Some US lady on the World This Weekend still suggesting that the US can somehow betray Ukraine and Europe, cozy up to Russia, and still have us as an ally against China.
Both arrogant and ridiculous.
I think that was KT McFarland, who was Deputy NSA for a period in Trump I.
It’s not wrong in one sense, in that China will always be a rival to, and at odds with, the Western alliance (which we may need a new name for as Japan and Korea take their seats).
The tricky bit is that the West minus the USA needs to put Russia in its box, not fall into the Chinese orbit, AND cease relying on the USA as a reliable partner. The world is a dangerous place and liberal democracies (which looks like it might currently not be a label that can be applied to the USA) must stick together.
Do that, and really mean it, and the USA will eventually come crawling back to the rest of the West, because it isn’t big enough to oppose China, and manage the rise of India and the larger African nations, alone.
It’s no longer a slam dunk that China is less reliable than the U.S.
I'm afraid it is.
The US is nothing like the same level of geopolitical threat than China is, and it's silly to pretend otherwise just because Trump is a reprehensible person.
I will automatically think less of any poster who says otherwise.
China is the enemy without. The Trump administration is the enemy within.
Trump is a dick and morally bankrupt, but I'm not at where you're at on their equivalence.
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
No-one had ever heard of him. Welsh politics occupies a tiny niche corner in people's minds in UK politics as a whole. He had never been elected to anything that anyone cared about. Mormon bishops are even more niche than minor Welsh politicians. He has got 10 years for saying stuff when no-one knew or cared he had said it at the time. (Seems on the high side to me, but I am not sure). He is intrinsically boring.
Rayner held a top position in running the country. She is intrinsically box office.
No, he’s right. This should be headline news.
Reform is getting the “minor party free pass” when it’s leading in the polls. If the top Labour politician in Wales had been found doing this in 2022 it would have been a major scandal and affected the 2024 election.
Yes and no. It depends on your take on the media and reality. Almost all the media is driven by eyeball attention, sales, adverts and clicks. I doubt if one reader in 1000 is deeply interested in the story beyond the bare facts.
If @Mexicanpete can elaborate on his hints that Farage adopted identical talking points to Nathan Gill, it would be performing a public service.
@Gardenwalker I have messaged you and linked you to an instagram account from a guy who is spearing Farage. The post you want is "Nigel Farage doesn't want you to hear this".
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
People care - Farage was however better at covering his tracks...
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
People care - Farage was however better at covering his tracks...
Farage did not cover his tracks, that's the point. Farage was on RT telly and declared the payments. No-one cares. DJL's first law of whatever – most things that ought to matter, don't.
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
No-one cares because no-one asks. That's the point @Mexicanpete and I are making. But there are some very interesting questions that a journalist could ask of Nigel Farage short of saying, "You're a Russian spy aren't you?", for which there is no evidence.
The War between Russia and Ukraine is a violent and terrible one that, with strong and proper U.S. and Ukrainian LEADERSHIP, would have NEVER HAPPENED. It began long before I took office for a Second Term, during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, and has only gotten worse. If the 2020 Presidential Election was not RIGGED & STOLEN, the only thing the Radical Left Democrats are good at doing, there would be no Ukraine/Russia War, as there wasn’t, not even a mention, during my first Term in Office. Putin would never have attacked! It was only when he saw Sleepy Joe in action that he said, “Now is my chance!” The rest is history, and so it continues. I INHERITED A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, A WAR THAT IS A LOSER FOR EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE SO NEEDLESSLY DIED. UKRAINE “LEADERSHIP” HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA. THE USA CONTINUES TO SELL MASSIVE $AMOUNTS OF WEAPONS TO NATO, FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UKRAINE (CROOKED JOE GAVE EVERYTHING, FREE, FREE, FREE, INCLUDING “BIG” MONEY!). GOD BLESS ALL THE LIVES THAT HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE HUMAN CATASTROPHE! President DJT https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115599428464496784
TL/DR; Zero gratitude; Sleepy Joe's fault; Europe buys Russian oil; The Rest is History podcast.
Wouldn't it be odd if Thames Water was an attractive proposition to a Chinese outfit but not to a single UK/EU corporate entity. Either the Chinese are the mug, or lots of outfits are missing a trick; or there is more to it than meets the eye.
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
No-one cares because no-one asks. That's the point @Mexicanpete and I are making. But there are some very interesting questions that a journalist could ask of Nigel Farage short of saying, "You're a Russian spy aren't you?", for which there is no evidence.
Who provided Lady Starmer with her 2024 election lingerie is a far more pressing issue I think you will find than odd pro- Russian questions being asked by MEPs.
No one can accuse Farage of anything dodgy, but they can, as you say question his intentions regarding indisputable evidence that is already in the public domain.
The War between Russia and Ukraine is a violent and terrible one that, with strong and proper U.S. and Ukrainian LEADERSHIP, would have NEVER HAPPENED. It began long before I took office for a Second Term, during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, and has only gotten worse. If the 2020 Presidential Election was not RIGGED & STOLEN, the only thing the Radical Left Democrats are good at doing, there would be no Ukraine/Russia War, as there wasn’t, not even a mention, during my first Term in Office. Putin would never have attacked! It was only when he saw Sleepy Joe in action that he said, “Now is my chance!” The rest is history, and so it continues. I INHERITED A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, A WAR THAT IS A LOSER FOR EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE SO NEEDLESSLY DIED. UKRAINE “LEADERSHIP” HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA. THE USA CONTINUES TO SELL MASSIVE $AMOUNTS OF WEAPONS TO NATO, FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UKRAINE (CROOKED JOE GAVE EVERYTHING, FREE, FREE, FREE, INCLUDING “BIG” MONEY!). GOD BLESS ALL THE LIVES THAT HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE HUMAN CATASTROPHE! President DJT https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115599428464496784
TL/DR; Zero gratitude; Sleepy Joe's fault; Europe buys Russian oil; The Rest is History podcast.
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
No-one cares because no-one asks. That's the point @Mexicanpete and I are making. But there are some very interesting questions that a journalist could ask of Nigel Farage short of saying, "You're a Russian spy aren't you?", for which there is no evidence.
There will be plenty on Farage's case now that Gaza has quietened down. The problem is he's such a sleazy bastard no one expects selfless honesty
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
But there is something inherently (if you pardon the pun) unjust about inheritance tax. You are taxed all your life and then taxed when you die. Even though most people will never pay it, though many will be close to touch it with property, it feels instinctively wrong and is why it is largely disliked.
It was Osborne who turned around the fortunes of the floundering Conservative opposition with commitment on Inheritance Tax.
This is what is always said but it is not really true. For the vast majority troubled by IHT their major asset is their house on which they will have a substantial gain from the time that they bought it. And they have paid no tax on that gain at all. Unless they have bought an annuity the next largest asset is likely to be pension funds. On which they have not only not paid tax but had tax relief. If they own a business then there will be unrealised (and untaxed) capital gains on heritable assets and goodwill. The taxed income people complain about is likely to be a relatively modest contributor to the estate because it is bloody difficult to have meaningful savings out of taxed income in this country, thus maintaining the financial dominance of our ruling class.
If people are to inherit life changing sums of largely untaxed funds I think the government (on our behalf) is due a cut.
Better to actually tax them at source: principal private property should face capital gains with rollover relief.
Pensions are different: it’s an incentive to save so makes no sense to tax during the owner’s lifetime. But they should be treated as any other financial asset on death (perhaps with an exemption for a spouse or partner as often you have a single pension supporting a couple)
The UK (Treasury) really needs to get over its “open to anybody and anyone” reflex ideology. It’s self-harming.
The government should simply take over Thames Water.
Yes. Private ownership of natural monopolies that are also necessities has not always proved a sane move. If Thames is attractive to a Chinese outfit under level playing field rules then it's attractive to government and the UK tax payer. If it isn't, then it has to be the government anyway, as even in north Cumberland I can reluctantly see that 10 million southerners ought to be able to have drink of water and go to the loo.
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
No-one cares because no-one asks. That's the point @Mexicanpete and I are making. But there are some very interesting questions that a journalist could ask of Nigel Farage short of saying, "You're a Russian spy aren't you?", for which there is no evidence.
There will be plenty on Farage's case now that Gaza has quietened down. The problem is he's such a sleazy bastard no one expects selfless honesty
The Russian adjacency deserves some straight questions to and thus answers, from the man who the polls suggest will become our next Prime Minister.
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
But there is something inherently (if you pardon the pun) unjust about inheritance tax. You are taxed all your life and then taxed when you die. Even though most people will never pay it, though many will be close to touch it with property, it feels instinctively wrong and is why it is largely disliked.
It was Osborne who turned around the fortunes of the floundering Conservative opposition with commitment on Inheritance Tax.
This is what is always said but it is not really true. For the vast majority troubled by IHT their major asset is their house on which they will have a substantial gain from the time that they bought it. And they have paid no tax on that gain at all. Unless they have bought an annuity the next largest asset is likely to be pension funds. On which they have not only not paid tax but had tax relief. If they own a business then there will be unrealised (and untaxed) capital gains on heritable assets and goodwill. The taxed income people complain about is likely to be a relatively modest contributor to the estate because it is bloody difficult to have meaningful savings out of taxed income in this country, thus maintaining the financial dominance of our ruling class.
If people are to inherit life changing sums of largely untaxed funds I think the government (on our behalf) is due a cut.
Better to actually tax them at source: principal private property should face capital gains with rollover relief.
Pensions are different: it’s an incentive to save so makes no sense to tax during the owner’s lifetime. But they should be treated as any other financial asset on death (perhaps with an exemption for a spouse or partner as often you have a single pension supporting a couple)
Taxing the gains on a property is just a bad idea we already have stamp duty which is a massive disincentive that stops people moving.
Personally I would be replacing all property based taxes with a single higher annual charge which would provide adequate incentives for people to downsize as they get older.
The UK has fewer geopolitical options than it did before 2016, when it could briefly hope to act as a Chinese bridge into Europe alongside its existing role as a US one.
If one believes in liberal democracy, one must advance the case vocally, and hew close to likeminded partners in Europe and Canada especially.
It was not obvious that the UK could rely on the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s either.
Some US lady on the World This Weekend still suggesting that the US can somehow betray Ukraine and Europe, cozy up to Russia, and still have us as an ally against China.
Both arrogant and ridiculous.
I think that was KT McFarland, who was Deputy NSA for a period in Trump I.
It’s not wrong in one sense, in that China will always be a rival to, and at odds with, the Western alliance (which we may need a new name for as Japan and Korea take their seats).
