme.
Trigger warning!!!
GB News were saying he was selected on the basis of "political belief" not something else, which I can't remember.
Personally I think the Judge is off his rocker.
I'm going to say prove it or we've found you out as a bullshit merchant...
1) Town gas was much more poisonous due to a high CO content - natural gas with added hydrogen won't have this issue
2) Gas appliance maintenance was much worse, particularly in rental properties
3) Most town gas related deaths were CO poisoning
From wikipedia
In Hong Kong, town gas is produced from naphtha and natural gas. Its major components are hydrogen (49%), methane (28.5%), carbon dioxide (19.5%) and a small amount of carbon monoxide (3%).[3]
If domestic gas can be 49% hydrogen in Hong Kong, why couldn't it work in UK?
"The BBC does not comment on leaked documents" - BBC R4
https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new-and-used-cars/article/motability-car-scheme-explained-aGss89b6MbnY
It's not a trivial question - these can be typically £2k to £5k each, increase radius of practical autonomy from perhaps a mile or two to more than ten miles (figures from a friend who lives in London), and can entirely remove the need for a motor vehicle.
Such solutions are far more cost-effective as a use of PIP funds.
For reference, I have a family member who is a mechanic. Him and his mates constantly see customers walking off with cars that they themselves couldn't afford to drive....
Are they then perhaps not very good mechanics?
What kind of heartless Neon Fascist MAGA DOGE deregulating maniac are you? Have you no thought for the hundreds of lawyers children who may have to be driven to school in the same Porsche two days in a row, because of the lack of 3 Billion year ongoing public enquiry into building such a system!?!
Shut it down now!
The Judge is an idiot, if a convicted criminal driving a high value car that isn't theirs across the border isn't reasonable grounds for plod to make a stop then what is?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxjGWu29hzo
Were he a disabled person in a similar job, his household would be (according to median figures which I accept do not tell the full story) around 10k per annum worse off in terms of income he would have had to spend on matters imposed by his disability - in the absence of measures such as PIP).
(Which would be transport, but also things such as adaptations, extra taxis, workmen for minor jobs he would not be able to do himself, heating because he needs to be warmer, and so on.)
One of the points campaign groups make is that the cycle-to-work scheme only addresses disabled people who work - who are the ones who need such a scheme least.
Congratulations to Ms Limerick.
(Some of us, who are now probably John Lewis favoured demographic, remember this song from 1991).
I'm a bit smoothbrain on this, I don't know too much about it as the people I work with invariably rely on public transport, but if you just removed the VAT exemption wouldn't that simply reduce the options in the cars they can afford, which just means trimming down the list of options without excluding people from getting a car that performs the necessary functions? So form suffers, but not function.
NEW THREAD
Decent petrol and electric ones can be had for £2500-3500 brand new.
President Trump has publicly told them to vote for Andrew Cuomo - the "not a Communist" Democrat who is running as an Independent. AIUI Cuomo is with the dodginess party.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c231e284345o
But at least I can't ingest or breathe the actual carcinogen. Nor does it penetrate the skin.
https://www.allrecipes.com/article/why-mcdonalds-coke-tastes-better-than-all-others/