politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Trump’s big pre-Iowa gamble: pulling out of Thursday’s TV d

@JournoStephen: Cameron says Corbyn wants a "foreign policy by press release". If only it was that coherent. #pmqs

Patrick said:

I wonder if Osborne and / or CCHQ read PB. Maybe the upcoming Budget will surprise on the side of common sense / less politicking. Maybe not.

Next budget will be all about the great Lloyds giveaway.

The_Apocalypse said:

If you re-read my post again, I said most White British people. I'd be intrigued if you could find statistics that found that most White British people in the country have partners or spouses from a BME background. Given that they outnumber BMEs quite significantly, I don't think that's actually possible.

Yes, that's called stacking the deck in your favour. It's more important to look at the proportion of people marrying outside of their own race compared to ethnic make up of the country. Honestly, you are dancing on the head of a pin here trying to avoid the fact that in Pakistani and Muslim communities women who marry outside of their communities are shunned and condemned. There may be the odd case where it doesn't happen, but it's quite rare. In other groups, women of East Asian, Indian, West Indian and African backgrounds very rarely experience the same treatment if they intermarry. Either you accept this fact or you don't. Clearly you are in the latter group, trying to delude yourself that there isn't a huge integration problem in the UK wrt to Muslims and intermarriage is just a symptom of a much larger problem.

Pulpstar said:

Patrick said:

I wonder if Osborne and / or CCHQ read PB. Maybe the upcoming Budget will surprise on the side of common sense / less politicking. Maybe not.

Next budget will be all about the great Lloyds giveaway.

The next budget should be about cutting the higher tax rate down to 40p and giving back me my personal allowance.

I should do some threads on it.

So discrimination is unacceptable and taking additional benefits that women but not get men is somehow also unacceptable?

Angus Robertson off this week, usually better.

Casino_Royale said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Someone apply a damp towel on Casino Royale's head.

Nusrat Ghani asking a question about defence

Two of my favourites? Oh boy.

I think I might log-off and go and have a cold shower.

She got in a kick about the Lady Nugee and her accepting money from Challenger II tank chasing solicitors.

His questions are far too long. I always forget his point.

DavidL said:

So discrimination is unacceptable and taking additional benefits that women but not get men is somehow also unacceptable?

Angus Robertson off this week, usually better.

TOPPING said:

Sandpit said:

TOPPING said:

Back on safe territory for Yemen.

WHO THE F*CK CARES (or knows) ABOUT YEMEN??

I care about Yemen! It's 500 miles from here and they're all still lobbing bombs around!

500 miles? Eh? Yemen not Bremen.

Is this another Shakespeare reference I'm not getting?

Sandpit's from the Middle East (UAE I think)

MaxPB said:

Labour can't go on tax, they have such a poor record on tax avoidance and not prosecuting tax evasion that any attempt by them to hurt the government is going to fail. One thing this government have been good at is closing loopholes and fixing the tax net so it is much more difficult for companies to avoid tax. The diverted profits tax is interesting, but it will only work if it is levied with absolute ruthlessness.

Yes, it was rather entertaining to watch McDonnell going on about the Google settlement.

Question - how much tax did Labour get from Google for the period they were in office?

And how much tax has this Govt got from Google for the period Labour were in office?

Dan Hodges making a very good point about the shambolic and fragmented Leave campaign thus far:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12124650/If-leaving-the-EU-is-so-important-why-do-the-Right-have-so-little-to-say-about-it.html

Let's hope that someone credible steps up to front things and pull together the right people and arguments.

TOPPING said:

Sandpit said:

TOPPING said:

Back on safe territory for Yemen.

WHO THE F*CK CARES (or knows) ABOUT YEMEN??

I care about Yemen! It's 500 miles from here and they're all still lobbing bombs around!

500 miles? Eh? Yemen not Bremen.

Is this another Shakespeare reference I'm not getting?

He lives in Bahrain iirc.

FrancisUrquhart said:

Not watching, but sounds like JJ had another barn stormer at PMQ's.

He took a step into grown-up politics with tax (google and bedroom). But couldn't sustain it. There was no sense that he was even interested in the principle, save because his SPADS had told him to lead on it. And so was walloped by Dave.

He was much more passionate about, and relapsed into discussing Yemen, which of course is on his safe territory of being a far off place which no one (apart from @Sandpit) cares about but which students and Islington lefties, no doubt, get very agitated about.

AndyJS said:

Nusrat Ghani (MP for Wealden) is always making excellent contributions. Maybe she could be cabinet material in a few years.

Big interview in the Standard with her this week.

I wish Ros Urwin would get her old soundness back, she used to be fun.

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

Sandpit said:

TOPPING said:

Back on safe territory for Yemen.