The tricky bit is that the West minus the USA needs to put Russia in its box, not fall into the Chinese orbit, AND cease relying on the USA as a reliable partner. The world is a dangerous place and liberal democracies (which looks like it might currently not be a label that can be applied to the USA) must stick together.
Do that, and really mean it, and the USA will eventually come crawling back to the rest of the West, because it isn’t big enough to oppose China, and manage the rise of India and the larger African nations, alone.
It’s no longer a slam dunk that China is less reliable than the U.S.
I'm afraid it is.
The US is nothing like the same level of geopolitical threat than China is, and it's silly to pretend otherwise just because Trump is a reprehensible person.
I will automatically think less of any poster who says otherwise.
Nobody particularly cares about your approbation or disapprobation.
Anyone who can witness the Dmitriev-Witkoff plan and think that the U.S. remains the only choice is simply not thinking straight.
You cared enough to respond immediately, which tells us everything we need to know.
We don't need to resort to hyperbole to make points about Trump, and we should keep our assessments in proportion - lest we make naive decisions.
Oh get over yourself.
If I have time, I generally respond to anyone who responds to me.
Except WilliamG who I find extremely tedious.
I try to do likewise, Gardenwalker, although I do not make an exception for William. I do not however answer TSE. It's not that I don't like him or anything, it's just that he's a lawyer and I'm always afraid he might send me an invoice.
The UK has fewer geopolitical options than it did before 2016, when it could briefly hope to act as a Chinese bridge into Europe alongside its existing role as a US one.
If one believes in liberal democracy, one must advance the case vocally, and hew close to likeminded partners in Europe and Canada especially.
It was not obvious that the UK could rely on the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s either.
China is not our friend
We should have thought about that over the last 30 years before infrastructure, mobile communications and public and personal transportation was gradually handed over to them in exchange for decades of low inflation.
The UK (Treasury) really needs to get over its “open to anybody and anyone” reflex ideology. It’s self-harming.
The government should simply take over Thames Water.
Yes. Private ownership of natural monopolies that are also necessities has not always proved a sane move. If Thames is attractive to a Chinese outfit under level playing field rules then it's attractive to government and the UK tax payer. If it isn't, then it has to be the government anyway, as even in north Cumberland I can reluctantly see that 10 million southerners ought to be able to have drink of water and go to the loo.
The reason we are often given is that we shouldn’t do so because it will increase UK debt under Treasury accounting rules.
Which begs the question about whom that debt is owed to, why it should still be owed, and the extent to which the government is willing to support creditors even unto self-harm.
As with much of Uk life, there’s a bunch of so-called rules which we have designed seemingly to escalate national decline.
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
No-one cares because no-one asks. That's the point @Mexicanpete and I are making. But there are some very interesting questions that a journalist could ask of Nigel Farage short of saying, "You're a Russian spy aren't you?", for which there is no evidence.
I don't think such questions are all that hard to deal with. It's the equivalent of trying to catch out an MP for making an expenses claim for printing costs on the basis that Jim Devine did the same and went to prison for it.
The War between Russia and Ukraine is a violent and terrible one that, with strong and proper U.S. and Ukrainian LEADERSHIP, would have NEVER HAPPENED. It began long before I took office for a Second Term, during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, and has only gotten worse. If the 2020 Presidential Election was not RIGGED & STOLEN, the only thing the Radical Left Democrats are good at doing, there would be no Ukraine/Russia War, as there wasn’t, not even a mention, during my first Term in Office. Putin would never have attacked! It was only when he saw Sleepy Joe in action that he said, “Now is my chance!” The rest is history, and so it continues. I INHERITED A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, A WAR THAT IS A LOSER FOR EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE SO NEEDLESSLY DIED. UKRAINE “LEADERSHIP” HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA. THE USA CONTINUES TO SELL MASSIVE $AMOUNTS OF WEAPONS TO NATO, FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UKRAINE (CROOKED JOE GAVE EVERYTHING, FREE, FREE, FREE, INCLUDING “BIG” MONEY!). GOD BLESS ALL THE LIVES THAT HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE HUMAN CATASTROPHE! President DJT https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115599428464496784
TL/DR; Zero gratitude; Sleepy Joe's fault; Europe buys Russian oil; The Rest is History podcast.
Of course the old reason why Europe can continue to buy Russian oil is that Orban purchased a concession from Trump
The UK has fewer geopolitical options than it did before 2016, when it could briefly hope to act as a Chinese bridge into Europe alongside its existing role as a US one.
If one believes in liberal democracy, one must advance the case vocally, and hew close to likeminded partners in Europe and Canada especially.
It was not obvious that the UK could rely on the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s either.
The War between Russia and Ukraine is a violent and terrible one that, with strong and proper U.S. and Ukrainian LEADERSHIP, would have NEVER HAPPENED. It began long before I took office for a Second Term, during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, and has only gotten worse. If the 2020 Presidential Election was not RIGGED & STOLEN, the only thing the Radical Left Democrats are good at doing, there would be no Ukraine/Russia War, as there wasn’t, not even a mention, during my first Term in Office. Putin would never have attacked! It was only when he saw Sleepy Joe in action that he said, “Now is my chance!” The rest is history, and so it continues. I INHERITED A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, A WAR THAT IS A LOSER FOR EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE SO NEEDLESSLY DIED. UKRAINE “LEADERSHIP” HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA. THE USA CONTINUES TO SELL MASSIVE $AMOUNTS OF WEAPONS TO NATO, FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UKRAINE (CROOKED JOE GAVE EVERYTHING, FREE, FREE, FREE, INCLUDING “BIG” MONEY!). GOD BLESS ALL THE LIVES THAT HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE HUMAN CATASTROPHE! President DJT https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115599428464496784
TL/DR; Zero gratitude; Sleepy Joe's fault; Europe buys Russian oil; The Rest is History podcast.
According to @Sandpit, this is five-dimensional chess.
The UK (Treasury) really needs to get over its “open to anybody and anyone” reflex ideology. It’s self-harming.
The government should simply take over Thames Water.
Yes. Private ownership of natural monopolies that are also necessities has not always proved a sane move. If Thames is attractive to a Chinese outfit under level playing field rules then it's attractive to government and the UK tax payer. If it isn't, then it has to be the government anyway, as even in north Cumberland I can reluctantly see that 10 million southerners ought to be able to have drink of water and go to the loo.
The reason we are often given is that we shouldn’t do so because it will increase UK debt under Treasury accounting rules.
Which begs the question about whom that debt is owed to, why it should still be owed, and the extent to which the government is willing to support creditors even unto self-harm.
As with much of Uk life, there’s a bunch of so-called rules which we have designed seemingly to escalate national decline.
Maybe Jeremy Corbyn's best proposal was that the Treasury should properly account for assets, not just expenditure.
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
But there is something inherently (if you pardon the pun) unjust about inheritance tax. You are taxed all your life and then taxed when you die. Even though most people will never pay it, though many will be close to touch it with property, it feels instinctively wrong and is why it is largely disliked.
It was Osborne who turned around the fortunes of the floundering Conservative opposition with commitment on Inheritance Tax.
This is what is always said but it is not really true. For the vast majority troubled by IHT their major asset is their house on which they will have a substantial gain from the time that they bought it. And they have paid no tax on that gain at all. Unless they have bought an annuity the next largest asset is likely to be pension funds. On which they have not only not paid tax but had tax relief. If they own a business then there will be unrealised (and untaxed) capital gains on heritable assets and goodwill. The taxed income people complain about is likely to be a relatively modest contributor to the estate because it is bloody difficult to have meaningful savings out of taxed income in this country, thus maintaining the financial dominance of our ruling class.
If people are to inherit life changing sums of largely untaxed funds I think the government (on our behalf) is due a cut.
Better to actually tax them at source: principal private property should face capital gains with rollover relief.
Pensions are different: it’s an incentive to save so makes no sense to tax during the owner’s lifetime. But they should be treated as any other financial asset on death (perhaps with an exemption for a spouse or partner as often you have a single pension supporting a couple)
Taxing the gains on a property is just a bad idea we already have stamp duty which is a massive disincentive that stops people moving.
Personally I would be replacing all property based taxes with a single higher annual charge which would provide adequate incentives for people to downsize as they get older.
Stamp duty is a bad tax which should be replaced by an annual property charge
But it makes no sense for a huge asset to be capital gains tax free as that distorts investment incentives (encourages over investment in non productive assets)
But you need rollover relief because otherwise you constrain the ability to move houses as required
There is no philosophical reason why someone downsizing should get a massive capital gains tax free windfall
The UK has fewer geopolitical options than it did before 2016, when it could briefly hope to act as a Chinese bridge into Europe alongside its existing role as a US one.
If one believes in liberal democracy, one must advance the case vocally, and hew close to likeminded partners in Europe and Canada especially.
It was not obvious that the UK could rely on the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s either.
China is not our friend
We should have thought about that over the last 30 years before infrastructure, mobile communications and public and personal transportation was gradually handed over to them in exchange for decades of low inflation.
As the Irishman said when asked for directions to Dublin: well, I wouldn’t start from here.
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
But there is something inherently (if you pardon the pun) unjust about inheritance tax. You are taxed all your life and then taxed when you die. Even though most people will never pay it, though many will be close to touch it with property, it feels instinctively wrong and is why it is largely disliked.
It was Osborne who turned around the fortunes of the floundering Conservative opposition with commitment on Inheritance Tax.
This is what is always said but it is not really true. For the vast majority troubled by IHT their major asset is their house on which they will have a substantial gain from the time that they bought it. And they have paid no tax on that gain at all. Unless they have bought an annuity the next largest asset is likely to be pension funds. On which they have not only not paid tax but had tax relief. If they own a business then there will be unrealised (and untaxed) capital gains on heritable assets and goodwill. The taxed income people complain about is likely to be a relatively modest contributor to the estate because it is bloody difficult to have meaningful savings out of taxed income in this country, thus maintaining the financial dominance of our ruling class.
If people are to inherit life changing sums of largely untaxed funds I think the government (on our behalf) is due a cut.
Better to actually tax them at source: principal private property should face capital gains with rollover relief.
Pensions are different: it’s an incentive to save so makes no sense to tax during the owner’s lifetime. But they should be treated as any other financial asset on death (perhaps with an exemption for a spouse or partner as often you have a single pension supporting a couple)
Taxing the gains on a property is just a bad idea we already have stamp duty which is a massive disincentive that stops people moving.
Personally I would be replacing all property based taxes with a single higher annual charge which would provide adequate incentives for people to downsize as they get older.
Stamp duty is a bad tax which should be replaced by an annual property charge
But it makes no sense for a huge asset to be capital gains tax free as that distorts investment incentives (encourages over investment in non productive assets)
But you need rollover relief because otherwise you constrain the ability to move houses as required
There is no philosophical reason why someone downsizing should get a massive capital gains tax free windfall
While I 90% agree, property is a productive asset, in that it generates utility: i.e. Somewhere to live.
