Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
And there'll be some bloke down the pub selling get around boxes for £100...
I cannot help but feel dismay at this polling and it is probably the Greens being at 27% that dismays me the most. Scottish education has plunged new depths over the period of the SNP administration but that so many of my countrymen and women are so incapable of even the most basic analysis or assessment of Scotland's needs is just appalling.
In the UK or out of it, its very difficult to see a viable path going forward. JM Barrie once said "there are few more impressive sights than a Scotsman on the make." What have we done to ourselves and our children?
Since you had your desired results in the two recent 'historic' referendums and had your politics either directly or indirectly largely enacted in Scotland by UK governments, I hope you're willing to shoulder your share of blame.
Can anything improve things for them or, like the Tories after Truss, are they just done.
One of the things that contributed to the feeling of chaos in the last parliament was the constant changing of PM. Labour offered calmer waters, changing PM themselves would be yet another way of failing to live up to their promises
There is no point changing leader at the moment. There is still further bad news to come even if they are bold enough to make tougher decisions like yesterdays across the board including on tax.
I think it would be reasonable to change leaders in search of an electoral boost in the second half of 2027 giving the new leader 12-18 months.
This only makes sense if they actually do something useful with the period that SKS has left. I see very little sign of that happening.
Yesterdays announcement was a reasonable attempt at something useful. As would a budget where they actually raise more money rather than just faff around at the margins. We can only wait and see.
Having denied most of a month’s worth of leaks and kite-flying, does Rachel have anything left that isn’t just more faffing around at the margins?
She could take a chainsaw to public spending, like Milei
As long as a $40b handout from Big Daddy Trump comes with it.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
Like energy meter readings I suspect. Self reported, but at some point the meter gets read.
Self estimates with sanity checks at MOT and sale appear to be the suggest approach. Adding it to charging would be an utter nightmare for different reasons (and granny plugs)
TSE's analysis on the markets seems correct, the most seats odds look fair to me but no value at present. Worryingly for the Slabour party, they are on a continuing slide, with a difficult budget to come next week. Slab started out these odds at 5/1 after the Hamilton by election, and are now same value at Reform at 9.
The elephant in the room for me is that the independence question is not going to go away, but neither can either side claim a prospective victory on current yes/no polling. If/when yes get to above 55% (and stay there) then it becomes a different proposition altogether, above 60% (and staying around that level) I think calls for another vote will be enormous.
For me next years election looks like being a cakewalk for the SNP, despite sliding from a constituency vote of 47% in 2021 to currently polling around 34/35% (again, constituency vote).
I think they will fall short of a majority but could get above 60 seats on a very good night. There is much more chance of Alex Salmond's independence "supermajority" this time round if SNP voters use their list vote for the Greens, the Greens will likely get into double figures of MSPs
The SNP probably changed their leader just in time but have been helped enormously by the recent collapse in Lab support and Reform taking a bulldozer through the Tories vote share, amongst other parties. The election will be won and lost in the constituencies in the central belt, the list vote will split several ways, similar to 2003.
There could be the odd surprise in the more rural areas in the north and south. Look out for Inverness where at least two independents will stand, one being current MSP Fergus Ewing.
I think voters will look at Labour and opt for the status quo. A lot of that is down to the actions of Reeves/Starmer, not Mr Sarwar. Reform may dip slightly before May, there will be an awful lot of nervous Tory/Lab candidates hoping they do.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
I thought the French model was "tolls in walled gardens" ie motorways - like the M6 Toll.
That is imo very different, unless there are aspects of which I am not aware.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
JGAT thinks it will metamorphose into a congestion charge. This was my entirely non-provocative comment, an approximate envelope analysis:
I think the analysis is straightforward.
The Govt receive something like £1500 (my guestimate) per vehicle per year, and a chunk of that revenue comes from Fuel Duty. An equivalent is needed for electric vehicles.
Drivers have had it very easy for the last ~15 years, with Fuel Duty not even being increased with inflation, which has left too much room for vehicle prices to be hiked on the back of almost zero interest rates. Fuel Duty is now 52.95p per litre; with inflation it would be about 82p per litre. Total tax take per litre of fuel is perhaps 75-80p (53p + 25p of VAT on a total price of ~£1.45 per litre). If index linked it would be around £1.05.
I'd see any rate per mile being index linked, which is sensible. I make the petrol one something like 10p per mile, depending on assumptions. Plus or minus a margin.
So I'll call it that if a per mile tax comes in it will be around 8-9p per mile plus inflation from now to 2035, by then.
It's nice to have a Government which is looking to the future, rather than sitting immovably on their bottoms looking at the past whilst letting society fall apart around their ears (see eg the state of our roads).
(Open to corrections, and my estimation margin on the 8-9p number is +/- 15%.)
Usual three options:
1 replace fuel duty with another tax on vehicle use of that sort of scale
2 replace fuel duty with £3000 per household or so of other taxes
3 find £3000 per household or so of spending cuts.
Part of our problem is that "taxing bad things to discourage them" has got over-tangled with "taxing things because the sort of society we want costs".
I would be knocking down fuel duty and applying the per mile tax to all cars. So you would end up saving 10p so on petrol but paying 25p on mileage instead
Per mile taxation is the worst way you can tax motoring imaginable. Will wreck the rural economy while making urban driving, with all its negative effects on congestion, noise pollution, activity levels , space etc etc, relatively cheaper.
I'll be quite angry if they introduce this at the budget. A £1 per trip charge would raise as much as fuel duty at the moment and would do the opposite - and it would make the marginal cost of motoring in cities closer to that of public transport.
Yep I agree, rural areas will take a hammering if pence per mile was to come in. Rural areas have poorer public transport links, no other option than cars in some areas. Only issue for me, if someone stopped for petrol or for a meal on a journey, how long would they have before turning the key again was classed as a second journey
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
I thought the French model was "tolls in walled gardens" ie motorways - like the M6 Toll.
That is imo very different, unless there are aspects of which I am not aware.
Yep France charge for motorways - that doesn’t raise enough money and creates congestion as people avoid motorways to save cash.
The only way to do it is collect data during the MOT / sale and use that to enforce voluntary payments
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
JGAT thinks it will metamorphose into a congestion charge. This was my entirely non-provocative comment, an approximate envelope analysis:
I think the analysis is straightforward.
The Govt receive something like £1500 (my guestimate) per vehicle per year, and a chunk of that revenue comes from Fuel Duty. An equivalent is needed for electric vehicles.
Drivers have had it very easy for the last ~15 years, with Fuel Duty not even being increased with inflation, which has left too much room for vehicle prices to be hiked on the back of almost zero interest rates. Fuel Duty is now 52.95p per litre; with inflation it would be about 82p per litre. Total tax take per litre of fuel is perhaps 75-80p (53p + 25p of VAT on a total price of ~£1.45 per litre). If index linked it would be around £1.05.
I'd see any rate per mile being index linked, which is sensible. I make the petrol one something like 10p per mile, depending on assumptions. Plus or minus a margin.
So I'll call it that if a per mile tax comes in it will be around 8-9p per mile plus inflation from now to 2035, by then.
It's nice to have a Government which is looking to the future, rather than sitting immovably on their bottoms looking at the past whilst letting society fall apart around their ears (see eg the state of our roads).
(Open to corrections, and my estimation margin on the 8-9p number is +/- 15%.)
Usual three options:
1 replace fuel duty with another tax on vehicle use of that sort of scale
2 replace fuel duty with £3000 per household or so of other taxes
3 find £3000 per household or so of spending cuts.
Part of our problem is that "taxing bad things to discourage them" has got over-tangled with "taxing things because the sort of society we want costs".
And taxing transport is interesting.
Since along with cheap power, the discovery of cheap transport (canals, then railways, then automotive road use) was the driver of the Industrial Revolution.
Which gave us the spare money to waste on fripperies like the NHS.
Making transport expensive and making energy expensive strangle the economy. And hence the NHS.
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
She did really well and took no shit from a dull middle aged white male Lib Dem putting him in his place as to what racism is, or some clueless Green student politician and Farage too.
Very combative.
Her own party has a significant core of open door migration fanatics who will push back but the public seems on board from Luke Tryls post on X
She likely will need Tory and Reform votes to get it through
Possibly but would they pull it rather than get it through with the help of the Tories and Reform.
Generally it’s a positive move. The one thing I personally don’t like is if someone has been here for years, is embedded in the community. Works. Contributes and is a part of,society I don’t see the benefit in repatriating them. If they’re long term unemployed, on benefits, living in a subsidised council property then that’s a different matter.
I think the policy covers that. The headline is that refugees don’t get settled status for 20 years, but if they’re on an employment path, i.e. they are working, then they get it sooner. AIUI.
Indeed, refugees should be able to apply for citizenship in the normal way. A doctor fleeing for his life who gets a job in the NHS, is able to support his family without recourse to the state, should be able to get citizenship
"Service guarantees Citizenship! Would you like to know more?"
