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[Closed] Pricing people out of national treasures to fund corporation tax cuts

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9221081/What-can-the-Government-cut-to-make-savings.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/protest-at-kew-gardens-endangered-jobs-and-funds-reaches-50000--and-growing-9271486.html

Yay! Let the surfs watch Correy instead of going to a museum, so we can fund inheritance and corporation tax cuts!

expert Alison Wolf estimates that about half of government expenditure on skills is wasted. If the budget for this area was cut, that could save close to £2bn. If funding to research councils was reduced by a similar proportion that could save an additional £1.5bn.

People don't need an education or skills, they just need to be the good cleaners and waiters that we want them to be.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 9:45 am
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Its worse than that, under this government the serfs have been so poorly treated they've forgotten how to spell "serfs".


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 10:00 am
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If funding to research councils was reduced by a similar proportion that could save an additional £1.5bn.

Whilst they're on that subject, how about killing all the poor, that would save a load of money...


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 10:19 am
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Precisely, I'm clearly a walking manefeztation of tory policiii. Yo.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 10:20 am
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gwaelod - Member

Its worse than that, under this government the serfs have been so poorly treated they've forgotten how to spell "serfs".

It's "smurfs", you div.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 10:52 am
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I didn't see a linky to the Kew protest website. Can anyone help, please?


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 10:55 am
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It would be very English of us, if after all the cuts....we finally rioted over cuts to kew.

They can cut health, benefits and pensions....but my god...if they cut funding to the place with pretty flowers that serves nice but overpriced tea....


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 11:06 am
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Hah!


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 11:11 am
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Tom - have you contributed any of your own money to Kew and if not, why not ?


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 11:23 am
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There's more to it than flowers and tea though: centre of excellence, international reputation, historic archive and such. These things are priceless.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 11:24 am
 hora
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Trafford Council built themselves a lovely new building along with some lovely office furniture, monitors and a nice carpark etc etc etc.

Longford Park nearby has had to close its animal petting area due to council cuts.

What next? Build houses/sell off our parks to developers?..


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 11:25 am
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Government's 'austerity measures' could put English game back 50 years, claims leading Football Association figure

Awesome as that would put us at 1964, only 2 years till we win a world cup 🙂


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 11:29 am
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For every £1 in tax collected by HMRC, 48p is spent in the collection of said tax.
I think savings could be made...


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 11:37 am
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Aren't cuts to corporation tax sort of academic, as none of them pay any anyway. I thought every multinational in the world now shares the same head office, located in a flat above a bookies in Luxembourg?


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 11:47 am
 hora
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Government's 'austerity measures' could put English game back 50 years

So that'd mean cheaper football strips, gate prices etc?


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 11:54 am
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Tom - have you contributed any of your own money to Kew and if not, why not ?

I have a yearly membership, as I do for ZSL. The rest of my wife allocated pocket money goes on a yearly subscription to Nature, New Scientist and a savings account so I don't feel poor whilst I'm studying for a PhD in the future. Peasant. 😈

Once I earn more, I will donate on top of spending a fortune in their cafe. 😆


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 11:54 am
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Aren't cuts to corporation tax sort of academic, as none of them pay any anyway.

Every plumbers, builder, car mechanic etc. pays corp tax. As for the big guys getting them to pay it in the UK is better than them paying nothing here and as you say routing it elsewhere (Ireland for example is 2% lower or something like that)

Corporations/Businesses paying tax is a good thing as they are employing people. There are trade offs between direct taxation and the benefit of the business growing.

In fairness Kew gardens looks like one that could be cut if it meant saving something useful like healthcare.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 11:56 am
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In fairness, a ridiculous amount of chemicals with medical properties are derived from the amazon rainforest. Kew has a long history of botanical research in South America, hence with a little interdisciplinary research they could easily support healthcare.

Just because it's "flowers and plants" doesn't mean to say what they do isn't useful. The majority of human problems in the future are going to have environmental causes - considering that, cutting back research at a renouned institution is rather ****ing stupid.