The UK has fewer geopolitical options than it did before 2016, when it could briefly hope to act as a Chinese bridge into Europe alongside its existing role as a US one.
If one believes in liberal democracy, one must advance the case vocally, and hew close to likeminded partners in Europe and Canada especially.
It was not obvious that the UK could rely on the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s either.
China is not our friend
Who said they were or should be?
You implied (or perhaps I misunderstood) that the UK acting as a Chinese bridge into Europe was a sensible option
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
No-one cares because no-one asks. That's the point @Mexicanpete and I are making. But there are some very interesting questions that a journalist could ask of Nigel Farage short of saying, "You're a Russian spy aren't you?", for which there is no evidence.
I don't think such questions are all that hard to deal with. It's the equivalent of trying to catch out an MP for making an expenses claim for printing costs on the basis that Jim Devine did the same and went to prison for it.
In Nathan Gill's case is it the bribe, the content of the speech or a combination of both that have landed him with a lengthy custodial sentence?
Now, although I believe Nathan Gill deserved all he got, I can't help pondering that it was his incredible naivity and terminal idiocy that has landed him where his is. I feel sorry for his wife and for his children who will miss his paternal presence for five years. It is a personal catastrophe, but a personal catastrophe that someone with significantly greater sophistication might have been able to pull off without similar consequences.
The UK has fewer geopolitical options than it did before 2016, when it could briefly hope to act as a Chinese bridge into Europe alongside its existing role as a US one.
If one believes in liberal democracy, one must advance the case vocally, and hew close to likeminded partners in Europe and Canada especially.
It was not obvious that the UK could rely on the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s either.
China is not our friend
We should have thought about that over the last 30 years before infrastructure, mobile communications and public and personal transportation was gradually handed over to them in exchange for decades of low inflation.
That wasn’t the bargain. We had low inflation regardless, as a result of China’s emergence into the global economy.
The sell-off of infrastructure has because the Uk has decided to run a chronic trading deficit, in turn because the public has generally voted for consumption now versus investment for later.
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
But there is something inherently (if you pardon the pun) unjust about inheritance tax. You are taxed all your life and then taxed when you die. Even though most people will never pay it, though many will be close to touch it with property, it feels instinctively wrong and is why it is largely disliked.
It was Osborne who turned around the fortunes of the floundering Conservative opposition with commitment on Inheritance Tax.
This is what is always said but it is not really true. For the vast majority troubled by IHT their major asset is their house on which they will have a substantial gain from the time that they bought it. And they have paid no tax on that gain at all. Unless they have bought an annuity the next largest asset is likely to be pension funds. On which they have not only not paid tax but had tax relief. If they own a business then there will be unrealised (and untaxed) capital gains on heritable assets and goodwill. The taxed income people complain about is likely to be a relatively modest contributor to the estate because it is bloody difficult to have meaningful savings out of taxed income in this country, thus maintaining the financial dominance of our ruling class.
If people are to inherit life changing sums of largely untaxed funds I think the government (on our behalf) is due a cut.
Better to actually tax them at source: principal private property should face capital gains with rollover relief.
Pensions are different: it’s an incentive to save so makes no sense to tax during the owner’s lifetime. But they should be treated as any other financial asset on death (perhaps with an exemption for a spouse or partner as often you have a single pension supporting a couple)
Taxing the gains on a property is just a bad idea we already have stamp duty which is a massive disincentive that stops people moving.
Personally I would be replacing all property based taxes with a single higher annual charge which would provide adequate incentives for people to downsize as they get older.
Stamp duty is a bad tax which should be replaced by an annual property charge
But it makes no sense for a huge asset to be capital gains tax free as that distorts investment incentives (encourages over investment in non productive assets)
But you need rollover relief because otherwise you constrain the ability to move houses as required
There is no philosophical reason why someone downsizing should get a massive capital gains tax free windfall
While I 90% agree, property is a productive asset, in that it generates utility: i.e. Somewhere to live.
But only for the right size of property. I am over housed, for example, but won’t move because of the stamp duty consequences massively outweighing any gains.
From a macro perspective I should move into a property half the size and release the surplus capital to pay down debt and invest in equities
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
No-one cares because no-one asks. That's the point @Mexicanpete and I are making. But there are some very interesting questions that a journalist could ask of Nigel Farage short of saying, "You're a Russian spy aren't you?", for which there is no evidence.
I don't think such questions are all that hard to deal with. It's the equivalent of trying to catch out an MP for making an expenses claim for printing costs on the basis that Jim Devine did the same and went to prison for it.
Not really the equivalent but yes if Farage actually answers the questions, I would expect the answers to be, these are legitimate questions, we shouldn't be getting involved in foreign adventures, I'm not supporting a foreign power and the difference between me and Gill is that he got paid for his questions and I didn't. A competent journalist could push him on some of these answers.
The UK has fewer geopolitical options than it did before 2016, when it could briefly hope to act as a Chinese bridge into Europe alongside its existing role as a US one.
If one believes in liberal democracy, one must advance the case vocally, and hew close to likeminded partners in Europe and Canada especially.
It was not obvious that the UK could rely on the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s either.
China is not our friend
Who said they were or should be?
You implied (or perhaps I misunderstood) that the UK acting as a Chinese bridge into Europe was a sensible option
A financial bridge…the Cameron/Osborne policy. Not necessarily a terrible idea unto itself.
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
But there is something inherently (if you pardon the pun) unjust about inheritance tax. You are taxed all your life and then taxed when you die. Even though most people will never pay it, though many will be close to touch it with property, it feels instinctively wrong and is why it is largely disliked.
It was Osborne who turned around the fortunes of the floundering Conservative opposition with commitment on Inheritance Tax.
This is what is always said but it is not really true. For the vast majority troubled by IHT their major asset is their house on which they will have a substantial gain from the time that they bought it. And they have paid no tax on that gain at all. Unless they have bought an annuity the next largest asset is likely to be pension funds. On which they have not only not paid tax but had tax relief. If they own a business then there will be unrealised (and untaxed) capital gains on heritable assets and goodwill. The taxed income people complain about is likely to be a relatively modest contributor to the estate because it is bloody difficult to have meaningful savings out of taxed income in this country, thus maintaining the financial dominance of our ruling class.
If people are to inherit life changing sums of largely untaxed funds I think the government (on our behalf) is due a cut.
Better to actually tax them at source: principal private property should face capital gains with rollover relief.
Pensions are different: it’s an incentive to save so makes no sense to tax during the owner’s lifetime. But they should be treated as any other financial asset on death (perhaps with an exemption for a spouse or partner as often you have a single pension supporting a couple)
Taxing the gains on a property is just a bad idea we already have stamp duty which is a massive disincentive that stops people moving.
Personally I would be replacing all property based taxes with a single higher annual charge which would provide adequate incentives for people to downsize as they get older.
Stamp duty is a bad tax which should be replaced by an annual property charge
But it makes no sense for a huge asset to be capital gains tax free as that distorts investment incentives (encourages over investment in non productive assets)
But you need rollover relief because otherwise you constrain the ability to move houses as required
There is no philosophical reason why someone downsizing should get a massive capital gains tax free windfall
While I 90% agree, property is a productive asset, in that it generates utility: i.e. Somewhere to live.
I’m only at 50% agreement because of the disincentive a CGT on main residence creates, even with rollover: it ensures nobody will ever downsize unless they absolutely have to.
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
But there is something inherently (if you pardon the pun) unjust about inheritance tax. You are taxed all your life and then taxed when you die. Even though most people will never pay it, though many will be close to touch it with property, it feels instinctively wrong and is why it is largely disliked.
It was Osborne who turned around the fortunes of the floundering Conservative opposition with commitment on Inheritance Tax.
This is what is always said but it is not really true. For the vast majority troubled by IHT their major asset is their house on which they will have a substantial gain from the time that they bought it. And they have paid no tax on that gain at all. Unless they have bought an annuity the next largest asset is likely to be pension funds. On which they have not only not paid tax but had tax relief. If they own a business then there will be unrealised (and untaxed) capital gains on heritable assets and goodwill. The taxed income people complain about is likely to be a relatively modest contributor to the estate because it is bloody difficult to have meaningful savings out of taxed income in this country, thus maintaining the financial dominance of our ruling class.
If people are to inherit life changing sums of largely untaxed funds I think the government (on our behalf) is due a cut.
Better to actually tax them at source: principal private property should face capital gains with rollover relief.
Pensions are different: it’s an incentive to save so makes no sense to tax during the owner’s lifetime. But they should be treated as any other financial asset on death (perhaps with an exemption for a spouse or partner as often you have a single pension supporting a couple)
Taxing the gains on a property is just a bad idea we already have stamp duty which is a massive disincentive that stops people moving.
Personally I would be replacing all property based taxes with a single higher annual charge which would provide adequate incentives for people to downsize as they get older.
Stamp duty is a bad tax which should be replaced by an annual property charge
But it makes no sense for a huge asset to be capital gains tax free as that distorts investment incentives (encourages over investment in non productive assets)
But you need rollover relief because otherwise you constrain the ability to move houses as required
There is no philosophical reason why someone downsizing should get a massive capital gains tax free windfall
While I 90% agree, property is a productive asset, in that it generates utility: i.e. Somewhere to live.
But only for the right size of property. I am over housed, for example, but won’t move because of the stamp duty consequences massively outweighing any gains.
From a macro perspective I should move into a property half the size and release the surplus capital to pay down debt and invest in equities
Same, except I don’t even live in said properties.
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
No-one cares because no-one asks. That's the point @Mexicanpete and I are making. But there are some very interesting questions that a journalist could ask of Nigel Farage short of saying, "You're a Russian spy aren't you?", for which there is no evidence.
I don't think such questions are all that hard to deal with. It's the equivalent of trying to catch out an MP for making an expenses claim for printing costs on the basis that Jim Devine did the same and went to prison for it.
In Nathan Gill's case is it the bribe, the content of the speech or a combination of both that have landed him with a lengthy custodial sentence?
Now, although I believe Nathan Gill deserved all he got, I can't help pondering that it was his incredible naivity and terminal idiocy that has landed him where his is. I feel sorry for his wife and for his children who will miss his paternal presence for five years. It is a personal catastrophe, but a personal catastrophe that someone with significantly greater sophistication might have been able to pull off without similar consequences.
Kinda agree. Why didn’t Gill just have numerous appearances on RT with inflated appearance fees pushing the same line he was in the EU parliament? Win win from their pov.