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
I don't think it's difficult. At any point the meter is officially read - MOT, sale, leasing company service - the current owner gets billed for any outstanding miles on that car at the prevailing rate. Readings will happen reliably enough, and often enough, they don't need to worry about people underreporting their miles between readings.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
I don't think it's difficult. At any point the meter is officially read - MOT, sale, leasing company service - the current owner gets billed for any outstanding miles on that car at the prevailing rate. Readings will happen reliably enough, and often enough, they don't need to worry about people underreporting their miles between readings.
Garages will probably start including “clocking” the car in the MOT…
No no, it was a rant. And a bit clickbaity. Successfully so.
Provoked the desired response from the kind of people who are reading the Telegraph/Mail and watching GBeebies/TalkTory and are OUTRAGED that Tesco have banned Christmas trees.
I am depressed at the moment. But having good fun calling out performative wazzockry.
Also check out Emergency Podcast where we tore into "British Culture" and I unveiled my war against wazzocks https://youtu.be/VkvpriRHc8s
Wha?
Ah ...
"Tesco told the Daily Mail: 'We are at Tesco and have a range of real and artificial Christmas trees in store as part of a wide selection of Christmas products to help our customers celebrate Christmas this year.'
It said it is called an 'evergreen tree' to make it clear the type of Christmas tree inside the box."
"Susan Hall, leader of the Conservatives in the London Assembly, was vocal about her thoughts on social media, writing on X: 'Wretched ridiculous nonsense, call it what it is, it's a Christmas tree. There, I said it out loud. I'm fed up with all this woke stupidity.'"
Call this out for what it is. She knows the truth, but expects that people listening to her are stupid. So she and all the rest of the grifters openly lie.
What has been genuinely entertaining is that the first picture of the "Evergreen Tree" boxes was heavily cropped. To exclude the "Merry Christmas" pallet wrap they were stood in. And the range of other types of tree - glitter, snow covered, lit etc.
To listen to her, all chocolate bars should be called "Chocolate". Because calling out the variations is a plot to impose Sharia law or something.
Best post? The utter wazzock foaming on about a surbey claiming the majority of Brits will shun turkey for Christmas Dinner and eat another meat. "Brits have eaten Turkey for Christmas for 2,000 years" he claimed.
It is true that some of the Tesco ones do not have the C-word on the box. Tbh I had not realised they also serve other sellers (marketplace) like Amazon.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
JGAT thinks it will metamorphose into a congestion charge. This was my entirely non-provocative comment, an approximate envelope analysis:
I think the analysis is straightforward.
The Govt receive something like £1500 (my guestimate) per vehicle per year, and a chunk of that revenue comes from Fuel Duty. An equivalent is needed for electric vehicles.
Drivers have had it very easy for the last ~15 years, with Fuel Duty not even being increased with inflation, which has left too much room for vehicle prices to be hiked on the back of almost zero interest rates. Fuel Duty is now 52.95p per litre; with inflation it would be about 82p per litre. Total tax take per litre of fuel is perhaps 75-80p (53p + 25p of VAT on a total price of ~£1.45 per litre). If index linked it would be around £1.05.
I'd see any rate per mile being index linked, which is sensible. I make the petrol one something like 10p per mile, depending on assumptions. Plus or minus a margin.
So I'll call it that if a per mile tax comes in it will be around 8-9p per mile plus inflation from now to 2035, by then.
It's nice to have a Government which is looking to the future, rather than sitting immovably on their bottoms looking at the past whilst letting society fall apart around their ears (see eg the state of our roads).
(Open to corrections, and my estimation margin on the 8-9p number is +/- 15%.)
Usual three options:
1 replace fuel duty with another tax on vehicle use of that sort of scale
2 replace fuel duty with £3000 per household or so of other taxes
3 find £3000 per household or so of spending cuts.
Part of our problem is that "taxing bad things to discourage them" has got over-tangled with "taxing things because the sort of society we want costs".
I would be knocking down fuel duty and applying the per mile tax to all cars. So you would end up saving 10p so on petrol but paying 25p on mileage instead
Per mile taxation is the worst way you can tax motoring imaginable. Will wreck the rural economy while making urban driving, with all its negative effects on congestion, noise pollution, activity levels , space etc etc, relatively cheaper.
I'll be quite angry if they introduce this at the budget. A £1 per trip charge would raise as much as fuel duty at the moment and would do the opposite - and it would make the marginal cost of motoring in cities closer to that of public transport.
Yep I agree, rural areas will take a hammering if pence per mile was to come in. Rural areas have poorer public transport links, no other option than cars in some areas. Only issue for me, if someone stopped for petrol or for a meal on a journey, how long would they have before turning the key again was classed as a second journey
Perhaps a 1 hour grace period? Also important for people taking breaks on long trips.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
I thought the French model was "tolls in walled gardens" ie motorways - like the M6 Toll.
That is imo very different, unless there are aspects of which I am not aware.
Yep France charge for motorways - that doesn’t raise enough money and creates congestion as people avoid motorways to save cash.
The only way to do it is collect data during the MOT / sale and use that to enforce voluntary payments
Not sure they’ll raise too much if it’s voluntary!
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
Heard a story about crime-fighting this morning that I thought was worth sharing.
A teenager was home alone when they sensed that someone had forced entry. They saw someone walking away with their mother's jewellery box under their arm. They followed them for a mile and a half to find out where they had gone to. Later their mother phoned the police, who nicked the thief and recovered the jewellery.
So you see, the police can follow up thefts when given information about the location of stolen goods.
Though this story was from 40 years ago, so perhaps police procedures have changed since then.
Can anything improve things for them or, like the Tories after Truss, are they just done.
One of the things that contributed to the feeling of chaos in the last parliament was the constant changing of PM. Labour offered calmer waters, changing PM themselves would be yet another way of failing to live up to their promises
There is no point changing leader at the moment. There is still further bad news to come even if they are bold enough to make tougher decisions like yesterdays across the board including on tax.
I think it would be reasonable to change leaders in search of an electoral boost in the second half of 2027 giving the new leader 12-18 months.
That's how I'm betting. Lay a 26 exit at odds-on and back 27/28 at much better prices. It's good to remember how "he or she is toast" is often overstated. Eg Badenoch. She was toast after the Locals and wouldn't last the year. Nope. She has. You could (and I did) lay that at 1.4 or something ridiculous. Ditto next year. She was a cert to go and now she isn't - the market now thinks she's safer in post than Starmer. This change in sentiment has happened in just a few weeks.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
JGAT thinks it will metamorphose into a congestion charge. This was my entirely non-provocative comment, an approximate envelope analysis:
I think the analysis is straightforward.
The Govt receive something like £1500 (my guestimate) per vehicle per year, and a chunk of that revenue comes from Fuel Duty. An equivalent is needed for electric vehicles.
Drivers have had it very easy for the last ~15 years, with Fuel Duty not even being increased with inflation, which has left too much room for vehicle prices to be hiked on the back of almost zero interest rates. Fuel Duty is now 52.95p per litre; with inflation it would be about 82p per litre. Total tax take per litre of fuel is perhaps 75-80p (53p + 25p of VAT on a total price of ~£1.45 per litre). If index linked it would be around £1.05.
I'd see any rate per mile being index linked, which is sensible. I make the petrol one something like 10p per mile, depending on assumptions. Plus or minus a margin.
So I'll call it that if a per mile tax comes in it will be around 8-9p per mile plus inflation from now to 2035, by then.
It's nice to have a Government which is looking to the future, rather than sitting immovably on their bottoms looking at the past whilst letting society fall apart around their ears (see eg the state of our roads).
(Open to corrections, and my estimation margin on the 8-9p number is +/- 15%.)
Usual three options:
1 replace fuel duty with another tax on vehicle use of that sort of scale
2 replace fuel duty with £3000 per household or so of other taxes
3 find £3000 per household or so of spending cuts.
Part of our problem is that "taxing bad things to discourage them" has got over-tangled with "taxing things because the sort of society we want costs".
I would be knocking down fuel duty and applying the per mile tax to all cars. So you would end up saving 10p so on petrol but paying 25p on mileage instead
Per mile taxation is the worst way you can tax motoring imaginable. Will wreck the rural economy while making urban driving, with all its negative effects on congestion, noise pollution, activity levels , space etc etc, relatively cheaper.
I'll be quite angry if they introduce this at the budget. A £1 per trip charge would raise as much as fuel duty at the moment and would do the opposite - and it would make the marginal cost of motoring in cities closer to that of public transport.
Yep I agree, rural areas will take a hammering if pence per mile was to come in. Rural areas have poorer public transport links, no other option than cars in some areas. Only issue for me, if someone stopped for petrol or for a meal on a journey, how long would they have before turning the key again was classed as a second journey
Perhaps a 1 hour grace period? Also important for people taking breaks on long trips.