We are a nation of accountants who value nothing that we can't easily quantify in terms of cold hard cash.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:00 pm
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In fairness Kew gardens looks like one that could be cut if it meant saving something useful like healthcare.

This is typical woolly thinking, healthcare just eats money often for diminishing returns and doesn't exist in a vacuum. Life would be sh*t if we all lived for a few months longer, but every museum, park, Kew, theater, sports venue etc had been sacrificed for it.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:01 pm
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If that is the case it should be able to fund itself by selling on the research or contracting itself to big pharma.

Edit even simple solution 2p on income tax & no C2W on higher rate tax.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:02 pm
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[i]Every plumbers, builder, car mechanic etc. pays corp tax[/i]

I think only limited companies (and similar) pay corporation tax. Everyone else pays income tax? and the rules are slightly different.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:03 pm
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Yup. The opposite side of the idiocy sprectrum is to say that all healthcare does is let people live to 90 with Alzheimers. Instead of letting the leeches die. The Romans had it right when they threw them off cliffs.

Kew is making life better for healthy people.

If that is the case it should be able to fund itself by selling on the research or contracting itself to big pharma.

Big pharma has **** all R&D cash at the moment due to diminishing returns on traditional profit makers and an unwillingness to plow billions into research that goes tits up at the Phase III stage.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:03 pm
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I think only limited companies (and similar) pay corporation tax. Everyone else pays income tax? and the rules are slightly different.

Sorry assuming that the tradies would have had the sense to go limited (most I know have) any working together will do. I paid it for 4 years as a sole trader.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:05 pm
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Time to bring this back
[img] [/img]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC_Computer

The MONIAC was approximately 2 m high, 1.2 m wide and almost 1 m deep, and consisted of a series of transparent plastic tanks and pipes which were fastened to a wooden board. Each tank represented some aspect of the UK national economy and the flow of money around the economy was illustrated by coloured water. At the top of the board was a large tank called the treasury. Water (representing money) flowed from the treasury to other tanks representing the various ways in which a country could spend its money. For example, there were tanks for health and education. To increase spending on health care a tap could be opened to drain water from the treasury to the tank which represented health spending. Water then ran further down the model to other tanks, representing other interactions in the economy. Water could be pumped back to the treasury from some of the tanks to represent taxation. Changes in tax rates were modeled by increasing or decreasing pumping speeds.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:07 pm
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Why? We have much better models than that now.

Anyhow, the Tory party have outed themselves as a bunch of counter-enlightenment religious bigots, who have no interest in science. The enlightenment and scientific research is what made this country great, not Christianity and an unhealthy aversion to education.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:08 pm
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Would love to see a proper breakdown of their accounts as to how much is spent on the science and maintaining the collection, versus costs and receipts of maintaining a tourist attraction.

Strange that the inevitable result of any mention of cuts seems to be the science, rather than the tourism? Another example of the parade of the bleeding stumps perhaps?

Edit: Not long ago they spent 3 million quid on a treetop walkway - think about how much science could have been done with that money?


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:11 pm
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Why? We have much better models than that now.

As a simple demonstration that once it's all been spent, it's all being spent. That you then need to decide between things, as a visual representation it's quite clever. Spending my days trying to represent complex information on difficult choices to people this comes out very well as a method.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:14 pm
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As a simple demonstration that once it's all been spent, it's all being spent. That you then need to decide between things, as a visual representation it's quite clever. Spending my days trying to represent complex information on difficult choices to people this comes out very well as a method.

I can think of a number of ways to save money but it involves pissing off the 60+ voter base or UKIP voters.

Cutting science and innovation is not one of them whilst cutting free attendance for Britons to museums is simply an ideological attack.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:15 pm
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we are all in this together............

turns out that the taxpayer has to subsidise shotgun licenses 150 quid a go

while unimportant things like passports and driving licenses have to pay for themselves

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/22/cameron-blasted-battle-shotgun-licence-fees


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:20 pm
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😆

The message is, we have to fund their pastimes. However the landed gentry (by divine right) won't see fit to fund the education of their underlings and they will use rhetoric and deceit to get the myopic middle classes to vote for those policies.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:21 pm
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as an example of local authority spending still out of control.. rochdale council felt that rather than have a number of disparete scattered offices it would save money putting them all in one new build eco friendly solar powered building.. it cost 26m to build, they built twice as much office space as they needed as they forgot they made 20% of staff redundant and sold off the socil housing dept.

the building was recently valued at being worth 11m.. so with the emppty space they though .. ding dong we ll move the libary into it.. great idea so they paid the libary building owner 2m quid to get out of the lease then paid 14 quid a book 14 quid a book to move the stock 200m..