WHO THE F*CK CARES (or knows) ABOUT YEMEN??

I care about Yemen! It's 500 miles from here and they're all still lobbing bombs around!

500 miles? Eh? Yemen not Bremen.

Is this another Shakespeare reference I'm not getting?

Sandpit's from the Middle East (UAE I think)

Yes, me and 150,000 other Brits. It very much in the news over here, has been for the last year or more.

foxinsoxuk said:

TOPPING said:

Sandpit said:

TOPPING said:

Back on safe territory for Yemen.

WHO THE F*CK CARES (or knows) ABOUT YEMEN??

I care about Yemen! It's 500 miles from here and they're all still lobbing bombs around!

500 miles? Eh? Yemen not Bremen.

Is this another Shakespeare reference I'm not getting?

Sandpit works in Dubai as I recall, so about 500 miles from Yemen indeed.

ahhhhh. Well then @Sandpit has every right to be concerned and to bring me up on it, for which many apologies.

Caroline Flint making the point so much better than Corbyn.

Did Corbyn ask questions from Jeff, Sally and Neil on Google Tax, Calais children (Whilst looking very serious no doubt) and some other subject whilst Dave replied back with various tractor stats and stuff about how awful Labour would be ?

I didn't watch it but I can guess how it went.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Seriously, Caroline Flint thinks cash = profit?

Numpty

Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.

''From talking to friends who also have a BME background, their parents are 'okay' with them marrying only 'certain' races outside of their ethnic group (and in many cases, it's only really one race outside of their ethnic group). ''

Waaaaaayyyyyycists!

I see the Guardian is getting its knickers in a twist over Dave saying the following about Jezza and McDonnell:

'They met with a bunch of migrants in Calais'

As ever, Dave's hung the bait out and the stupid lefties can't resist.

FrancisUrquhart said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Seriously, Caroline Flint thinks cash = profit?

Numpty

Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.

I think it raises the question of why they are bothering to sell all this stuff if they are not making a turn on it. The only sensible inference is that the profits are being hidden by accounting mechanisms and as a result the tax is being avoided. The government has been quite radical in seeking to address this but the results, in comparison with the turnover, are frankly disappointing.

taffys said:

''From talking to friends who also have a BME background, their parents are 'okay' with them marrying only 'certain' races outside of their ethnic group (and in many cases, it's only really one race outside of their ethnic group). ''

Waaaaaayyyyyycists!

I personally would think of their parents as racists. Why, do you think I'm wrong?

foxinsoxuk said:

TOPPING said:

Sandpit said:

TOPPING said:

Back on safe territory for Yemen.

WHO THE F*CK CARES (or knows) ABOUT YEMEN??

I care about Yemen! It's 500 miles from here and they're all still lobbing bombs around!

500 miles? Eh? Yemen not Bremen.

Is this another Shakespeare reference I'm not getting?

Sandpit works in Dubai as I recall, so about 500 miles from Yemen indeed.

Yep! A few months back the UAE lost 40 soldiers in an attack in Yemen, it was the first time this 44 year old country had ever lost men in numbers while abroad. There were three days of national mourning and the radio stations all played classical music for two weeks.

While most of Europe is concentrating on Syria, most of the Gulf are concentrating on Yemen as the seat of terrorism.

There is a trial ongoing in Abu Dhabi now of 41 Emiratis charged with sedition, for which they face the death penalty. They are accused of plotting to bomb AD and Dubai, to try and overthrow the government in favour of an Islamic caphiliate.
http://www.thenational.ae/uae/courts/terrorists-planned-to-bomb-mall

TOPPING said:

foxinsoxuk said:

TOPPING said:

Sandpit said:

TOPPING said:

Back on safe territory for Yemen.

WHO THE F*CK CARES (or knows) ABOUT YEMEN??

I care about Yemen! It's 500 miles from here and they're all still lobbing bombs around!

500 miles? Eh? Yemen not Bremen.

Is this another Shakespeare reference I'm not getting?

Sandpit works in Dubai as I recall, so about 500 miles from Yemen indeed.

ahhhhh. Well then @Sandpit has every right to be concerned and to bring me up on it, for which many apologies.

FrancisUrquhart said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Seriously, Caroline Flint thinks cash = profit?

Numpty

Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.