It would speed up supermarket shoppers if customers had to be back in the car inside an hour, and that includes the time taken to shove their evergreen tree in the boot.
Heard a story about crime-fighting this morning that I thought was worth sharing.
A teenager was home alone when they sensed that someone had forced entry. They saw someone walking away with their mother's jewellery box under their arm. They followed them for a mile and a half to find out where they had gone to. Later their mother phoned the police, who nicked the thief and recovered the jewellery.
So you see, the police can follow up thefts when given information about the location of stolen goods.
Though this story was from 40 years ago, so perhaps police procedures have changed since then.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
JGAT thinks it will metamorphose into a congestion charge. This was my entirely non-provocative comment, an approximate envelope analysis:
I think the analysis is straightforward.
The Govt receive something like £1500 (my guestimate) per vehicle per year, and a chunk of that revenue comes from Fuel Duty. An equivalent is needed for electric vehicles.
Drivers have had it very easy for the last ~15 years, with Fuel Duty not even being increased with inflation, which has left too much room for vehicle prices to be hiked on the back of almost zero interest rates. Fuel Duty is now 52.95p per litre; with inflation it would be about 82p per litre. Total tax take per litre of fuel is perhaps 75-80p (53p + 25p of VAT on a total price of ~£1.45 per litre). If index linked it would be around £1.05.
I'd see any rate per mile being index linked, which is sensible. I make the petrol one something like 10p per mile, depending on assumptions. Plus or minus a margin.
So I'll call it that if a per mile tax comes in it will be around 8-9p per mile plus inflation from now to 2035, by then.
It's nice to have a Government which is looking to the future, rather than sitting immovably on their bottoms looking at the past whilst letting society fall apart around their ears (see eg the state of our roads).
(Open to corrections, and my estimation margin on the 8-9p number is +/- 15%.)
Usual three options:
1 replace fuel duty with another tax on vehicle use of that sort of scale
2 replace fuel duty with £3000 per household or so of other taxes
3 find £3000 per household or so of spending cuts.
Part of our problem is that "taxing bad things to discourage them" has got over-tangled with "taxing things because the sort of society we want costs".
I would be knocking down fuel duty and applying the per mile tax to all cars. So you would end up saving 10p so on petrol but paying 25p on mileage instead
Per mile taxation is the worst way you can tax motoring imaginable. Will wreck the rural economy while making urban driving, with all its negative effects on congestion, noise pollution, activity levels , space etc etc, relatively cheaper.
I'll be quite angry if they introduce this at the budget. A £1 per trip charge would raise as much as fuel duty at the moment and would do the opposite - and it would make the marginal cost of motoring in cities closer to that of public transport.
I agree, but how do you measure the number of trips people have taken in order to tax them?
The mileage charge - notwithstanding the possibility of evasion - can be easily levied by looking at the mileage figures recorded at each MOT.
* Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will announce plans to strip EU nationals of benefits, more than double the cost of the NHS surcharge and cut foreign aid spending by more than 70%
* They will say this would avoid the need for tax rises in the Budget. Yusuf says Labour can either 'raise taxes on British citizens' or 'ask foreign nationals to bear the brunt'
* Farage will give EU citizens who are claiming universal credit in the UK three months' notice before ending their benefit payments. If the EU refuses to accept the terms Reform will take unilateral action regardless of the threat of 'trade retaliation"
* Reform UK will also pledge to increase the NHS surcharge for foreigners in Britain from £1,035 to £2,718 a year, raising £5billion a year. Farage argues that the increased charge would be fair because it would reflect the cost per person of the total NHS budget for England
* Yusuf said that £2,718 represented "great value", particularly because foreign nationals are more likely to have children than British nationals increasing the pressure on the NHS. "It's a matter of principle," he said. "Why should a foreign national get a 65 per cent discounts. It's great value, somebody can pay more and get vastly more out of the NHS."
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
I assume you'll either get it MOTed or sell it in the next three years though ? At which point you're liable for the theoretical tax.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
I don't think it's difficult. At any point the meter is officially read - MOT, sale, leasing company service - the current owner gets billed for any outstanding miles on that car at the prevailing rate. Readings will happen reliably enough, and often enough, they don't need to worry about people underreporting their miles between readings.
Garages will probably start including “clocking” the car in the MOT…
I suspect government will start to take a bigger interest in clocking than they have up to now, when they have a financial interest in doing so.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
I thought the French model was "tolls in walled gardens" ie motorways - like the M6 Toll.
That is imo very different, unless there are aspects of which I am not aware.
Yep France charge for motorways - that doesn’t raise enough money and creates congestion as people avoid motorways to save cash.
The only way to do it is collect data during the MOT / sale and use that to enforce voluntary payments
In Norway they collect tolls as you pass fixed points, usually posted around the larger towns, or occasionally mid route on some long distance highway, or by a choke point like a bridge or tunnel. Conceptually that would be a better fit for the UK, discouraging driving into towns where congestion is the worst and avoiding the downsides of the French system, forcing HGVs off the motorways. It would also favour rural drivers where a vehicle is a necessity. But it's easier to manage in Norway where the road network is less dense and there are fewer ways to enter its towns.
Can anything improve things for them or, like the Tories after Truss, are they just done.
One of the things that contributed to the feeling of chaos in the last parliament was the constant changing of PM. Labour offered calmer waters, changing PM themselves would be yet another way of failing to live up to their promises
There is no point changing leader at the moment. There is still further bad news to come even if they are bold enough to make tougher decisions like yesterdays across the board including on tax.
I think it would be reasonable to change leaders in search of an electoral boost in the second half of 2027 giving the new leader 12-18 months.
That's how I'm betting. Lay a 26 exit at odds-on and back 27/28 at much better prices. It's good to remember how "he or she is toast" is often overstated. Eg Badenoch. She was toast after the Locals and wouldn't last the year. Nope. She has. You could (and I did) lay that at 1.4 or something ridiculous. Ditto next year. She was a cert to go and now she isn't - the market now thinks she's safer in post than Starmer. This change in sentiment has happened in just a few weeks.
It's the difference between events and fundamentals. Weather and climate, noise and signal, actions and character.
Short term is more visible, and frankly more interesting. But the long term is way more important.
* Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will announce plans to strip EU nationals of benefits, more than double the cost of the NHS surcharge and cut foreign aid spending by more than 70%
* They will say this would avoid the need for tax rises in the Budget. Yusuf says Labour can either 'raise taxes on British citizens' or 'ask foreign nationals to bear the brunt'
* Farage will give EU citizens who are claiming universal credit in the UK three months' notice before ending their benefit payments. If the EU refuses to accept the terms Reform will take unilateral action regardless of the threat of 'trade retaliation"
* Reform UK will also pledge to increase the NHS surcharge for foreigners in Britain from £1,035 to £2,718 a year, raising £5billion a year. Farage argues that the increased charge would be fair because it would reflect the cost per person of the total NHS budget for England
* Yusuf said that £2,718 represented "great value", particularly because foreign nationals are more likely to have children than British nationals increasing the pressure on the NHS. "It's a matter of principle," he said. "Why should a foreign national get a 65 per cent discounts. It's great value, somebody can pay more and get vastly more out of the NHS."
Foreign nationals may be more likely to have children, but in average they use the NHS much less. Also, they pay taxes! They are already paying for the NHS twice over.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
I recall a rant about how young people today just want to drink, sing silly songs and hang around shops. Instead of studying politics and philosophy.
Politicians on the radical left can often win large cities where youngsters, renters and ethnic minorities are concentrated. The mistake is extrapolating that to believing that that it signifies something more than that.
For example, the guy who recently won the New York City Mayor probably wouldn't haven a state wide contest and certainly would not have won a Presidential election.
Polanski of Corbyn's Gaza mob could probably win an election in one of our big cities but have zero chance of winning a general election. Throughout my lifetime all the radical left has ever done is gift power to the right. The next election will be no different except it could well be gifting it to the far right this time.
* Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will announce plans to strip EU nationals of benefits, more than double the cost of the NHS surcharge and cut foreign aid spending by more than 70%
* They will say this would avoid the need for tax rises in the Budget. Yusuf says Labour can either 'raise taxes on British citizens' or 'ask foreign nationals to bear the brunt'
* Farage will give EU citizens who are claiming universal credit in the UK three months' notice before ending their benefit payments. If the EU refuses to accept the terms Reform will take unilateral action regardless of the threat of 'trade retaliation"
* Reform UK will also pledge to increase the NHS surcharge for foreigners in Britain from £1,035 to £2,718 a year, raising £5billion a year. Farage argues that the increased charge would be fair because it would reflect the cost per person of the total NHS budget for England
* Yusuf said that £2,718 represented "great value", particularly because foreign nationals are more likely to have children than British nationals increasing the pressure on the NHS. "It's a matter of principle," he said. "Why should a foreign national get a 65 per cent discounts. It's great value, somebody can pay more and get vastly more out of the NHS."