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
But there is something inherently (if you pardon the pun) unjust about inheritance tax. You are taxed all your life and then taxed when you die. Even though most people will never pay it, though many will be close to touch it with property, it feels instinctively wrong and is why it is largely disliked.
It was Osborne who turned around the fortunes of the floundering Conservative opposition with commitment on Inheritance Tax.
This is what is always said but it is not really true. For the vast majority troubled by IHT their major asset is their house on which they will have a substantial gain from the time that they bought it. And they have paid no tax on that gain at all. Unless they have bought an annuity the next largest asset is likely to be pension funds. On which they have not only not paid tax but had tax relief. If they own a business then there will be unrealised (and untaxed) capital gains on heritable assets and goodwill. The taxed income people complain about is likely to be a relatively modest contributor to the estate because it is bloody difficult to have meaningful savings out of taxed income in this country, thus maintaining the financial dominance of our ruling class.
If people are to inherit life changing sums of largely untaxed funds I think the government (on our behalf) is due a cut.
Better to actually tax them at source: principal private property should face capital gains with rollover relief.
Pensions are different: it’s an incentive to save so makes no sense to tax during the owner’s lifetime. But they should be treated as any other financial asset on death (perhaps with an exemption for a spouse or partner as often you have a single pension supporting a couple)
Taxing the gains on a property is just a bad idea we already have stamp duty which is a massive disincentive that stops people moving.
Personally I would be replacing all property based taxes with a single higher annual charge which would provide adequate incentives for people to downsize as they get older.
Stamp duty is a bad tax which should be replaced by an annual property charge
But it makes no sense for a huge asset to be capital gains tax free as that distorts investment incentives (encourages over investment in non productive assets)
But you need rollover relief because otherwise you constrain the ability to move houses as required
There is no philosophical reason why someone downsizing should get a massive capital gains tax free windfall
While I 90% agree, property is a productive asset, in that it generates utility: i.e. Somewhere to live.
But only for the right size of property. I am over housed, for example, but won’t move because of the stamp duty consequences massively outweighing any gains.
From a macro perspective I should move into a property half the size and release the surplus capital to pay down debt and invest in equities
Same, except I don’t even live in said properties.
The thing is, if property was correctly taxed - I don't think the historic capital gains would exist.
Equally if we had built enough houses to actually house our population prices wouldn't be as high as they are...
The UK has fewer geopolitical options than it did before 2016, when it could briefly hope to act as a Chinese bridge into Europe alongside its existing role as a US one.
If one believes in liberal democracy, one must advance the case vocally, and hew close to likeminded partners in Europe and Canada especially.
It was not obvious that the UK could rely on the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s either.
China is not our friend
We should have thought about that over the last 30 years before infrastructure, mobile communications and public and personal transportation was gradually handed over to them in exchange for decades of low inflation.
That wasn’t the bargain. We had low inflation regardless, as a result of China’s emergence into the global economy.
The sell-off of infrastructure has because the Uk has decided to run a chronic trading deficit, in turn because the public has generally voted for consumption now versus investment for later.
It isn't just the public who bought their cheap Chinese tat from eBay or AliExpress. British manufacturing production was moved wholesale from Britain to Shanghai in the knowledge that shareholders could make more dividends by their managers closing production of Swan kettles from the middle of Birmingham, employing time-served Brummie engineers earning decent wages, to (back in the day) green field factories full of Chinese labour earning the equivalent of a bowl of rice a day.
The War between Russia and Ukraine is a violent and terrible one that, with strong and proper U.S. and Ukrainian LEADERSHIP, would have NEVER HAPPENED. It began long before I took office for a Second Term, during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, and has only gotten worse. If the 2020 Presidential Election was not RIGGED & STOLEN, the only thing the Radical Left Democrats are good at doing, there would be no Ukraine/Russia War, as there wasn’t, not even a mention, during my first Term in Office. Putin would never have attacked! It was only when he saw Sleepy Joe in action that he said, “Now is my chance!” The rest is history, and so it continues. I INHERITED A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, A WAR THAT IS A LOSER FOR EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE SO NEEDLESSLY DIED. UKRAINE “LEADERSHIP” HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA. THE USA CONTINUES TO SELL MASSIVE $AMOUNTS OF WEAPONS TO NATO, FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UKRAINE (CROOKED JOE GAVE EVERYTHING, FREE, FREE, FREE, INCLUDING “BIG” MONEY!). GOD BLESS ALL THE LIVES THAT HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE HUMAN CATASTROPHE! President DJT https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115599428464496784
TL/DR; Zero gratitude; Sleepy Joe's fault; Europe buys Russian oil; The Rest is History podcast.
According to @Sandpit, this is five-dimensional chess.
I don't know what his game is and I doubt he does too. He is probably extemporising. I doubt he personally has a plan, other than to hog the limelight and line his own pockets, which are about the only consistent features you can detect in his policies.
It shouldn't make any difference though. Ukraine cannot accept and we should continue to support them. Indeed we should extend our support and dig deep into our pockets if need be.
That article sounds like they willing decided to have 5 children even after the restriction was brought in - sorry but that's on them.
There is a niche point where it does seem to unfairly hit people - which is when people split up and the new family ends up having 3/4/5 children but that really is a minor amendment..
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
No-one cares because no-one asks. That's the point @Mexicanpete and I are making. But there are some very interesting questions that a journalist could ask of Nigel Farage short of saying, "You're a Russian spy aren't you?", for which there is no evidence.
I don't think such questions are all that hard to deal with. It's the equivalent of trying to catch out an MP for making an expenses claim for printing costs on the basis that Jim Devine did the same and went to prison for it.
In Nathan Gill's case is it the bribe, the content of the speech or a combination of both that have landed him with a lengthy custodial sentence?
Now, although I believe Nathan Gill deserved all he got, I can't help pondering that it was his incredible naivity and terminal idiocy that has landed him where his is. I feel sorry for his wife and for his children who will miss his paternal presence for five years. It is a personal catastrophe, but a personal catastrophe that someone with significantly greater sophistication might have been able to pull off without similar consequences.
Kinda agree. Why didn’t Gill just have numerous appearances on RT with inflated appearance fees pushing the same line he was in the EU parliament? Win win from their pov.
That article sounds like they willing decided to have 5 children even after the restriction was brought in - sorry but that's on them.
There is a niche point where it does seem to unfairly hit people - which is when people split up and the new family ends up having 3/4/5 children but that really is a minor amendment..
Given the demographic crisis, I rather think we ought to be celebrating their heroic fertility.
There does seem to be a distinct lack of media interest in the Nathan Gill conviction, and how such treachery could be circling around his sphere of influence.
Compare and contrast with, for example Rayner whose tax affairs were considered in detail both before and after her defenestration. If treason is too minor a scandal to focus upon when financial impropriety is of greater interest, one could also compare and contrast with a similar home ownership anomaly around a house purchase in Frinton-on- Sea, which barely made a sub- headline.
There is an interesting line of questioning a journalist could take with Nigel Farage:
Nathan Gill your leader in Wales has been imprisoned for taking bribes to ask questions favourable to that power in parliament. You have asked very similar questions in the same parliament.
Do you stand by those questions? Why did you ask those questions? Do you think it's your job to support foreign powers? And given your answers to the previous, do you think Nathan Gill was right to ask his similar questions?
But as you say, no-one wants to ask these questions.
Farage was a regular on Russia Today. No-one cares.
No-one cares because no-one asks. That's the point @Mexicanpete and I are making. But there are some very interesting questions that a journalist could ask of Nigel Farage short of saying, "You're a Russian spy aren't you?", for which there is no evidence.
I don't think such questions are all that hard to deal with. It's the equivalent of trying to catch out an MP for making an expenses claim for printing costs on the basis that Jim Devine did the same and went to prison for it.
Not really the equivalent but yes if Farage actually answers the questions, I would expect the answers to be, these are legitimate questions, we shouldn't be getting involved in foreign adventures, I'm not supporting a foreign power and the difference between me and Gill is that he got paid for his questions and I didn't. A competent journalist could push him on some of these answers.
Even on the substantive foreign policy question, Farage can handle it by saying that Putin has put himself beyond the pale by his subsequent actions.
The War between Russia and Ukraine is a violent and terrible one that, with strong and proper U.S. and Ukrainian LEADERSHIP, would have NEVER HAPPENED. It began long before I took office for a Second Term, during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, and has only gotten worse. If the 2020 Presidential Election was not RIGGED & STOLEN, the only thing the Radical Left Democrats are good at doing, there would be no Ukraine/Russia War, as there wasn’t, not even a mention, during my first Term in Office. Putin would never have attacked! It was only when he saw Sleepy Joe in action that he said, “Now is my chance!” The rest is history, and so it continues. I INHERITED A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, A WAR THAT IS A LOSER FOR EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE SO NEEDLESSLY DIED. UKRAINE “LEADERSHIP” HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA. THE USA CONTINUES TO SELL MASSIVE $AMOUNTS OF WEAPONS TO NATO, FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UKRAINE (CROOKED JOE GAVE EVERYTHING, FREE, FREE, FREE, INCLUDING “BIG” MONEY!). GOD BLESS ALL THE LIVES THAT HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE HUMAN CATASTROPHE! President DJT https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115599428464496784
TL/DR; Zero gratitude; Sleepy Joe's fault; Europe buys Russian oil; The Rest is History podcast.
According to @Sandpit, this is five-dimensional chess.
I don't know what his game is and I doubt he does too. He is probably extemporising. I doubt he personally has a plan, other than to hog the limelight and line his own pockets, which are about the only consistent features you can detect in his policies.
It shouldn't make any difference though. Ukraine cannot accept and we should continue to support them. Indeed we should extend our support and dig deep into our pockets if need be.
Ukraine can't accept and we need to support because if we don't stop Russia now it will be in a few years time when they seek to move onto their next piece of previously claimed land...
The War between Russia and Ukraine is a violent and terrible one that, with strong and proper U.S. and Ukrainian LEADERSHIP, would have NEVER HAPPENED. It began long before I took office for a Second Term, during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, and has only gotten worse. If the 2020 Presidential Election was not RIGGED & STOLEN, the only thing the Radical Left Democrats are good at doing, there would be no Ukraine/Russia War, as there wasn’t, not even a mention, during my first Term in Office. Putin would never have attacked! It was only when he saw Sleepy Joe in action that he said, “Now is my chance!” The rest is history, and so it continues. I INHERITED A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, A WAR THAT IS A LOSER FOR EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE SO NEEDLESSLY DIED. UKRAINE “LEADERSHIP” HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA. THE USA CONTINUES TO SELL MASSIVE $AMOUNTS OF WEAPONS TO NATO, FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UKRAINE (CROOKED JOE GAVE EVERYTHING, FREE, FREE, FREE, INCLUDING “BIG” MONEY!). GOD BLESS ALL THE LIVES THAT HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE HUMAN CATASTROPHE! President DJT https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115599428464496784
TL/DR; Zero gratitude; Sleepy Joe's fault; Europe buys Russian oil; The Rest is History podcast.