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:26 pm
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turns out that the taxpayer has to subsidise shotgun licenses 150 quid a go

Figure is bullshit, because there is no unified cost - most police forces don't have a figure, those that do come up with wildly differing figures, the cheapest seems to administer a licence for about a third the cost of the dearest, although they're all supposed to be implementing the same procedure, go figure!

On top of this the police accept there is a huge amount of needless inefficiency in the system - for example if I wanted to exchange gun 1 for an identical gun, say because the barrel was worn out - I would have to get a variation on my certificate that involves filling out a whole new form, posting it off, waiting for it to be processed & posted back before I can go in and do a 1 for 1 exchange - this has no benefit in public safety, nor is there any public benefit in having to fill out a form and post it off to change between a .308 bolt action and a .303 bolt action, they are both as lethal as each other. If I wanted to own a shotgun as well as my - much more dangerous (!) - rifles, I would need to apply for a separate (shotgun) certificate , unless I wanted a shotgun that takes more than three shots, which I can keep on my firearms certificate... I can keep as many bullets as I like at home for reloading, unless they're expanding ones, which I can only keep a certain number of, though if they are identical ballistic tip bullets they're still unregulated - and I can keep as many cases, primers and bullets as I like at home to build my own ammunition, but have limits on how much complete ammo I can buy or possess... Thats why the system costs so much.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:51 pm
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Doesnt matter, it's the principle. I'm paying for a bunch of Tories to run around their subsidised fields with shotguns, whilst they collectively shit on scientific research in terms of funding and conclusions drawn from science. Great.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:54 pm
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Only Tories own shotguns? who knew... everyday is a school day!.....
... Nice edit BTW... 😉


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:57 pm
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Over 600,000 Shotgun certificate holders in the UK. They're all Tories are they?


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:57 pm
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Statistically speaking, they are probably more likely to be tories. The rest (if they had to pay more) would be collateral damage for the cause/greater good. I'm sure that if any of them are any proper lefties, they'd understand.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 12:58 pm
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Good lord, you don't like em do you? 🙂


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 1:01 pm
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Nope :mrgreen:


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 1:02 pm
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would be collateral damage for the cause/greater good.

Its lefties like that that make me relieved I've got a nice collection of guns in the cupboard... Come the revolution brother 😀


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 1:04 pm
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Its lefties like that that make me relieved I've got a nice collection of guns in the cupboard... Come the revolution brother

Hilariously enough, I'd place a bet on myself being a better shot than you. :mrgreen: 😈


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 1:07 pm
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Aye, of course 😉 and regardless of that, holes on a stationary bit of paper at a known distance isn't proper shooting, its just loud darts! 8)

Now then, back on topic:

over 2 million quid a year wasted on keeping Wakehurst place open, at Kew Gardens/taxpayer expense, for the benefit of national trust members...


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 1:09 pm
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[img] ?v=1392134273[/img]


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 1:15 pm
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>

over 2 million quid a year wasted on keeping Wakehurst place open, at Kew Gardens/taxpayer expense, for the benefit of national trust members...

First, from the evidence of Kew’s 2008/09 Annual Report, the quality of Kew’s substantial research base has diminished in recent years, largely because posts that have fallen vacant have remained unfilled through lack of funds. There has also been some diversion
of core research effort into income-generating activities

Wheres the part about Wakehurst Palace mostly being for trustees, I believe they have the seed bank there.


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 1:15 pm
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For every £1 in tax collected by HMRC, 48p is spent in the collection of said tax.
I think savings could be made...

Can you back this up?


 
Posted : 23/04/2014 1:18 pm
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