Foreign nationals may be more likely to have children, but in average they use the NHS much less. Also, they pay taxes! They are already paying for the NHS twice over.
What does he think will happen to Brits living in the EU and his proposal to unilaterally remove the benefits will cause an implosion in EU UK relations. Reform are clueless and a danger to this country .
No no, it was a rant. And a bit clickbaity. Successfully so.
Provoked the desired response from the kind of people who are reading the Telegraph/Mail and watching GBeebies/TalkTory and are OUTRAGED that Tesco have banned Christmas trees.
I am depressed at the moment. But having good fun calling out performative wazzockry.
Also check out Emergency Podcast where we tore into "British Culture" and I unveiled my war against wazzocks https://youtu.be/VkvpriRHc8s
Wha?
Ah ...
"Tesco told the Daily Mail: 'We are at Tesco and have a range of real and artificial Christmas trees in store as part of a wide selection of Christmas products to help our customers celebrate Christmas this year.'
It said it is called an 'evergreen tree' to make it clear the type of Christmas tree inside the box."
"Susan Hall, leader of the Conservatives in the London Assembly, was vocal about her thoughts on social media, writing on X: 'Wretched ridiculous nonsense, call it what it is, it's a Christmas tree. There, I said it out loud. I'm fed up with all this woke stupidity.'"
Call this out for what it is. She knows the truth, but expects that people listening to her are stupid. So she and all the rest of the grifters openly lie.
What has been genuinely entertaining is that the first picture of the "Evergreen Tree" boxes was heavily cropped. To exclude the "Merry Christmas" pallet wrap they were stood in. And the range of other types of tree - glitter, snow covered, lit etc.
To listen to her, all chocolate bars should be called "Chocolate". Because calling out the variations is a plot to impose Sharia law or something.
Best post? The utter wazzock foaming on about a surbey claiming the majority of Brits will shun turkey for Christmas Dinner and eat another meat. "Brits have eaten Turkey for Christmas for 2,000 years" he claimed.
It is true that some of the Tesco ones do not have the C-word on the box. Tbh I had not realised they also serve other sellers (marketplace) like Amazon.
With heating bills going through the roof, I wonder who will want even an artificial snow-covered indoor tree this year. Makes me shiver just to look at it.
Politicians on the radical left can often win large cities where youngsters, renters and ethnic minorities are concentrated. The mistake is extrapolating that to believing that that it signifies something more than that.
For example, the guy who recently won the New York City Mayor probably wouldn't haven a state wide contest and certainly would not have won a Presidential election.
Polanski of Corbyn's Gaza mob could probably win an election in one of our big cities but have zero chance of winning a general election. Throughout my lifetime all the radical left has ever done is gift power to the right. The next election will be no different except it could well be gifting it to the far right this time.
Except that in most of our city seats, the chances of either right wing party 'coming through the middle' looks slim from the data, except possibly in a few isolated suburban seats?
I cannot help but feel dismay at this polling and it is probably the Greens being at 27% that dismays me the most. Scottish education has plunged new depths over the period of the SNP administration but that so many of my countrymen and women are so incapable of even the most basic analysis or assessment of Scotland's needs is just appalling.
In the UK or out of it, its very difficult to see a viable path going forward. JM Barrie once said "there are few more impressive sights than a Scotsman on the make." What have we done to ourselves and our children?
Since you had your desired results in the two recent 'historic' referendums and had your politics either directly or indirectly largely enacted in Scotland by UK governments, I hope you're willing to shoulder your share of blame.
The blame for the chronic state of Scottish education lies firmly with the Scottish government which I did not vote for but I believe you did. The collapse of our get up and go as a nation and the lack of entrepreneurial aspirations has deeper roots but is vested in the victim mentality that is so prevalent in our society. Certainly current taxation policies and attitudes such as the desperate need to over regulate everything do not help but I accept it goes deeper than that. I am not sure where that started.
* Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will announce plans to strip EU nationals of benefits, more than double the cost of the NHS surcharge and cut foreign aid spending by more than 70%
* They will say this would avoid the need for tax rises in the Budget. Yusuf says Labour can either 'raise taxes on British citizens' or 'ask foreign nationals to bear the brunt'
* Farage will give EU citizens who are claiming universal credit in the UK three months' notice before ending their benefit payments. If the EU refuses to accept the terms Reform will take unilateral action regardless of the threat of 'trade retaliation"
* Reform UK will also pledge to increase the NHS surcharge for foreigners in Britain from £1,035 to £2,718 a year, raising £5billion a year. Farage argues that the increased charge would be fair because it would reflect the cost per person of the total NHS budget for England
* Yusuf said that £2,718 represented "great value", particularly because foreign nationals are more likely to have children than British nationals increasing the pressure on the NHS. "It's a matter of principle," he said. "Why should a foreign national get a 65 per cent discounts. It's great value, somebody can pay more and get vastly more out of the NHS."
Foreign nationals may be more likely to have children, but in average they use the NHS much less. Also, they pay taxes! They are already paying for the NHS twice over.
What does he think will happen to Brits living in the EU and his proposal to unilaterally remove the benefits will cause an implosion in EU UK relations. Reform are clueless and a danger to this country .
Au contraire.
Reform know exactly what they are doing. It's utterly dishonest government, but excellent politics.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
JGAT thinks it will metamorphose into a congestion charge. This was my entirely non-provocative comment, an approximate envelope analysis:
I think the analysis is straightforward.
The Govt receive something like £1500 (my guestimate) per vehicle per year, and a chunk of that revenue comes from Fuel Duty. An equivalent is needed for electric vehicles.
Drivers have had it very easy for the last ~15 years, with Fuel Duty not even being increased with inflation, which has left too much room for vehicle prices to be hiked on the back of almost zero interest rates. Fuel Duty is now 52.95p per litre; with inflation it would be about 82p per litre. Total tax take per litre of fuel is perhaps 75-80p (53p + 25p of VAT on a total price of ~£1.45 per litre). If index linked it would be around £1.05.
I'd see any rate per mile being index linked, which is sensible. I make the petrol one something like 10p per mile, depending on assumptions. Plus or minus a margin.
So I'll call it that if a per mile tax comes in it will be around 8-9p per mile plus inflation from now to 2035, by then.
It's nice to have a Government which is looking to the future, rather than sitting immovably on their bottoms looking at the past whilst letting society fall apart around their ears (see eg the state of our roads).
(Open to corrections, and my estimation margin on the 8-9p number is +/- 15%.)
Usual three options:
1 replace fuel duty with another tax on vehicle use of that sort of scale
2 replace fuel duty with £3000 per household or so of other taxes
3 find £3000 per household or so of spending cuts.
Part of our problem is that "taxing bad things to discourage them" has got over-tangled with "taxing things because the sort of society we want costs".
I would be knocking down fuel duty and applying the per mile tax to all cars. So you would end up saving 10p so on petrol but paying 25p on mileage instead
Per mile taxation is the worst way you can tax motoring imaginable. Will wreck the rural economy while making urban driving, with all its negative effects on congestion, noise pollution, activity levels , space etc etc, relatively cheaper.
I'll be quite angry if they introduce this at the budget. A £1 per trip charge would raise as much as fuel duty at the moment and would do the opposite - and it would make the marginal cost of motoring in cities closer to that of public transport.
I agree, but how do you measure the number of trips people have taken in order to tax them?
The mileage charge - notwithstanding the possibility of evasion - can be easily levied by looking at the mileage figures recorded at each MOT.
I think for modern cars that would be relatively simple - just update the software to calculate this and report it. Easily spoofed - but so is mileage, driver hours etc.
Can anything improve things for them or, like the Tories after Truss, are they just done.
One of the things that contributed to the feeling of chaos in the last parliament was the constant changing of PM. Labour offered calmer waters, changing PM themselves would be yet another way of failing to live up to their promises
There is no point changing leader at the moment. There is still further bad news to come even if they are bold enough to make tougher decisions like yesterdays across the board including on tax.
I think it would be reasonable to change leaders in search of an electoral boost in the second half of 2027 giving the new leader 12-18 months.
That's how I'm betting. Lay a 26 exit at odds-on and back 27/28 at much better prices. It's good to remember how "he or she is toast" is often overstated. Eg Badenoch. She was toast after the Locals and wouldn't last the year. Nope. She has. You could (and I did) lay that at 1.4 or something ridiculous. Ditto next year. She was a cert to go and now she isn't - the market now thinks she's safer in post than Starmer. This change in sentiment has happened in just a few weeks.
It's the difference between events and fundamentals. Weather and climate, noise and signal, actions and character.
Short term is more visible, and frankly more interesting. But the long term is way more important.
It is a bit like that, yes. In this case the weather is 'Starmer is bound to be out next year' and the climate is 'Labour can't win a second term with a deeply unpopular leader'. The latter is the fundamental. The former is just one of several ways it can manifest. It's totally possible but it shouldn't be as short as 1.85.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
I recall a rant about how young people today just want to drink, sing silly songs and hang around shops. Instead of studying politics and philosophy.