That lying POS (aka Dopey Donald) said he would end the Russia-Ukraine War within TWENTY FOUR HOURS! It's now TEN MONTHS since he took office, and the war is STILL ONGOING! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!
The UK has fewer geopolitical options than it did before 2016, when it could briefly hope to act as a Chinese bridge into Europe alongside its existing role as a US one.
If one believes in liberal democracy, one must advance the case vocally, and hew close to likeminded partners in Europe and Canada especially.
It was not obvious that the UK could rely on the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s either.
China is not our friend
They are not but Putin/Trump pose the far more immediate threat to western Europe
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
But there is something inherently (if you pardon the pun) unjust about inheritance tax. You are taxed all your life and then taxed when you die. Even though most people will never pay it, though many will be close to touch it with property, it feels instinctively wrong and is why it is largely disliked.
It was Osborne who turned around the fortunes of the floundering Conservative opposition with commitment on Inheritance Tax.
This is what is always said but it is not really true. For the vast majority troubled by IHT their major asset is their house on which they will have a substantial gain from the time that they bought it. And they have paid no tax on that gain at all. Unless they have bought an annuity the next largest asset is likely to be pension funds. On which they have not only not paid tax but had tax relief. If they own a business then there will be unrealised (and untaxed) capital gains on heritable assets and goodwill. The taxed income people complain about is likely to be a relatively modest contributor to the estate because it is bloody difficult to have meaningful savings out of taxed income in this country, thus maintaining the financial dominance of our ruling class.
If people are to inherit life changing sums of largely untaxed funds I think the government (on our behalf) is due a cut.
Better to actually tax them at source: principal private property should face capital gains with rollover relief.
Pensions are different: it’s an incentive to save so makes no sense to tax during the owner’s lifetime. But they should be treated as any other financial asset on death (perhaps with an exemption for a spouse or partner as often you have a single pension supporting a couple)
Taxing the gains on a property is just a bad idea we already have stamp duty which is a massive disincentive that stops people moving.
Personally I would be replacing all property based taxes with a single higher annual charge which would provide adequate incentives for people to downsize as they get older.
Stamp duty is a bad tax which should be replaced by an annual property charge
But it makes no sense for a huge asset to be capital gains tax free as that distorts investment incentives (encourages over investment in non productive assets)
But you need rollover relief because otherwise you constrain the ability to move houses as required
There is no philosophical reason why someone downsizing should get a massive capital gains tax free windfall
While I 90% agree, property is a productive asset, in that it generates utility: i.e. Somewhere to live.
I’m only at 50% agreement because of the disincentive a CGT on main residence creates, even with rollover: it ensures nobody will ever downsize unless they absolutely have to.
We're going to be in the strange position where people inherit large houses in their 50s after their own children have already left home.
We should be changing the tax system to make it cheaper for oldies to downsize early (and cost more in tax of they don't), freeing up family homes for, well, families.
And what about those that feel punished for paying for the children of others?
Whatever happened to civic society?
I read an article today suggesting the ills of society can all be laid at Thatcher's door including "right to buy" leading to today's housing crisis, the privatisation of utilities leading us to Thames Water and her making of Tony Blair and his turning the Labour Party we know and despise today, into a Thatcher-lite vehicle to promote a capitalist society.
And what about those that feel punished for paying for the children of others?
You mean the miserable bastard demographic?
Millions of us.
In all seriousness, the BBC shouldn’t be pushing an agenda.
The article would be fine if it carried an alternative pov.
Yeah, but there is none. And people wonder why trust in the BBC is collapsing.
Er, maybe because ex GBNews supremo and former Conservative press secretary Robbie Gibb ( I won't mention his potential conflict of interest ownership of the Jewish Chronicle) is encouraging the BBC to eat itself from the inside out.
I very much enjoyed reading the article - a real treat.
I don't really agree with the conclusion. The part of the West in this war has been led by the USA behind the scenes, and it was felt that a low level war over a long period would weaken a geostrategic enemy and pull it away from Western Europe. That has been a success, though not necessarily to the advantage of Western Europe to my mind.
To make clear - I am not blaming Russia's calamitous and blood-soaked invasion on the US - that was Russia's decision alone. I am saying that the US was not by any means a bystander in the events that preceded it, and has pursued its own geostrategic ambitons (though they have now changed) in its policy toward it.
But now the US has lost interest. Given this fact, if there is a peace plan, what Europe should really be doing is sweeping up the glass and breathing a sigh of relief.
Regarding the peace plan itself, it seems that what Russia still wants is for what remains of Ukraine to be a weakened, non-NATO aligned country - very similar to its original doctrine. The invasion was an absolutely insane way to go about this - really it failed as soon as they didn't reach Kiev. The outcome was always going to be that Ukraine would be fortified and on a path to NATO accession.
The only solution I can think of that could possibly satisfy Russia is a new country, Eastern Ukraine, to border Russia. It would include Russia's current territorial gains in the war, and Ukraine would have to give up more in the North. The state would be nominally autonomous but would essentially be a Russian protectorate.
In return, the rest Ukraine would be free from territorial dispute, and allowed to join both the EU and NATO.
So Russia would have a buffer, Western Europe would have a buffer, and hopefully that would be a basis upon which peace could be restored.
Thanks. I’m sure the West and Ukraine would grudgingly accept a ceasefire on current lines, like Korea.
But, a proposal which requires Ukraine to surrender its fortress belts, and partly disarm, is simply a pause before renewed war.
Yes, I think so too, and that would already be far more than they should accept in a just world.
But since Russia seems absolutely set on its buffer state, why not create one. It must not be all of Ukraine. But a part of Ukraine running along the Russian border, with a capital and a President, and elections of a sort, seems viable to me. It would mean that according to the maps at least, Russia wouldn't have 'gained' territory, just created Eastern Ukraine.
In exchange for the giving up of land into Eastern Ukraine, Ukraine would get assent to join NATO - how could this be refused if Russia had its buffer state?
Sean T's header is a useful corrective, to which I will add one point: A nation that has a reputation for treating prisoners decently will often find it easier to get enemies to surrender.
That said, I think he might agree with me that toughness is an advantage in war -- as are so many other things. The US has found that even diversity can be an advantage. The code talkers may be the most famous example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker
There's another that has amused me for years. During the Vietnam War a former gang leader from DC turned out to be an exceptional soldier in city battles.
I very much enjoyed reading the article - a real treat.
I don't really agree with the conclusion. The part of the West in this war has been led by the USA behind the scenes, and it was felt that a low level war over a long period would weaken a geostrategic enemy and pull it away from Western Europe. That has been a success, though not necessarily to the advantage of Western Europe to my mind.
To make clear - I am not blaming Russia's calamitous and blood-soaked invasion on the US - that was Russia's decision alone. I am saying that the US was not by any means a bystander in the events that preceded it, and has pursued its own geostrategic ambitons (though they have now changed) in its policy toward it.
But now the US has lost interest. Given this fact, if there is a peace plan, what Europe should really be doing is sweeping up the glass and breathing a sigh of relief.
Regarding the peace plan itself, it seems that what Russia still wants is for what remains of Ukraine to be a weakened, non-NATO aligned country - very similar to its original doctrine. The invasion was an absolutely insane way to go about this - really it failed as soon as they didn't reach Kiev. The outcome was always going to be that Ukraine would be fortified and on a path to NATO accession.
The only solution I can think of that could possibly satisfy Russia is a new country, Eastern Ukraine, to border Russia. It would include Russia's current territorial gains in the war, and Ukraine would have to give up more in the North. The state would be nominally autonomous but would essentially be a Russian protectorate.
In return, the rest Ukraine would be free from territorial dispute, and allowed to join both the EU and NATO.
So Russia would have a buffer, Western Europe would have a buffer, and hopefully that would be a basis upon which peace could be restored.
Thanks. I’m sure the West and Ukraine would grudgingly accept a ceasefire on current lines, like Korea.
But, a proposal which requires Ukraine to surrender its fortress belts, and partly disarm, is simply a pause before renewed war.
Yes, I think so too, and that would already be far more than they should accept in a just world.
But since Russia seems absolutely set on its buffer state, why not create one. It must not be all of Ukraine. But a part of Ukraine running along the Russian border, with a capital and a President, and elections of a sort, seems viable to me. It would mean that according to the maps at least, Russia wouldn't have 'gained' territory, just created Eastern Ukraine.
In exchange for the giving up of land into Eastern Ukraine, Ukraine would get assent to join NATO - how could this be refused if Russia had its buffer state?
Why not a buffer state in Russia?
All the way to the Ukraine/Republic of China Border
I very much enjoyed reading the article - a real treat.
I don't really agree with the conclusion. The part of the West in this war has been led by the USA behind the scenes, and it was felt that a low level war over a long period would weaken a geostrategic enemy and pull it away from Western Europe. That has been a success, though not necessarily to the advantage of Western Europe to my mind.
To make clear - I am not blaming Russia's calamitous and blood-soaked invasion on the US - that was Russia's decision alone. I am saying that the US was not by any means a bystander in the events that preceded it, and has pursued its own geostrategic ambitons (though they have now changed) in its policy toward it.
But now the US has lost interest. Given this fact, if there is a peace plan, what Europe should really be doing is sweeping up the glass and breathing a sigh of relief.
Regarding the peace plan itself, it seems that what Russia still wants is for what remains of Ukraine to be a weakened, non-NATO aligned country - very similar to its original doctrine. The invasion was an absolutely insane way to go about this - really it failed as soon as they didn't reach Kiev. The outcome was always going to be that Ukraine would be fortified and on a path to NATO accession.
The only solution I can think of that could possibly satisfy Russia is a new country, Eastern Ukraine, to border Russia. It would include Russia's current territorial gains in the war, and Ukraine would have to give up more in the North. The state would be nominally autonomous but would essentially be a Russian protectorate.
In return, the rest Ukraine would be free from territorial dispute, and allowed to join both the EU and NATO.
So Russia would have a buffer, Western Europe would have a buffer, and hopefully that would be a basis upon which peace could be restored.
Thanks. I’m sure the West and Ukraine would grudgingly accept a ceasefire on current lines, like Korea.
But, a proposal which requires Ukraine to surrender its fortress belts, and partly disarm, is simply a pause before renewed war.
Yes, I think so too, and that would already be far more than they should accept in a just world.