The issue is that multinationals in the EU can establish anywhere in the single market to do business. Duh! That's the whole point of the single market. No wonder then that they establish in low tax jurisdictions. Their subsidiaries in higher tax ones have to pay all sorts of fees and charges back to the low tax parent - for brand use, for finance charges, for R&D support, for marketing support, for legal support, for IT charges - blah blah blah . (Believe me I lived this shit all day, you can easily dream up a very defendable set of charges that wipe out all your local profit). What higher tax jurisdictions need to do to be able to push local profits (and therefore taxes) up is to attack the basis for intra-company charging. Tax authorities if they were aggressive enough could challenge the true financial benefit of, say, R&D. Is that really, really worth £0.15 per cup of Starbucks or £0.15 per engine search? Bollocks it is. They could impute profits to be taxed.

Or...even better...they could reduce their corporation tax rates and compete.

DavidL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Seriously, Caroline Flint thinks cash = profit?

Numpty

Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.

I think it raises the question of why they are bothering to sell all this stuff if they are not making a turn on it. The only sensible inference is that the profits are being hidden by accounting mechanisms and as a result the tax is being avoided. The government has been quite radical in seeking to address this but the results, in comparison with the turnover, are frankly disappointing.

In the case of Amazon, at least, they just don't make any money. I think HMRC should give them a winding up order soon if they don't start making money.

If we REALLY want to extract the full amount of tax from Google, Starbucks etc all we need to do is to leave the EU. Simples!

Does the SNPs Chris Law have the longest hair of a male MP? He's got a little pony tail.

I wonder why Labour has lost trust from the white working class? Perhaps doing their nut over the use of the word bunch should give them a clue.

Would it be OK to say 'The PM met with a bunch of bankers'?

Patrick said:

If we REALLY want to extract the full amount of tax from Google, Starbucks etc all we need to do is to leave the EU. Simples!

No, it's even easier than that. Pro-rate the operating profit margin to stated UK revenue as a proportion of their global revenue. Tax that figure at 25%.

The_Apocalypse said:

taffys said:

''From talking to friends who also have a BME background, their parents are 'okay' with them marrying only 'certain' races outside of their ethnic group (and in many cases, it's only really one race outside of their ethnic group). ''

Waaaaaayyyyyycists!

I personally would think of their parents as racists. Why, do you think I'm wrong?

The number of relationships between black and Asian people is vanishingly small, even in trendy metropolitan areas.

watford30 said:

her taxpayer funded house?

Which one?

Danny565 said:

Goodness, are Labour really going to make the PMQs story the innocuous "bunch of migrants" comment, rather than going with the much more fertile attack of a millionaire PM saying a 3% tax rate for a multinational is a success?

Seems that way....Bunch.....SWARRRRMMMMMM....Red Doors.....Festival Wristbands....all top of the voters concerns.

MaxPB said:

DavidL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Seriously, Caroline Flint thinks cash = profit?

Numpty

Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.

I think it raises the question of why they are bothering to sell all this stuff if they are not making a turn on it. The only sensible inference is that the profits are being hidden by accounting mechanisms and as a result the tax is being avoided. The government has been quite radical in seeking to address this but the results, in comparison with the turnover, are frankly disappointing.

In the case of Amazon, at least, they just don't make any money. I think HMRC should give them a winding up order soon if they don't start making money.

Well, I wonder. According to this US companies have something like $2.1 trillion of unrepatriated profits. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/u-s-companies-are-stashing-2-1-trillion-overseas-to-avoid-taxes

If I was an American I would be seriously ticked at that but these are profits made in Europe and elsewhere on which no meaningful tax has been paid at all because the profit has been diverted to countries with zero or minimal CT. Some of that profit was made here and the profits generated here should have created a tax charge.

George Osborne has been a world leader in pursuing this behaviour and seeking payment. But if Google, with their turnover, end up paying £13m a year he has failed.

DavidL said:

For those thinking that the Tories might get second place in Scotland the Scottish Parliament website has quite a useful election results analysis section including this page: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Electionresults/2011 election/2_Share_of_Constituency_Regional_votes.pdf
Adding the constituency and regional votes together Labour got almost exactly twice the Tory vote in 2011.
The trend for Labour is terrible. In the constituency vote they have got:
1999 38.8% 2003 34.6% 2007 32.1% 2011 31.7%
...... I think that Labour will indeed fall, probably to the mid 20s, and that the Tories will rise, possibly to the high teens, but cross over needs a total Labour meltdown. Not impossible but not at all likely.

You omit the GE figs. 2010 SLAB got 42% 2015 SLAB got 24%.
Now if SLAB have slumped further, then circa 20% or lower is not impossible.

AndyJS said:

The_Apocalypse said:

taffys said:

''From talking to friends who also have a BME background, their parents are 'okay' with them marrying only 'certain' races outside of their ethnic group (and in many cases, it's only really one race outside of their ethnic group). ''

Waaaaaayyyyyycists!

I personally would think of their parents as racists. Why, do you think I'm wrong?

The number of relationships between black and Asian people is vanishingly small, even in trendy metropolitan areas.