Plato, IIRC
Doesn't Shakespeare, writing around 1600 say something about "nothing between fourteen and twenty except drinking, fighting, getting wenches with child and wronging the anciently"?
(I can't recall it accurately and can't be bothered to look it up!)
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Um you missed a very important line in that story
Ms Potter will formally step down next summer and NHS Fife said arrangements will be made to appoint her successor.
So you could read it as providing plenty of warning before early retirement - and the rest as trying to keep an awkward story in the news before the final judgement.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
An acquaintance of mine was 'offered' early retirement just as an inquiry into his management of his department was concluding. Sensibly, he took it.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Um you missed a very important line in that story
Ms Potter will formally step down next summer and NHS Fife said arrangements will be made to appoint her successor.
So you could read it as providing plenty of warning before early retirement - and the rest as trying to keep an awkward story in the news before the final judgement.
If an asset is non transferable then it might have a value in the market, but that is predicated on using outside of the terms and conditions. You might have a willing buyer and a willing seller of the restricted asset, but the original vendor has the ability to limit the rights attached to the asset (eg in the way that an easement restricts the free use of a property for a new owner).
Essentially the government’s proposal is to enforce the restrictions placed by the original vendor.
The challenge here is that artists are not necessarily value maximising from a single event. They are willing to sell at a lower than maximal price in order to sustain a fan base - they have calculated that this will build more long term value for them. The touts are trying to arbitrage between the short term value maximising of the ticket and the long term value maximising price set by the artist, but to capture that value for themselves. They are not creating anything or adding any value.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
I thought the French model was "tolls in walled gardens" ie motorways - like the M6 Toll.
That is imo very different, unless there are aspects of which I am not aware.
Yep France charge for motorways - that doesn’t raise enough money and creates congestion as people avoid motorways to save cash.
The only way to do it is collect data during the MOT / sale and use that to enforce voluntary payments
In Norway they collect tolls as you pass fixed points, usually posted around the larger towns, or occasionally mid route on some long distance highway, or by a choke point like a bridge or tunnel. Conceptually that would be a better fit for the UK, discouraging driving into towns where congestion is the worst and avoiding the downsides of the French system, forcing HGVs off the motorways. It would also favour rural drivers where a vehicle is a necessity. But it's easier to manage in Norway where the road network is less dense and there are fewer ways to enter its towns.
Tax per mile is one of those things were it shows how bad Governments seem to be at planning things. The issue has been obvious since about 2018 yet it's only now they are looking at it, granted better late than neither but still way too late...
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
Unfortunately it was also true in 1913 and 1938...
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
I thought the French model was "tolls in walled gardens" ie motorways - like the M6 Toll.
That is imo very different, unless there are aspects of which I am not aware.
Yep France charge for motorways - that doesn’t raise enough money and creates congestion as people avoid motorways to save cash.
The only way to do it is collect data during the MOT / sale and use that to enforce voluntary payments
In Norway they collect tolls as you pass fixed points, usually posted around the larger towns, or occasionally mid route on some long distance highway, or by a choke point like a bridge or tunnel. Conceptually that would be a better fit for the UK, discouraging driving into towns where congestion is the worst and avoiding the downsides of the French system, forcing HGVs off the motorways. It would also favour rural drivers where a vehicle is a necessity. But it's easier to manage in Norway where the road network is less dense and there are fewer ways to enter its towns.
Tax per mile is one of those things were it shows how bad Governments seem to be at planning things. The issue has been obvious since about 2018 yet it's only now they are looking at it, granted better late than neither but still way too late...
(See also Getting Britain Out Of The Hole. Perfectly sensible economically, but if the price is acknowledging that our mental map of the country is wrong, are we collectively willing to pay that price?)
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
You can make sure that they don't get multiple years of pay given to them when they do so.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
Unfortunately it was also true in 1913 and 1938...
Feel for Heraclius. Magnificently saves the Roman Empire from near total destruction at the hands of the Persians, and lives long enough for Islam to arise and swallow up perhaps half his territory and the whole of Persia.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 18m Remarkable. Immigration in the 4 years to December 2024 has been revised upwards by over 300k, but emigration has been revised up by 650k! An increase in Britons leaving equivalent to 1% of the population!
(I'm interested that it has a heat battery in it.)
An Essex couple have become the first people in the country to trial a scheme that sees them heat their home using a data centre in their garden shed.
Terrence and Lesley Bridges have seen their energy bills drop dramatically, from £375 a month down to as low as £40, since they swapped their gas boiler for a HeatHub – a small data centre containing more than 500 computers.
Data centres are banks of computers which carry out digital tasks. As the computers process data, they generate lots of heat, which is captured by oil and then transferred into the Bridges' hot water system.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Typical PB froth.
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Wrong end of stick. Pay in lieu of notice is when someone is made redundant. You don't get it when you retire voluntarily.
Edit: also, 'retire early' is meaningless in the current era, with flexibility of actual age, above a certain age. It is only really meaningful for State Pension.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
I recall a rant about how young people today just want to drink, sing silly songs and hang around shops. Instead of studying politics and philosophy.
Plato, IIRC
Doesn't Shakespeare, writing around 1600 say something about "nothing between fourteen and twenty except drinking, fighting, getting wenches with child and wronging the anciently"?
(I can't recall it accurately and can't be bothered to look it up!)
The Winter's Tale Act 3 Scene 3:
I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest, for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting—Hark you now. Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the master. If anywhere I have them, 'tis by the seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an ‘t be thy will, what have we here? Mercy on ‘s, a bairn! A very pretty bairn. A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one, a very pretty one. Sure some scape. Though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door work. They were warmer that got this than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity. Yet I'll tarry till my son come. He halloed but even now.—Whoa-ho-ho!
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Typical PB froth.
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
You would have to agree that it’s awfully convenient timing though, only a couple of weeks before the investigation into a major problem is published.
If one was really cynical, one might think she might have just have read the first draft of said report.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Typical PB froth.
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
Until I see the actual judgement I very much read the article as trying to crowbar the tribunal case into a story about someone providing the necessary notice (long because it's a long recruitment process) to leave their job.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Typical PB froth.
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
You would have to agree that it’s awfully convenient timing though, only a couple of weeks before the investigation into a major problem is published.
If one was really cynical, one might think she might have just have read the first draft of said report.
Not a report but a ruling, so no advance copy surely, any more than pay in lieu is relevant. And it's not as if she actually left before the ruling comes out.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 18m Remarkable. Immigration in the 4 years to December 2024 has been revised upwards by over 300k, but emigration has been revised up by 650k! An increase in Britons leaving equivalent to 1% of the population!
Surely the majority of those emigrating will be people who previously immigrated rather than Britons. For example, students returning home after completing their studies.
(I'm interested that it has a heat battery in it.)
An Essex couple have become the first people in the country to trial a scheme that sees them heat their home using a data centre in their garden shed.
Terrence and Lesley Bridges have seen their energy bills drop dramatically, from £375 a month down to as low as £40, since they swapped their gas boiler for a HeatHub – a small data centre containing more than 500 computers.
Data centres are banks of computers which carry out digital tasks. As the computers process data, they generate lots of heat, which is captured by oil and then transferred into the Bridges' hot water system.
Whether it’s driven by a genuine concern or not, Robert Jenrick’s videos on fare evasion, and now selling stolen goods, at least show he is aware of the smaller, everyday problems that political parties often ignore
Sunday, 7am. Another car boot sale suspected of selling stolen tools.
This time, the sellers packed up and scarpered as soon as they saw us.
I’ll stop when tradesmen are no longer losing their livelihoods.
Perhaps he might make a half-decent local councillor?
If he hadn't defunded local trading standards officers...
Yes, and I also recall his dodginess on planning matters. Perhaps I was too hasty and have over-rated him.
I have a Robert Jenrick thread coming up in the next few days.
It may prove controversial.
Why?
He claims to be a clean skin untainted by association with the previous Government. Didn't he say a short while ago that he resigned because the Rwanda scheme and asylum hotels policy was a disaster?
A one trick pony, but a trick we all appear to be clamouring after.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Typical PB froth.
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
Until I see the actual judgement I very much read the article as trying to crowbar the tribunal case into a story about someone providing the necessary notice (long because it's a long recruitment process) to leave their job.
Quite so. Not enough information either way. It's also an important practical point, because she can't commit her successor or her Board.
Do we know exactly how they would go about making the ppm charge?
From the MOT mileage figure?
What about the first three years?
From the annual service.
My car doesn't have an annual service...
If they try and do pence per mile on all journeys on all roads I think they will struggle. Either they fit a black box to all cars or they extend the MOT bureaucracy to extend into taxation.
The tried and tested model is in France. Road pricing.