But since Russia seems absolutely set on its buffer state, why not create one. It must not be all of Ukraine. But a part of Ukraine running along the Russian border, with a capital and a President, and elections of a sort, seems viable to me. It would mean that according to the maps at least, Russia wouldn't have 'gained' territory, just created Eastern Ukraine.
In exchange for the giving up of land into Eastern Ukraine, Ukraine would get assent to join NATO - how could this be refused if Russia had its buffer state?
Why not a buffer state in Russia?
All the way to the Ukraine/Republic of China Border
That reminds me of the old 1980s joke.
President Brezhnev calls Reagan and says to him "our Scientists have discovered a newspaper from the year 2000 and it says the USA is no longer a superpower". "Uncannily" replies Reagan "our scientists have also discovered a newspaper from the year 2000 and it reports of skirmishes on the Finland- China border".
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
Here's another sob story from the i this week:
I'm 74 and only have the state pension - I can't afford to fix my leaking gutter. He pays £204 a month for his mortgage, as he says he is “stuck” on a 6.2 per cent interest rate due to his financial circumstances.
He bought his house in 1982, why hasn't he paid off his small mortgage and why didn't he save for his own pension ?
He's 74 years old and so was born in, what, 1951? He bought a house in 1982 at the age of 31 and now, forty-three years later, he still hasn't paid it off??? What the heck??
Council house sale in an area which then got hit by another aspect of the then Tory government's policy? But as said above, difficult to know what is going on without more data.
Fraser has a new piece on covid, lockdown, Ferguson models and Sweden:
Sweden’s Covid response was in the hands not of politicians but a public health agency run by Anders Tegnell, a veteran epidemiologist who had worked in the field with Ebola. He’d been around the circuit and regarded Ferguson as a loose cannon with a history of getting things badly wrong. Tegnell asked his old boss Johan Giesecke, 70, to come out of retirement to help. Both had been scarred by the swine flu panic where a Sweden-wide vaccination campaign ended up in side-effects, scandal and recrimination. The debacle profoundly shaped Sweden’s Covid policy.
Giesecke could recall Ferguson’s previous work from the top of his head. Like foot-and-mouth disease. ‘They thought 50,000 would die. How many did? 177’. And then Ferguson’s work with bird flu: Ferguson warned that 200m could die. It ended up being 455. Four years after that it was swine flu and the prognosis was 65,000 British deaths. Actual? 474. In his book The Herd, the writer Johan Anderberg says “Giesecke regarded Ferguson’s career as one long string of disastrous miscalculations - with fateful consequences”.
"Swedes can at least say they’re not guilty of the self-congratulation that they diagnose in Brits (where it was, yet again, knighthoods all round)."
I very much enjoyed reading the article - a real treat.
I don't really agree with the conclusion. The part of the West in this war has been led by the USA behind the scenes, and it was felt that a low level war over a long period would weaken a geostrategic enemy and pull it away from Western Europe. That has been a success, though not necessarily to the advantage of Western Europe to my mind.
To make clear - I am not blaming Russia's calamitous and blood-soaked invasion on the US - that was Russia's decision alone. I am saying that the US was not by any means a bystander in the events that preceded it, and has pursued its own geostrategic ambitons (though they have now changed) in its policy toward it.
But now the US has lost interest. Given this fact, if there is a peace plan, what Europe should really be doing is sweeping up the glass and breathing a sigh of relief.
Regarding the peace plan itself, it seems that what Russia still wants is for what remains of Ukraine to be a weakened, non-NATO aligned country - very similar to its original doctrine. The invasion was an absolutely insane way to go about this - really it failed as soon as they didn't reach Kiev. The outcome was always going to be that Ukraine would be fortified and on a path to NATO accession.
The only solution I can think of that could possibly satisfy Russia is a new country, Eastern Ukraine, to border Russia. It would include Russia's current territorial gains in the war, and Ukraine would have to give up more in the North. The state would be nominally autonomous but would essentially be a Russian protectorate.
In return, the rest Ukraine would be free from territorial dispute, and allowed to join both the EU and NATO.
So Russia would have a buffer, Western Europe would have a buffer, and hopefully that would be a basis upon which peace could be restored.
Thanks. I’m sure the West and Ukraine would grudgingly accept a ceasefire on current lines, like Korea.
But, a proposal which requires Ukraine to surrender its fortress belts, and partly disarm, is simply a pause before renewed war.
Yes, I think so too, and that would already be far more than they should accept in a just world.
But since Russia seems absolutely set on its buffer state, why not create one. It must not be all of Ukraine. But a part of Ukraine running along the Russian border, with a capital and a President, and elections of a sort, seems viable to me. It would mean that according to the maps at least, Russia wouldn't have 'gained' territory, just created Eastern Ukraine.
In exchange for the giving up of land into Eastern Ukraine, Ukraine would get assent to join NATO - how could this be refused if Russia had its buffer state?
Why not a buffer state in Russia?
All the way to the Ukraine/Republic of China Border
A disputed border you say? A need for an honest broker? Some form of UN mandate?
British administered Eastern Ukraine, incorporating Moscow.
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
Here's another sob story from the i this week:
I'm 74 and only have the state pension - I can't afford to fix my leaking gutter. He pays £204 a month for his mortgage, as he says he is “stuck” on a 6.2 per cent interest rate due to his financial circumstances.
He bought his house in 1982, why hasn't he paid off his small mortgage and why didn't he save for his own pension ?
He's 74 years old and so was born in, what, 1951? He bought a house in 1982 at the age of 31 and now, forty-three years later, he still hasn't paid it off??? What the heck??
Council house sale in an area which then got hit by another aspect of the then Tory government's policy? But as said above, difficult to know what is going on without more data.
There's always the possibility of death or divorce or unemployment which might upset someone's finances.
But 'events' can also be beneficial.
Such as a dozen years of ZIRP were for those who had mortgages in 2008.
I very much enjoyed reading the article - a real treat.
I don't really agree with the conclusion. The part of the West in this war has been led by the USA behind the scenes, and it was felt that a low level war over a long period would weaken a geostrategic enemy and pull it away from Western Europe. That has been a success, though not necessarily to the advantage of Western Europe to my mind.
To make clear - I am not blaming Russia's calamitous and blood-soaked invasion on the US - that was Russia's decision alone. I am saying that the US was not by any means a bystander in the events that preceded it, and has pursued its own geostrategic ambitons (though they have now changed) in its policy toward it.
But now the US has lost interest. Given this fact, if there is a peace plan, what Europe should really be doing is sweeping up the glass and breathing a sigh of relief.
Regarding the peace plan itself, it seems that what Russia still wants is for what remains of Ukraine to be a weakened, non-NATO aligned country - very similar to its original doctrine. The invasion was an absolutely insane way to go about this - really it failed as soon as they didn't reach Kiev. The outcome was always going to be that Ukraine would be fortified and on a path to NATO accession.
The only solution I can think of that could possibly satisfy Russia is a new country, Eastern Ukraine, to border Russia. It would include Russia's current territorial gains in the war, and Ukraine would have to give up more in the North. The state would be nominally autonomous but would essentially be a Russian protectorate.
In return, the rest Ukraine would be free from territorial dispute, and allowed to join both the EU and NATO.
So Russia would have a buffer, Western Europe would have a buffer, and hopefully that would be a basis upon which peace could be restored.
Thanks. I’m sure the West and Ukraine would grudgingly accept a ceasefire on current lines, like Korea.
But, a proposal which requires Ukraine to surrender its fortress belts, and partly disarm, is simply a pause before renewed war.
Yes, I think so too, and that would already be far more than they should accept in a just world.
But since Russia seems absolutely set on its buffer state, why not create one. It must not be all of Ukraine. But a part of Ukraine running along the Russian border, with a capital and a President, and elections of a sort, seems viable to me. It would mean that according to the maps at least, Russia wouldn't have 'gained' territory, just created Eastern Ukraine.
In exchange for the giving up of land into Eastern Ukraine, Ukraine would get assent to join NATO - how could this be refused if Russia had its buffer state?
Why not a buffer state in Russia?
All the way to the Ukraine/Republic of China Border
A disputed border you say? A need for an honest broker? Some form of UN mandate?
British administered Eastern Ukraine, incorporating Moscow.
Fraser has a new piece on covid, lockdown, Ferguson models and Sweden:
Sweden’s Covid response was in the hands not of politicians but a public health agency run by Anders Tegnell, a veteran epidemiologist who had worked in the field with Ebola. He’d been around the circuit and regarded Ferguson as a loose cannon with a history of getting things badly wrong. Tegnell asked his old boss Johan Giesecke, 70, to come out of retirement to help. Both had been scarred by the swine flu panic where a Sweden-wide vaccination campaign ended up in side-effects, scandal and recrimination. The debacle profoundly shaped Sweden’s Covid policy.
Giesecke could recall Ferguson’s previous work from the top of his head. Like foot-and-mouth disease. ‘They thought 50,000 would die. How many did? 177’. And then Ferguson’s work with bird flu: Ferguson warned that 200m could die. It ended up being 455. Four years after that it was swine flu and the prognosis was 65,000 British deaths. Actual? 474. In his book The Herd, the writer Johan Anderberg says “Giesecke regarded Ferguson’s career as one long string of disastrous miscalculations - with fateful consequences”.
"Swedes can at least say they’re not guilty of the self-congratulation that they diagnose in Brits (where it was, yet again, knighthoods all round)."
I very much enjoyed reading the article - a real treat.
I don't really agree with the conclusion. The part of the West in this war has been led by the USA behind the scenes, and it was felt that a low level war over a long period would weaken a geostrategic enemy and pull it away from Western Europe. That has been a success, though not necessarily to the advantage of Western Europe to my mind.
To make clear - I am not blaming Russia's calamitous and blood-soaked invasion on the US - that was Russia's decision alone. I am saying that the US was not by any means a bystander in the events that preceded it, and has pursued its own geostrategic ambitons (though they have now changed) in its policy toward it.
But now the US has lost interest. Given this fact, if there is a peace plan, what Europe should really be doing is sweeping up the glass and breathing a sigh of relief.
Regarding the peace plan itself, it seems that what Russia still wants is for what remains of Ukraine to be a weakened, non-NATO aligned country - very similar to its original doctrine. The invasion was an absolutely insane way to go about this - really it failed as soon as they didn't reach Kiev. The outcome was always going to be that Ukraine would be fortified and on a path to NATO accession.
The only solution I can think of that could possibly satisfy Russia is a new country, Eastern Ukraine, to border Russia. It would include Russia's current territorial gains in the war, and Ukraine would have to give up more in the North. The state would be nominally autonomous but would essentially be a Russian protectorate.