Yep, I agree. This is why I say reading into intra-relationships as a sign of intergration isn't cut and dried. I find on both Black and Asians sides, from talking to my own family, and my friends that their relatives are open to them dating a someone white, but not someone Asian or Black. I find this to be quite sad.

watford30 said:

Scott_P said:

@ParlyApp: .@YvetteCooperMP says "inappropriate" language from PM "bunch of migrants" - Speaker says "not disorderly, not unparliamentary"

Having whined so much about the plight of immigrants and refugees, did Cooper ever take any in to live in her taxpayer funded house?

Maybe she has had to take in a paid lodger due to being reduced to a 1 wage household?

''George Osborne has been a world leader in pursuing this behaviour and seeking payment. But if Google, with their turnover, end up paying £13m a year he has failed.''

It wasn't the amount it was Osborne's triumphalist attitude, I think.

Richard_Nabavi said:

Would it be OK to say 'The PM met with a bunch of bankers'?

Surely they know it's a Wunch of Bankers?

SeanT said:

Danny565 said:

Goodness, are Labour really going to make the PMQs story the innocuous "bunch of migrants" comment, rather than going with the much more fertile attack of a millionaire PM saying a 3% tax rate for a mega-corporation is a success?

Yes.

*chortles*

I believe I suggested earlier that Labour aren't very good at politics.

TOPPING said:

chestnut said:

The leftish outrage at 'bunch of migrants' will only consolidate the thinking of the majority who are weary of immigration and all the problems being associated with it.

yep. Political correctness gone mad and immigration in one soundbite. Cons up a percentage point.

You do wonder whether it's a the No 10 tactic to hang out a comment that the left will get wildly excited and angry about while the majority will think the PM has a point. I suspect not; it probably just comes through habit.

david_herdson said:

I thought that was quite a smart move for the sixth question: avoided Cameron getting in a cheap slam-dunk against which Corbyn couldn't reply.

Except Cameron had already had those on the previous questions

@paulwaugh: No10 on "lab rats":" It would be helpful if Sadiq Khan didn't issue hysterical tweets"

DavidL said:

MaxPB said:

DavidL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Seriously, Caroline Flint thinks cash = profit?

Numpty

Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.

I think it raises the question of why they are bothering to sell all this stuff if they are not making a turn on it. The only sensible inference is that the profits are being hidden by accounting mechanisms and as a result the tax is being avoided. The government has been quite radical in seeking to address this but the results, in comparison with the turnover, are frankly disappointing.

In the case of Amazon, at least, they just don't make any money. I think HMRC should give them a winding up order soon if they don't start making money.

Well, I wonder. According to this US companies have something like $2.1 trillion of unrepatriated profits. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/u-s-companies-are-stashing-2-1-trillion-overseas-to-avoid-taxes

If I was an American I would be seriously ticked at that but these are profits made in Europe and elsewhere on which no meaningful tax has been paid at all because the profit has been diverted to countries with zero or minimal CT. Some of that profit was made here and the profits generated here should have created a tax charge.

George Osborne has been a world leader in pursuing this behaviour and seeking payment. But if Google, with their turnover, end up paying £13m a year he has failed.

The big problem with recent developments in the US is that these companies just hold the cash and do nothing with it. For years Apple didn't pay a dividend and Steve Jobs was said to be incredibly resistant to the idea. It was only when he died and Cook took over the job that Apple has begun paying a dividend. They have mountains of cash higher than the Rockies. Microsoft have taken a different view, they spend their overseas money on buying useless companies like Skype and Nokia's mobile division then write down the goodwill. Google, who knows what they really do, but they don't give it to shareholders or invest it in any meaningful way.

I'm an economic liberal and believe that it is better for companies to spend cash rather than have it taxed and then wasted by the government, corporate spending and investment has a very high multiplier effect. The issue is that they just aren't spending the money. I've brought it up in the past and I think it is the only way to get companies to spend, but we need to start looking at balance sheet taxes which can be offset by capex.

@MarcherLord1: Corbyn's Labour party proving once again that they're on the wrong side of public opinion in every single argument. #pmqs #bunch

rcs1000 said:

MaxPB said:

Patrick said:

If we REALLY want to extract the full amount of tax from Google, Starbucks etc all we need to do is to leave the EU. Simples!

No, it's even easier than that. Pro-rate the operating profit margin to stated UK revenue as a proportion of their global revenue. Tax that figure at 25%.

Yes; I think has to be the long term solution.

If the government did this then I think US companies would get their houses in order. I do wonder how the Netherlands and Luxembourg would react if practices like these were adopted to catch tax avoidance, it would basically ruin their tax avoidance industries.