I'm not in favour if this btw - far from it. But I think it will happen eventually. And knowing the way this country is run we will find the most absurd complex inefficient way to organise it.
I thought the French model was "tolls in walled gardens" ie motorways - like the M6 Toll.
That is imo very different, unless there are aspects of which I am not aware.
Yep France charge for motorways - that doesn’t raise enough money and creates congestion as people avoid motorways to save cash.
The only way to do it is collect data during the MOT / sale and use that to enforce voluntary payments
In Norway they collect tolls as you pass fixed points, usually posted around the larger towns, or occasionally mid route on some long distance highway, or by a choke point like a bridge or tunnel. Conceptually that would be a better fit for the UK, discouraging driving into towns where congestion is the worst and avoiding the downsides of the French system, forcing HGVs off the motorways. It would also favour rural drivers where a vehicle is a necessity. But it's easier to manage in Norway where the road network is less dense and there are fewer ways to enter its towns.
Tax per mile is one of those things were it shows how bad Governments seem to be at planning things. The issue has been obvious since about 2018 yet it's only now they are looking at it, granted better late than neither but still way too late...
(See also Getting Britain Out Of The Hole. Perfectly sensible economically, but if the price is acknowledging that our mental map of the country is wrong, are we collectively willing to pay that price?)
That was a very good article, with some sensible recommendations. It certainly emphasised the damage done by Brexit.
All sorts of bold and radical ideas have been floating around these last few weeks - yet I suspect when the Budget arrives Labour is going to disappoint with a load of complex fiddling around the edges, which will annoy one group after another without achieving anything of sigificance nor taking us forward towards any of the places we ought to be headed.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Typical PB froth.
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
You would have to agree that it’s awfully convenient timing though, only a couple of weeks before the investigation into a major problem is published.
If one was really cynical, one might think she might have just have read the first draft of said report.
Not a report but a ruling, so no advance copy surely, any more than pay in lieu is relevant. And it's not as if she actually left before the ruling comes out.
I suspect she just got up one day and thought blow this for a game - my bank account looks healthy enough that I can quit permanently...
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
I recall a rant about how young people today just want to drink, sing silly songs and hang around shops. Instead of studying politics and philosophy.
Plato, IIRC
Doesn't Shakespeare, writing around 1600 say something about "nothing between fourteen and twenty except drinking, fighting, getting wenches with child and wronging the anciently"?
(I can't recall it accurately and can't be bothered to look it up!)
The Winter's Tale Act 3 Scene 3:
I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest, for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting—Hark you now. Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the master. If anywhere I have them, 'tis by the seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an ‘t be thy will, what have we here? Mercy on ‘s, a bairn! A very pretty bairn. A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one, a very pretty one. Sure some scape. Though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door work. They were warmer that got this than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity. Yet I'll tarry till my son come. He halloed but even now.—Whoa-ho-ho!
Thank you. Much obliged.
Underlines the point, doesn't it!
Although one of my 'extended' family has a 'tracker' on their (almost) adult child, who s half a world away. I do wonder what my 'children' and grandchildren are up to, but I'd rather they messaged or emailed me than have some means of knowing where they are 24/7. If my grandson, currently on a gap year in Oz, is temporarily or otherwise, shacked up with a young Aussie lady I'd rather he told me than I was able to deduce it from some electronic device telling me where he was.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
Unfortunately it was also true in 1913 and 1938...
I'm too young to remember that far back but I do distinctly remember the world felt like it was going to pot in the early 70s:
Cold war, Vietnam, Watergate, energy crisis, blackouts, 3 day week, industrial strife, the Troubles, hooliganism, but worst of all goddawful brown fashion, brown sofas, brown wallpaper, brown cars...
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Firstly the tribunal has not reported yet. And as part of the NU10K she would be immune anyway. I doubt she would be fired as a result of 'trying to do the right thing'. We will see.
Whether it’s driven by a genuine concern or not, Robert Jenrick’s videos on fare evasion, and now selling stolen goods, at least show he is aware of the smaller, everyday problems that political parties often ignore
Sunday, 7am. Another car boot sale suspected of selling stolen tools.
This time, the sellers packed up and scarpered as soon as they saw us.
I’ll stop when tradesmen are no longer losing their livelihoods.
Perhaps he might make a half-decent local councillor?
If he hadn't defunded local trading standards officers...
Yes, and I also recall his dodginess on planning matters. Perhaps I was too hasty and have over-rated him.
I have a Robert Jenrick thread coming up in the next few days.
It may prove controversial.
Why?
He claims to be a clean skin untainted by association with the previous Government. Didn't he say a short while ago that he resigned because the Rwanda scheme and asylum hotels policy was a disaster?
A one trick pony, but a trick we all appear to be clamouring after.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
I recall a rant about how young people today just want to drink, sing silly songs and hang around shops. Instead of studying politics and philosophy.
Plato, IIRC
Doesn't Shakespeare, writing around 1600 say something about "nothing between fourteen and twenty except drinking, fighting, getting wenches with child and wronging the anciently"?
(I can't recall it accurately and can't be bothered to look it up!)
The Winter's Tale Act 3 Scene 3:
I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest, for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting—Hark you now. Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the master. If anywhere I have them, 'tis by the seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an ‘t be thy will, what have we here? Mercy on ‘s, a bairn! A very pretty bairn. A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one, a very pretty one. Sure some scape. Though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door work. They were warmer that got this than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity. Yet I'll tarry till my son come. He halloed but even now.—Whoa-ho-ho!
Thank you. Much obliged.
Underlines the point, doesn't it!
Although one of my 'extended' family has a 'tracker' on their (almost) adult child, who s half a world away. I do wonder what my 'children' and grandchildren are up to, but I'd rather they messaged or emailed me than have some means of knowing where they are 24/7. If my grandson, currently on a gap year in Oz, is temporarily or otherwise, shacked up with a young Aussie lady I'd rather he told me than I was able to deduce it from some electronic device telling me where he was.
More generally, given the tripe that is being served up by AI I do worry what is happening to the collective human mind, not just politically but in terms of factual information. Very glad I haven't chucked out my Chambers Dictionaries, for instance.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
Unfortunately it was also true in 1913 and 1938...
I'm too young to remember that far back but I do distinctly remember the world felt like it was going to pot in the early 70s:
Cold war, Vietnam, Watergate, energy crisis, blackouts, 3 day week, industrial strife, the Troubles, hooliganism, but worst of all goddawful brown fashion, brown sofas, brown wallpaper, brown cars...
Edit: that PET isn't there really.
You forgot the stench of frustration in the school male changing room at missing the Summer of Love.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Um you are making the assumption there that she will be fired - I alongside many others on here don't see that as the likely outcome...
I've always argued that the West had a choice with Ukraine - if enough support was provided then the war could be won. It's now looking like China is making that decision in support of Russia - providing increasing levels of support for Russia to help them win the war over Ukraine.
I think we're at the start of a massive fight for our future, and I fear that we're currently losing.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Typical PB froth.
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
You would have to agree that it’s awfully convenient timing though, only a couple of weeks before the investigation into a major problem is published.
If one was really cynical, one might think she might have just have read the first draft of said report.
Not a report but a ruling, so no advance copy surely, any more than pay in lieu is relevant. And it's not as if she actually left before the ruling comes out.
I suspect she just got up one day and thought blow this for a game - my bank account looks healthy enough that I can quit permanently...
Did you notice the piece didn't actually say how old she is? Very unusual for the media when it comes to a lady, especially one they are implying is young and clearly blonde.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Um you are making the assumption there that she will be fired - I alongside many others on here don't see that as the likely outcome...
Yes, it appears to be endemic at the higher echelons of the public sector that no-one ever gets fired!
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
Unfortunately it was also true in 1913 and 1938...
I'm too young to remember that far back but I do distinctly remember the world felt like it was going to pot in the early 70s:
Cold war, Vietnam, Watergate, energy crisis, blackouts, 3 day week, industrial strife, the Troubles, hooliganism, but worst of all goddawful brown fashion, brown sofas, brown wallpaper, brown cars...
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Typical PB froth.
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
You would have to agree that it’s awfully convenient timing though, only a couple of weeks before the investigation into a major problem is published.
If one was really cynical, one might think she might have just have read the first draft of said report.
Not a report but a ruling, so no advance copy surely, any more than pay in lieu is relevant. And it's not as if she actually left before the ruling comes out.
I suspect she just got up one day and thought blow this for a game - my bank account looks healthy enough that I can quit permanently...
Major problem? FFS, for an NHS trust a major problem would be that you've got an issue with patient deaths / treatment, not a dispute over use of staff changing facilities. This is class war trivia being pursued on social media to the nth degree for nothing more than spite.
The inevitable result is that no one will want to do these jobs.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
Unfortunately it was also true in 1913 and 1938...