In return, the rest Ukraine would be free from territorial dispute, and allowed to join both the EU and NATO.
So Russia would have a buffer, Western Europe would have a buffer, and hopefully that would be a basis upon which peace could be restored.
Thanks. I’m sure the West and Ukraine would grudgingly accept a ceasefire on current lines, like Korea.
But, a proposal which requires Ukraine to surrender its fortress belts, and partly disarm, is simply a pause before renewed war.
Yes, I think so too, and that would already be far more than they should accept in a just world.
But since Russia seems absolutely set on its buffer state, why not create one. It must not be all of Ukraine. But a part of Ukraine running along the Russian border, with a capital and a President, and elections of a sort, seems viable to me. It would mean that according to the maps at least, Russia wouldn't have 'gained' territory, just created Eastern Ukraine.
In exchange for the giving up of land into Eastern Ukraine, Ukraine would get assent to join NATO - how could this be refused if Russia had its buffer state?
Why not a buffer state in Russia?
All the way to the Ukraine/Republic of China Border
Yes, the buffer state could be within Russia, but I don't think Putin could possibly sell a territorial loss, so clearly he'd never go for it.
Yes it's a £150,000 bill but the estate is worth over £1 million - the tax rate is about 12%..
But there is something inherently (if you pardon the pun) unjust about inheritance tax. You are taxed all your life and then taxed when you die. Even though most people will never pay it, though many will be close to touch it with property, it feels instinctively wrong and is why it is largely disliked.
It was Osborne who turned around the fortunes of the floundering Conservative opposition with commitment on Inheritance Tax.
This is what is always said but it is not really true. For the vast majority troubled by IHT their major asset is their house on which they will have a substantial gain from the time that they bought it. And they have paid no tax on that gain at all. Unless they have bought an annuity the next largest asset is likely to be pension funds. On which they have not only not paid tax but had tax relief. If they own a business then there will be unrealised (and untaxed) capital gains on heritable assets and goodwill. The taxed income people complain about is likely to be a relatively modest contributor to the estate because it is bloody difficult to have meaningful savings out of taxed income in this country, thus maintaining the financial dominance of our ruling class.
If people are to inherit life changing sums of largely untaxed funds I think the government (on our behalf) is due a cut.
I agree but rationality doesn't help much with this one. IHT is a hated tax because of the image that for many people it conjures up - the government (dressed in black and cackling) levering up a coffin lid and pickpocketing the fresh corpse of the deceased.
There's somewhere where Patrick O'Brien writes of Jack Aubrey's mother-in-law as becoming unhealthily obsessed with the need to grow and maintain capital, IIRC to the degree that she ends up losing her all on dodgy investments. It does seem to have been an aspect of Regency upper/upper middle society - unsurprisingly, given the lack of social safety nets and the need to fund children - dowries for the marriageable daughters, an endowment for the one who stayed at home with widowed mum, an estate for the eldest male, university/professional training/an army ensigncy for the 2nd and later boys. I don't suppose that that thinking has quite surviced, but maybe people are used to not having to pay tax on their lottery prizes, and the parental house is their only way to win big [edit] capital wise ...
The more I think about it the more the Tory allowancve of a residential NRB seems harmful, quite apart from pandering to their target voters (and leaving other folk with other property or no children/grandchildren out in the cold) It only encourages people to think of houses even more as investments, only they are tax free ones as DAvidL points out. In taxation terms, given the rates of increase, owning a house in many areas has been like having a whole extra ISA allowance - or two or three - to yourself just because you have a house.
Today’s Rawnsley is on the under-commented efforts by a handful of Lords to filibuster the nationally popular AD legislation, and the wider challenges the HoL is giving the government:
The passage of time has turned the peers, especially those of the Tory variety, bolshie. As the government has become increasingly unpopular, the Lords have waxed more aggressive about attacking Labour’s programme. They are much more powerful from a constitutional point of view than is generally appreciated because they can eat up huge amounts of parliamentary time and ministerial energy.
Almost entirely unreported in the media, anti-government peers have been dragging out proceedings and bogging down legislation for months. Labour might have a massive majority in the Commons, but in the bloated Lords it has just a quarter of the members eligible to attend proceedings.
Law and precedent are supposed to curb the unelected house’s capacity to make mischief. The Salisbury Convention holds that peers should not thwart a government when it is fulfilling a manifesto commitment, as Labour is with both the employment rights bill and the removal of the hereditaries.
Its the same sort of nonsense that we saw at the time of Brexit when May was trying to negotiate a deal. One thousand reasons for saying no and never a yes. Wrecking amendments to prevent implementation. Thankfully, all of the main protagonists in that case lost their seats but that doesn't happen with the House of Lords.
This kind of thing pisses me off despite being no friend of the Labour government and being highly ambivalent about assisted dying. Labour should get on with abolishing the House of Lords. Who do these plonkers think they are?
Its the 'plonkers' that are making sure the bill isn't a bag of spanners, that starts off with vague intentions and letting the courts determine what should be done by lawmakers. Experience in Canada and parts of Europe show that those in charge of overseeing these things are not safe to be given the permission to fill in the gaps. What started out for those with a terminal illness and near death has been expanded to mental illness and I quote "grievous and irremediable" conditions. Which is wide open to interpretation it can be anything.
If we are going to have a law on something like this (which having parents with severe dementia who would have wished, if they had been able to make it clear at the time to have been put to sleep long before their current state) which i dont disagree with, but the detail is phenomenally important.
The House of Commons doesnt do detail properly.
It was a private members bill and the initial debate time was laughably short. Many MPs didn't even get a proper chance to speak.
And then it wouldnt have judicial oversight, and then it would etc. It was a strategic masterplan in how to mess up something that has broad support.
Because it was a matter of conscience, it had to be a Private Member's bill. It has been a similar process to David Steel's 1967 Abortion Act which had and has widespread support.
But the legislation has been massively revised, no?
Yes
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 lowered the limit for most abortions from 28 to 24 weeks but also removed the previous "absolute" limits on late-term abortions.
Then in August 2022 there was a change to allow eligible women in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy to take abortion pills at home.
Legislation like this often changes with evolving culture and technology.
I'm talking about assisted dying (suicide).
I said It has been a similar process to David Steel's 1967 Abortion Act which had and has widespread support.
And you said But the legislation has been massively revised, no
So I thought we were talking about the 1967 Abortion Act.
But if you are talking about the Assisted Dying Bill, then yes - it has been massively revised for the better in the Commons during the 90 hours in Committee.
You don't think it has benefitted from any revisions from the Lords then?
Yes - the Lords have a role in improving it further. That's good governance.
What is not good is for a small minority of people who oppose the Bill trying to talk it out of time by tabling and talking to an enormous number of amendments. They are not trying to improve it. They are trying to kill it against the wishes of the Commons, the public and a clear majority in the Lords.
There’s not been a public debate on it. You cannot claim the bill has public support when the public is not informed about the details. You can only say the principle is looked on favourably.
Perhaps the more the details are known the less the support will be.
Such a key change as this needs a full public debate, IMV, not a private members bill.
In a May 2025 YouGov poll, 75% of Britons supported assisted dying in principle, and 73% supported the bill as it stood. Another poll in March 2024 by Opinium Research found 75% of respondents would support making assisted dying lawful.
The 75% support for legalizing assisted dying is consistent across various political parties, including Conservative, Labour, and Liberal Democrat voters.
A poll of disabled people found that 79% would support a change in the law to allow assisted dying for terminally ill adults.
There is a bit of party political divide on the issue, while 80% of Labour voters and 72% of LDs support the assisted dying bill as it stands only 71% of Conservative voters and 64% of Reform voters do. Even if majorities of all voters support assisted dying, at least for the terminally ill https://yougov.co.uk/health/articles/52413-support-for-assisted-dying-unmoved-by-the-debate
“while” 72% of LDs support the bill “only” 71% of Conservatives do….
Do you actually read the stuff you post on here before clicking “post”?
If you think that is bad, just wait until you see the bar chart ...
And what about those that feel punished for paying for the children of others?
Whatever happened to civic society?
I read an article today suggesting the ills of society can all be laid at Thatcher's door including "right to buy" leading to today's housing crisis, the privatisation of utilities leading us to Thames Water and her making of Tony Blair and his turning the Labour Party we know and despise today, into a Thatcher-lite vehicle to promote a capitalist society.
Most of it resonated with me.
The right to buy, whether right or wrong, was not the problem. Failure to build in line with needs is the problem. Failure of regulation not privatisation, whether right or wrong, has led to Thames. Neither Thatcher nor Blair created a capitalist society. Neither derogated from our fundamentally social democrat version of capitalist society.
'But it has now, however, became incontrovertible that West Midlands Police’s account of their decision making is pure fiction. The Dutch police made clear to the Sunday Times that every element of the claims about Maccabi violence was not just wrong, but so very wrong that it has to be seen as deliberately distorted.
West Midlands Police said, for example, that Maccabi fans threw members of the public into the river. Dutch police said yesterday: “We have evidence of one case [where] you can hear someone say, ‘Yell “free Palestine” and then you can leave, then we’ll get you out’.” West Midlands said Dutch police had been forced to deploy 5,000 officers. The Dutch police response: “In total we came to 1,200, in different shifts, though. About 1,200 were deployed. I read 5,000 police. That number is so not true.” West Midlands said Maccabi fans were “highly organised, skilled fighters with a serious desire and will to fight with police and opposing groups”. Dutch police said: “The Amsterdam police does not recognise the claim.”
Even more bizarrely, West Midlands police said that 200 of the Maccabi fans were “linked” to the IDF. Of course they were; army service is compulsory in Israel. And in any case, as the Dutch police said: “We did not investigate any IDF backgrounds … most young men in Israel have some connection to the IDF, but we did not investigate it and we don’t have a number for that.”'
And what about those that feel punished for paying for the children of others?
Whatever happened to civic society?
I read an article today suggesting the ills of society can all be laid at Thatcher's door including "right to buy" leading to today's housing crisis, the privatisation of utilities leading us to Thames Water and her making of Tony Blair and his turning the Labour Party we know and despise today, into a Thatcher-lite vehicle to promote a capitalist society.
Most of it resonated with me.
The right to buy, whether right or wrong, was not the problem. Failure to build in line with needs is the problem. Failure of regulation not privatisation, whether right or wrong, has led to Thames. Neither Thatcher nor Blair created a capitalist society. Neither derogated from our fundamentally social democrat version of capitalist society.
But Mrs T didn't let the councils recycle the income from house sales into more houses.
And what about those that feel punished for paying for the children of others?
Whatever happened to civic society?