I'm too young to remember that far back but I do distinctly remember the world felt like it was going to pot in the early 70s:
Cold war, Vietnam, Watergate, energy crisis, blackouts, 3 day week, industrial strife, the Troubles, hooliganism, but worst of all goddawful brown fashion, brown sofas, brown wallpaper, brown cars...
Edit: that PET isn't there really.
Definitely agree. My big memories are:
We are all going to die in WW3 The oil is running out Places I actually knew were being blown up by the IRA Skin heads and football hooligans ready to beat you up And most important of all - Keg bitter.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Typical PB froth.
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
You would have to agree that it’s awfully convenient timing though, only a couple of weeks before the investigation into a major problem is published.
If one was really cynical, one might think she might have just have read the first draft of said report.
Not a report but a ruling, so no advance copy surely, any more than pay in lieu is relevant. And it's not as if she actually left before the ruling comes out.
I suspect she just got up one day and thought blow this for a game - my bank account looks healthy enough that I can quit permanently...
Did you notice the piece didn't actually say how old she is? Very unusual for the media when it comes to a lady, especially one they are implying is young and clearly blonde.
I noticed the same, and could find nothing other than she joined the NHS as a nurse 30 years ago.
Which suggests she’s retiring a decade early, and the government will be paying her something close to a six-figure index-linked pension for what could be another three or four decades.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
Unfortunately it was also true in 1913 and 1938...
I'm too young to remember that far back but I do distinctly remember the world felt like it was going to pot in the early 70s:
Cold war, Vietnam, Watergate, energy crisis, blackouts, 3 day week, industrial strife, the Troubles, hooliganism, but worst of all goddawful brown fashion, brown sofas, brown wallpaper, brown cars...
Edit: that PET isn't there really.
PET? Is that the computer thing in the corner?
Fairly sure we had wallpaper very similar to that.
Now 50 years have passed, I quite like that really. I can see why it caught on.
That said, it was an ugly decade. I quite like watching old ToTPs on BBC4. People in the 70s were just weirdly ugly. They weren't in the 60s. And fashions were unattractive in the 80s, but people weren't. The 70s was just a time for ugly people.
(I'm interested that it has a heat battery in it.)
An Essex couple have become the first people in the country to trial a scheme that sees them heat their home using a data centre in their garden shed.
Terrence and Lesley Bridges have seen their energy bills drop dramatically, from £375 a month down to as low as £40, since they swapped their gas boiler for a HeatHub – a small data centre containing more than 500 computers.
Data centres are banks of computers which carry out digital tasks. As the computers process data, they generate lots of heat, which is captured by oil and then transferred into the Bridges' hot water system.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Typical PB froth.
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
You would have to agree that it’s awfully convenient timing though, only a couple of weeks before the investigation into a major problem is published.
If one was really cynical, one might think she might have just have read the first draft of said report.
Not a report but a ruling, so no advance copy surely, any more than pay in lieu is relevant. And it's not as if she actually left before the ruling comes out.
I suspect she just got up one day and thought blow this for a game - my bank account looks healthy enough that I can quit permanently...
Did you notice the piece didn't actually say how old she is? Very unusual for the media when it comes to a lady, especially one they are implying is young and clearly blonde.
I noticed the same, and could find nothing other than she joined the NHS as a nurse 30 years ago.
Which suggests she’s retiring a decade early, and the government will be paying her something close to a six-figure index-linked pension for what could be another three or four decades.
Not quite that: 'over 30 years' which is anything up to 39 years. Add student time and possible family time.
Edit: the failure to give the age is a clear indication it's evidence the media don't want to give because it spoils their story.
Plus, there's no indication she is taking her pension early. And if she does, it is heavily down-marked actuarially: the actual pension in payment goes down a lot if one takes it before the nominal age in question, goes up a lot if one takes it later, so there is no change in actual value.
(I'm interested that it has a heat battery in it.)
An Essex couple have become the first people in the country to trial a scheme that sees them heat their home using a data centre in their garden shed.
Terrence and Lesley Bridges have seen their energy bills drop dramatically, from £375 a month down to as low as £40, since they swapped their gas boiler for a HeatHub – a small data centre containing more than 500 computers.
Data centres are banks of computers which carry out digital tasks. As the computers process data, they generate lots of heat, which is captured by oil and then transferred into the Bridges' hot water system.
That's interesting, but it also appears to be a collection of the least popular policies imaginable - higher immigration, dynamic road pricing, EU budget contributions.
I'm all for expecting more of political leaders to, well, lead, but I think proposals such as this need to have half an eye on what is politically feasible, and what is most important to success. Is dynamic road pricing really a crucial part of what Britain needs to do to turn itself around? I can't think of a policy more likely to provoke opposition.
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
Hmm. I'm not she that you can stop someone quitting, can you?
I’m sure you can withhold her pay in lieu of notice if she stops turning up, where it’s clear she’s only retiring to avoid being fired in a fortnight’s time.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
Typical PB froth.
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
You would have to agree that it’s awfully convenient timing though, only a couple of weeks before the investigation into a major problem is published.
If one was really cynical, one might think she might have just have read the first draft of said report.
Not a report but a ruling, so no advance copy surely, any more than pay in lieu is relevant. And it's not as if she actually left before the ruling comes out.
I suspect she just got up one day and thought blow this for a game - my bank account looks healthy enough that I can quit permanently...
Did you notice the piece didn't actually say how old she is? Very unusual for the media when it comes to a lady, especially one they are implying is young and clearly blonde.
Come now - a picture from 10 years ago and even the blonde was tending to grey. I suspect late fifties, the common age to retire for the NU10K when the brown stuff is flying. Pension maxed out, not point carrying on.
I'm sure we are very close to the point where AI will monitor all aspects of our life - and tax/regulate accordingly. I worry we are the last people who will have any degree of autonomy from all-pervasive technology. Kinda glad I'm (at best) in the final couple of decades of my life. It's going to be a lot less fun than I've experienced throughout my time. Safer, maybe. Healthier - as we have best outcomes imposed. And with no ability to effectively complain. The computer says - meh. Leave me alone.
I'm younger than you but wonder about this also. It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
The older you get, the more it seems like the world is going to pot. That's been true from time immemorial.
Unfortunately it was also true in 1913 and 1938...
I'm too young to remember that far back but I do distinctly remember the world felt like it was going to pot in the early 70s:
Cold war, Vietnam, Watergate, energy crisis, blackouts, 3 day week, industrial strife, the Troubles, hooliganism, but worst of all goddawful brown fashion, brown sofas, brown wallpaper, brown cars...
Edit: that PET isn't there really.
It just needs Alison Steadman to waft in and put a little bit of Demis Roussos on.
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/12/keir-starmer-labour-leadership-challenge
TSE's analysis on the markets seems correct, the most seats odds look fair to me but no value at present. Worryingly for the Slabour party, they are on a continuing slide, with a difficult budget to come next week. Slab started out these odds at 5/1 after the Hamilton by election, and are now same value at Reform at 9.
The elephant in the room for me is that the independence question is not going to go away, but neither can either side claim a prospective victory on current yes/no polling. If/when yes get to above 55% (and stay there) then it becomes a different proposition altogether, above 60% (and staying around that level) I think calls for another vote will be enormous.
For me next years election looks like being a cakewalk for the SNP, despite sliding from a constituency vote of 47% in 2021 to currently polling around 34/35% (again, constituency vote).
I think they will fall short of a majority but could get above 60 seats on a very good night. There is much more chance of Alex Salmond's independence "supermajority" this time round if SNP voters use their list vote for the Greens, the Greens will likely get into double figures of MSPs
The SNP probably changed their leader just in time but have been helped enormously by the recent collapse in Lab support and Reform taking a bulldozer through the Tories vote share, amongst other parties. The election will be won and lost in the constituencies in the central belt, the list vote will split several ways, similar to 2003.
There could be the odd surprise in the more rural areas in the north and south. Look out for Inverness where at least two independents will stand, one being current MSP Fergus Ewing.
I think voters will look at Labour and opt for the status quo. A lot of that is down to the actions of Reeves/Starmer, not Mr Sarwar. Reform may dip slightly before May, there will be an awful lot of nervous Tory/Lab candidates hoping they do.
That is imo very different, unless there are aspects of which I am not aware.
The only way to do it is collect data during the MOT / sale and use that to enforce voluntary payments
Since along with cheap power, the discovery of cheap transport (canals, then railways, then automotive road use) was the driver of the Industrial Revolution.
Which gave us the spare money to waste on fripperies like the NHS.
Making transport expensive and making energy expensive strangle the economy. And hence the NHS.
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/shop/christmas/christmas-decorations/christmas-trees
It is true that some of the Tesco ones do not have the C-word on the box. Tbh I had not realised they also serve other sellers (marketplace) like Amazon.
It feels harder to have an adventure than it was before.
A teenager was home alone when they sensed that someone had forced entry. They saw someone walking away with their mother's jewellery box under their arm. They followed them for a mile and a half to find out where they had gone to. Later their mother phoned the police, who nicked the thief and recovered the jewellery.