I read an article today suggesting the ills of society can all be laid at Thatcher's door including "right to buy" leading to today's housing crisis, the privatisation of utilities leading us to Thames Water and her making of Tony Blair and his turning the Labour Party we know and despise today, into a Thatcher-lite vehicle to promote a capitalist society.
Most of it resonated with me.
That’s too facile. What was the counter proposal to Thatcher in 1979? More strikes, more propping up failing industry? And Thatcher very much believed in helping people who needed help, just that she also believed people should do what they could for themselves.
Personally I blame credit cards. People now live a higher standard of living than they can actually afford. And it’s affected the national political approach too. Thatcher was determined to do two things - squeeze inflation out of the economy and balance the books. Now we have endemic budget deficits. I think our current crop,of politicos have been brought up with budget deficits and have normalised them.
And what about those that feel punished for paying for the children of others?
Whatever happened to civic society?
I read an article today suggesting the ills of society can all be laid at Thatcher's door including "right to buy" leading to today's housing crisis, the privatisation of utilities leading us to Thames Water and her making of Tony Blair and his turning the Labour Party we know and despise today, into a Thatcher-lite vehicle to promote a capitalist society.
Most of it resonated with me.
The right to buy, whether right or wrong, was not the problem. Failure to build in line with needs is the problem. Failure of regulation not privatisation, whether right or wrong, has led to Thames. Neither Thatcher nor Blair created a capitalist society. Neither derogated from our fundamentally social democrat version of capitalist society.
But Mrs T didn't let the councils recycle the income from house sales into more houses.
Those houses still exist though.
Planning restrictions introduced in the 1940s are why we do not have sufficient houses. And why we have NEVER post war built homes at the rate we did pre war.
Comments
@Gardenwalker I have messaged you and linked you to an instagram account from a guy who is spearing Farage. The post you want is "Nigel Farage doesn't want you to hear this".
Ministers could intervene over fears sale of heavily indebted firm could give Beijing power to ‘switch off the taps’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/11/22/ministers-prepared-to-block-chinese-takeover-thames-water/ (£££)
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115599428464496784
TL/DR; Zero gratitude; Sleepy Joe's fault; Europe buys Russian oil; The Rest is History podcast.
No one can accuse Farage of anything dodgy, but they can, as you say question his intentions regarding indisputable evidence that is already in the public domain.
The government should simply take over Thames Water.
Pensions are different: it’s an incentive to save so makes no sense to tax during the owner’s lifetime. But they should be treated as any other financial asset on death (perhaps with an exemption for a spouse or partner as often you have a single pension supporting a couple)
“Nice to see you are going to meet your NATO commitments in future. What are you doing about the last 20 years?”
Personally I would be replacing all property based taxes with a single higher annual charge which would provide adequate incentives for people to downsize as they get older.
Which begs the question about whom that debt is owed to, why it should still be owed, and the extent to which the government is willing to support creditors even unto self-harm.
As with much of Uk life, there’s a bunch of so-called rules which we have designed seemingly to escalate national decline.
But it makes no sense for a huge asset to be capital gains tax free as that distorts investment incentives (encourages over investment in non productive assets)
But you need rollover relief because otherwise you constrain the ability to move houses as required
There is no philosophical reason why someone downsizing should get a massive capital gains tax free windfall
Now, although I believe Nathan Gill deserved all he got, I can't help pondering that it was his incredible naivity and terminal idiocy that has landed him where his is. I feel sorry for his wife and for his children who will miss his paternal presence for five years. It is a personal catastrophe, but a personal catastrophe that someone with significantly greater sophistication might have been able to pull off without similar consequences.
We had low inflation regardless, as a result of China’s emergence into the global economy.
The sell-off of infrastructure has because the Uk has decided to run a chronic trading deficit, in turn because the public has generally voted for consumption now versus investment for later.
From a macro perspective I should move into a property half the size and release the surplus capital to pay down debt and invest in equities
Not necessarily a terrible idea unto itself.
Equally if we had built enough houses to actually house our population prices wouldn't be as high as they are...
It shouldn't make any difference though. Ukraine cannot accept and we should continue to support them. Indeed we should extend our support and dig deep into our pockets if need be.
What great value the license fee is
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpq4jv293d5o
There is a niche point where it does seem to unfairly hit people - which is when people split up and the new family ends up having 3/4/5 children but that really is a minor amendment..
I'm told it's enormously popular in Germany.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GEor9yJb8Q0
In all seriousness, the BBC shouldn’t be pushing an agenda.
Humanity doesn’t survive if people don’t have children anymore.
As a society we seem happy stuffing the mouths of old people with gold, but begrudge any pennies distributed toward mothers and families.
We should be changing the tax system to make it cheaper for oldies to downsize early (and cost more in tax of they don't), freeing up family homes for, well, families.
I read an article today suggesting the ills of society can all be laid at Thatcher's door including "right to buy" leading to today's housing crisis, the privatisation of utilities leading us to Thames Water and her making of Tony Blair and his turning the Labour Party we know and despise today, into a Thatcher-lite vehicle to promote a capitalist society.
Most of it resonated with me.
And people wonder why trust in the BBC has declined…
But since Russia seems absolutely set on its buffer state, why not create one. It must not be all of Ukraine. But a part of Ukraine running along the Russian border, with a capital and a President, and elections of a sort, seems viable to me. It would mean that according to the maps at least, Russia wouldn't have 'gained' territory, just created Eastern Ukraine.
In exchange for the giving up of land into Eastern Ukraine, Ukraine would get assent to join NATO - how could this be refused if Russia had its buffer state?
Quite enough of our essential infrastructure is already foreign owned.
That said, I think he might agree with me that toughness is an advantage in war -- as are so many other things. The US has found that even diversity can be an advantage. The code talkers may be the most famous example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker
There's another that has amused me for years. During the Vietnam War a former gang leader from DC turned out to be an exceptional soldier in city battles.
And so on.
All the way to the Ukraine/Republic of China Border
" .....Hello Mrs Rosenboum. Are you married?
'Yes I'm Married'
'Have you any Children?'
Yes I have 14 children!
'14 children!!'
'Well I love my husband'
'Well I love my cigar but I take it out once in a while'
President Brezhnev calls Reagan and says to him "our Scientists have discovered a newspaper from the year 2000 and it says the USA is no longer a superpower". "Uncannily" replies Reagan "our scientists have also discovered a newspaper from the year 2000 and it reports of skirmishes on the Finland- China border".
Sweden’s Covid response was in the hands not of politicians but a public health agency run by Anders Tegnell, a veteran epidemiologist who had worked in the field with Ebola. He’d been around the circuit and regarded Ferguson as a loose cannon with a history of getting things badly wrong. Tegnell asked his old boss Johan Giesecke, 70, to come out of retirement to help. Both had been scarred by the swine flu panic where a Sweden-wide vaccination campaign ended up in side-effects, scandal and recrimination. The debacle profoundly shaped Sweden’s Covid policy.
Giesecke could recall Ferguson’s previous work from the top of his head. Like foot-and-mouth disease. ‘They thought 50,000 would die. How many did? 177’. And then Ferguson’s work with bird flu: Ferguson warned that 200m could die. It ended up being 455. Four years after that it was swine flu and the prognosis was 65,000 British deaths. Actual? 474. In his book The Herd, the writer Johan Anderberg says “Giesecke regarded Ferguson’s career as one long string of disastrous miscalculations - with fateful consequences”.
"Swedes can at least say they’re not guilty of the self-congratulation that they diagnose in Brits (where it was, yet again, knighthoods all round)."
https://frasernelson.substack.com/p/sweden-covid-and-lockdown-theory
British administered Eastern Ukraine, incorporating Moscow.
But 'events' can also be beneficial.
Such as a dozen years of ZIRP were for those who had mortgages in 2008.
The more I think about it the more the Tory allowancve of a residential NRB seems harmful, quite apart from pandering to their target voters (and leaving other folk with other property or no children/grandchildren out in the cold) It only encourages people to think of houses even more as investments, only they are tax free ones as DAvidL points out. In taxation terms, given the rates of increase, owning a house in many areas has been like having a whole extra ISA allowance - or two or three - to yourself just because you have a house.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/dear-rachel-reeves-i-ve-worked-hard-to-earn-125k-i-cannot-take-any-more-tax-rises/ar-AA1QYTF9?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=692344c5de6240ecb24792830f4722a6&ei=28
Failure of regulation not privatisation, whether right or wrong, has led to Thames.
Neither Thatcher nor Blair created a capitalist society. Neither derogated from our fundamentally social democrat version of capitalist society.
https://x.com/stephenpollard/status/1992639713266581971
'But it has now, however, became incontrovertible that West Midlands Police’s account of their decision making is pure fiction. The Dutch police made clear to the Sunday Times that every element of the claims about Maccabi violence was not just wrong, but so very wrong that it has to be seen as deliberately distorted.
West Midlands Police said, for example, that Maccabi fans threw members of the public into the river. Dutch police said yesterday: “We have evidence of one case [where] you can hear someone say, ‘Yell “free Palestine” and then you can leave, then we’ll get you out’.” West Midlands said Dutch police had been forced to deploy 5,000 officers. The Dutch police response: “In total we came to 1,200, in different shifts, though. About 1,200 were deployed. I read 5,000 police. That number is so not true.” West Midlands said Maccabi fans were “highly organised, skilled fighters with a serious desire and will to fight with police and opposing groups”. Dutch police said: “The Amsterdam police does not recognise the claim.”
Even more bizarrely, West Midlands police said that 200 of the Maccabi fans were “linked” to the IDF. Of course they were; army service is compulsory in Israel. And in any case, as the Dutch police said: “We did not investigate any IDF backgrounds … most young men in Israel have some connection to the IDF, but we did not investigate it and we don’t have a number for that.”'
She’s right to feel unfairly targeted.
https://x.com/secretsqrl123/status/1992424489141911571
as a voting republican i can say that the other 75% of republicans and i think this "deal" is shit and we are not voting next year..
i am not and will never be a dem, but i sure as shit will NEVER support you again..
the US is not a country of COWARDS like YOU....
we want a winner......
and we stand by our friends... YOU have lost your fucking way!!!
fuck you rubio and fuck trump.
you MAY want to check your polling and see that you are dropping FAST... pick the side of good or sink with the ship that is trump...
Personally I blame credit cards. People now live a higher standard of living than they can actually afford. And it’s affected the national political approach too. Thatcher was determined to do two things - squeeze inflation out of the economy and balance the books. Now we have endemic budget deficits. I think our current crop,of politicos have been brought up with budget deficits and have normalised them.
Planning restrictions introduced in the 1940s are why we do not have sufficient houses. And why we have NEVER post war built homes at the rate we did pre war.