So you see, the police can follow up thefts when given information about the location of stolen goods.
Though this story was from 40 years ago, so perhaps police procedures have changed since then.
Man goes 'full baboon' to confront bike thieves
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c891zzk7yq7o
The mileage charge - notwithstanding the possibility of evasion - can be easily levied by looking at the mileage figures recorded at each MOT.
* Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will announce plans to strip EU nationals of benefits, more than double the cost of the NHS surcharge and cut foreign aid spending by more than 70%
* They will say this would avoid the need for tax rises in the Budget. Yusuf says Labour can either 'raise taxes on British citizens' or 'ask foreign nationals to bear the brunt'
* Farage will give EU citizens who are claiming universal credit in the UK three months' notice before ending their benefit payments. If the EU refuses to accept the terms Reform will take unilateral action regardless of the threat of 'trade retaliation"
* Reform UK will also pledge to increase the NHS surcharge for foreigners in Britain from £1,035 to £2,718 a year, raising £5billion a year. Farage argues that the increased charge would be fair because it would reflect the cost per person of the total NHS budget for England
* Yusuf said that £2,718 represented "great value", particularly because foreign nationals are more likely to have children than British nationals increasing the pressure on the NHS. "It's a matter of principle," he said. "Why should a foreign national get a 65 per cent discounts. It's great value, somebody can pay more and get vastly more out of the NHS."
* Reform would also seek to cap the foreign aid Budget, which will be £13.6billion in 2025/26, to just £1billion a year
https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1990515420416111082
There is no requirement for a car to be serviced or serviced by a recognised service organisation.
Certain cars do not need an MOT.
There is no requirement to have a working Odometer or even an Odometer at all.
One of my cars does not have an accurately working Odometer and does not require an MOT and is perfectly legal.
As long as you don't misrepresent the mileage on sale it is not an issue.
Short term is more visible, and frankly more interesting. But the long term is way more important.
Plato, IIRC
For example, the guy who recently won the New York City Mayor probably wouldn't haven a state wide contest and certainly would not have won a Presidential election.
Polanski of Corbyn's Gaza mob could probably win an election in one of our big cities but have zero chance of winning a general election. Throughout my lifetime all the radical left has ever done is gift power to the right. The next election will be no different except it could well be gifting it to the far right this time.
Reform know exactly what they are doing. It's utterly dishonest government, but excellent politics.
That's why they're so dangerous.
We All Adore A Keir Aura
This when we need Dura_Ace back.
Don’t let senior public servants under investigation retire to avoid scrutiny.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgmrg71r0eo
The chief executive of NHS Fife has announced plans to retire early.
Carol Potter made the announcement weeks before a ruling on the Sandie Peggie tribunal is expected.
Ms Potter led the health board through the Covid pandemic and the high-profile employment tribunal launched by Ms Peggie, a nurse who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor.
I’m sure Mrs @Cyclefree will have a strong view on this one!
https://getting-out-of-the-hole.uk/
(I can't recall it accurately and can't be bothered to look it up!)
Ms Potter will formally step down next summer and NHS Fife said arrangements will be made to appoint her successor.
So you could read it as providing plenty of warning before early retirement - and the rest as trying to keep an awkward story in the news before the final judgement.
If an asset is non transferable then it might have a value in the market, but that is predicated on using outside of the terms and conditions. You might have a willing buyer and a willing seller of the restricted asset, but the original vendor has the ability to limit the rights attached to the asset (eg in the way that an easement restricts the free use of a property for a new owner).
Essentially the government’s proposal is to enforce the restrictions placed by the original vendor.
The challenge here is that artists are not necessarily value maximising from a single event. They are willing to sell at a lower than maximal price in order to sustain a fan base - they have calculated that this will build more long term value for them. The touts are trying to arbitrage between the short term value maximising of the ticket and the long term value maximising price set by the artist, but to capture that value for themselves. They are not creating anything or adding any value.
The big change the government could make, is on how pensions are dealt with in these situations.
https://www.londoncentric.media/p/london-road-charging-tfl-secret-plan
The politics, on the other hand...
(See also Getting Britain Out Of The Hole. Perfectly sensible economically, but if the price is acknowledging that our mental map of the country is wrong, are we collectively willing to pay that price?)
@andrew_lilico
·
18m
Remarkable. Immigration in the 4 years to December 2024 has been revised upwards by over 300k, but emigration has been revised up by 650k! An increase in Britons leaving equivalent to 1% of the population!
https://x.com/andrew_lilico
An Essex couple have become the first people in the country to trial a scheme that sees them heat their home using a data centre in their garden shed.
Terrence and Lesley Bridges have seen their energy bills drop dramatically, from £375 a month down to as low as £40, since they swapped their gas boiler for a HeatHub – a small data centre containing more than 500 computers.
Data centres are banks of computers which carry out digital tasks. As the computers process data, they generate lots of heat, which is captured by oil and then transferred into the Bridges' hot water system.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rpy7envr5o
Announcement is not leaving.
She's not leaving till the summer, probably because of notice requirements. It's clearly to activate recruitment for the successor.
Edit: also, 'retire early' is meaningless in the current era, with flexibility of actual age, above a certain age. It is only really meaningful for State Pension.
I would there were no age between ten and
three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the
rest, for there is nothing in the between but getting
wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing,
fighting—Hark you now. Would any but these
boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt
this weather? They have scared away two of my best
sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than
the master. If anywhere I have them, 'tis by the
seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an ‘t be thy will,
what have we here? Mercy on ‘s, a bairn! A very
pretty bairn. A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty
one, a very pretty one. Sure some scape. Though I
am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman
in the scape. This has been some stair-work,
some trunk-work, some behind-door work. They
were warmer that got this than the poor thing is
here. I'll take it up for pity. Yet I'll tarry till my son
come. He halloed but even now.—Whoa-ho-ho!
If one was really cynical, one might think she might have just have read the first draft of said report.
He claims to be a clean skin untainted by association with the previous Government. Didn't he say a short while ago that he resigned because the Rwanda scheme and asylum hotels policy was a disaster?
A one trick pony, but a trick we all appear to be clamouring after.
All sorts of bold and radical ideas have been floating around these last few weeks - yet I suspect when the Budget arrives Labour is going to disappoint with a load of complex fiddling around the edges, which will annoy one group after another without achieving anything of sigificance nor taking us forward towards any of the places we ought to be headed.
Underlines the point, doesn't it!
Although one of my 'extended' family has a 'tracker' on their (almost) adult child, who s half a world away. I do wonder what my 'children' and grandchildren are up to, but I'd rather they messaged or emailed me than have some means of knowing where they are 24/7.
If my grandson, currently on a gap year in Oz, is temporarily or otherwise, shacked up with a young Aussie lady I'd rather he told me than I was able to deduce it from some electronic device telling me where he was.
Cold war, Vietnam, Watergate, energy crisis, blackouts, 3 day week, industrial strife, the Troubles, hooliganism, but worst of all goddawful brown fashion, brown sofas, brown wallpaper, brown cars...
Edit: that PET isn't there really.
This is an interesting piece from an unexpected perspective: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/nov/18/what-ai-doesnt-know-global-knowledge-collapse
I think we're at the start of a massive fight for our future, and I fear that we're currently losing.
It's often that way with Keirs, of course - you wait decades for one, then two turn up in quick succession.
FFS, for an NHS trust a major problem would be that you've got an issue with patient deaths / treatment, not a dispute over use of staff changing facilities.
This is class war trivia being pursued on social media to the nth degree for nothing more than spite.
The inevitable result is that no one will want to do these jobs.
We are all going to die in WW3
The oil is running out
Places I actually knew were being blown up by the IRA
Skin heads and football hooligans ready to beat you up
And most important of all - Keg bitter.
Life is much better now
Which suggests she’s retiring a decade early, and the government will be paying her something close to a six-figure index-linked pension for what could be another three or four decades.
Fairly sure we had wallpaper very similar to that.
Now 50 years have passed, I quite like that really. I can see why it caught on.
That said, it was an ugly decade. I quite like watching old ToTPs on BBC4. People in the 70s were just weirdly ugly. They weren't in the 60s. And fashions were unattractive in the 80s, but people weren't. The 70s was just a time for ugly people.
Edit: the failure to give the age is a clear indication it's evidence the media don't want to give because it spoils their story.
Plus, there's no indication she is taking her pension early. And if she does, it is heavily down-marked actuarially: the actual pension in payment goes down a lot if one takes it before the nominal age in question, goes up a lot if one takes it later, so there is no change in actual value.
I'm all for expecting more of political leaders to, well, lead, but I think proposals such as this need to have half an eye on what is politically feasible, and what is most important to success. Is dynamic road pricing really a crucial part of what Britain needs to do to turn itself around? I can't think of a policy more likely to provoke opposition.