Get rid of corporation tax

So companies shouldn’t pay towards the legal and intellectual property framework which allows them to operate and the markets they have access to? [/quote]

i have to pay corporation tax if my profits are over 24,500€. it is punitive. if i go over that threshold by 500€ i’m paying 750€ more in tax than if i had earnt 24,499€. i don’t need any intellectual property framework. the likes of BMW do, yet strangley they have some cushy set up in which they don’t have to pay their fair share of corporation tax.

nice.

I’ll just point out again I did not use “rich” I said “richest couple of % of the population”

The first is a value judgement / relative measure. the second is a fact.

Alpine, really appreciating your contributions here but one thing:

the amount of money splurged on these self-aggrandising events and at the same time the amount of penny pinching is sick.

Their waste of money is your income. So is it really a waste if it goes from their pocket into the wider economy? Genuine economics question not an attack.

Of course, the obvious answer is that they should be paying you to erect a hospital not built an event stand, but could they?

A Google subsidised hospital would a better as for the company than a trade show though, wouldn’t it?

But don’t these events pay for themselves out of the marketing budget? And their aim is marketing and publicity.

Their waste of money is your income. So is it really a waste if it goes from their pocket into the wider economy? Genuine economics question not an attack.

I fully understand the irony of my predicament…

If they were an upfront company playing by the rules I have to adhere to them maybe I wouldn’t feel so jaded.

PMQ’s coming up. Given the weeks’ monumentally incompetent events, do we think Jeremy will actually mention the rolling Brexit cluster**** at all this time around? Or stick to the usual ‘there be dragons’ approach to the subject, and bang on about anything else but, instead?

He doesn’t want to mention it too much as he doesn’t want much scrutiny of his actual position, which would be pretty much exactly the same.

If he were in we would still be exiting and we would still have the problems of the NI border, EU citizen rights, and trade deals, because we wouldn’t even be staying in the EEA.

Do people really think he would have better ideas – he would just be rolling over to EU demands even more and we would be getting the Greek treatment.

i don’t need any intellectual property framework

You need a legal system to prevent your clients not paying you and protect you in the case of dispute, you need access to the market which is regulated and invested in by the state, you need the skills and education of employees of yourself and your suppliers, you need the research conducted by universities and the industrial and technological base that the state invests in, you need the infrastructure that enables a modern industrial society to function. Need I go on or should we do a whole ‘what have the romans ever done for us’ debate?

Need I go on or should we do a whole ‘what have the romans ever done for us’ debate?

the debate please…

You need a legal system to prevent your clients not paying you and protect you in the case of dispute, you need access to the market which is regulated and invested in by the state, you need the skills and education of employees of yourself and your suppliers, you need the research conducted by universities and the industrial and technological base that the state invests in, you need the infrastructure that enables a modern industrial society to function. Need I go on or should we do a whole ‘what have the romans ever done for us’ debate?

OK, we/I need all of those things to a varying degree. But I’d argue that big business needs it more than little old me, a one man band, yet they seem to be able to opt out of such trivialities like tax.

the debate please…

Well I’ve offered my view. Ball is in your court I think?

But I’d argue that big business needs it more than little old me, a one man band, yet they seem to be able to opt out of such trivialities like tax.

I don’t disagree. This isn’t about whether corporation tax is necessary (it is, clearly), but whether it’s implementation is fair. In your case I’d say not, and clearly big business shouldn’t be able to dodge it through expensive and spurious legal and accounting practices.

Do people really think he would have better ideas

He would be handling it differently/more reasonably (along with Kier, Hilary etc,.)

He would be handling it differently/more reasonably (along with Kier, Hilary etc,.)

rolling over then.

PM within a year? I wouldn’t bet against it.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/ill-be-pm-within-a-year-jeremy-corbyn-makes-fresh-prediction-on-moving-into-no-10-a3722691.html

Unlikely I think.

As much as there’s a hard right element to the Tories, there’s an equally hard left element to Labour. Both are equally off-putting to a lot of folks.

If it were a possibility how come Labour & JC aren’t doing better when the competition is the shower of shite that is the current Gov?

If it were a possibility how come Labour and JC aren’t doing better when the competition is the shower of shite that is the current Gov?

How do you know how well they are doing, or what the result of an election would be? (don’t say polls)

How do you know how well they are doing, or what the result of an election would be? (don’t say polls)

Quite. The last election showed us that labour did considerably better than had been predicted.

A few random thoughts:

– When you think you’re going to lose by a country mile, you can offer a giveaway manifesto safe in the knowledge you won’t have to deliver. If you think it’s close, less so.

– May is unlikely to lead the Tory party in the next election which is probably a point against Labour.

– …but will the new leader be even less popular with voters?

– Historically Oppositions don’t win elections, Governing parties lose them which is probably a point for Labour.

– A deeply unpopular administration, 10 years in, and Labour still didn’t win in June which is probably a point against Labour.

– The sudden friendliness on behalf of the EU this month that seemed to me all about bolstering May at a difficult moment made me suspect that the last thing they want is career Brexiteers in No10/No11. I think the EU will be allies of the Tories in any future election. Not sure if that matters.

– Did the lead May had in the polls mean people didn’t bother turning out for her? (Conventional wisdom is ‘yes’, but I strongly suspect being way ahead cost Hilary Clinton & May votes.) maybe a point against Labour.

Self preservation will mean the Tories won’t risk another election anytime soon, even with all the Brexit arguments they are not going to self destruct. The lesson of calling an election when seemingly well ahead is not lost on them.

Despite all the Brexit pressures and negative fall out for May from the snap election Labour have not pulled ahead. It’s been an open goal but they can’t score.

How do you know how well they are doing, or what the result of an election would be? (don’t say polls)

Give me a good reason why I can’t.

Quite. The last election showed us that labour did considerably better than had been predicted.

Yet still lost to one of the worst GE campaigns ever..

Conventional wisdom is ‘yes’

Correction: I meant ‘no’.

Our shop was in a lib dem area that turned Tory by a small majority.
At the last election one of our staff voted Tory. She is pro eu and agreed with all the lib dem policies but voted instead to keep Corbyn out. Quite how that works I don’t know.

The only thing keeping May in power is Corbyn. The DUP are terrified of him as he’s a passionate republican. The main question is whether the brexiters or the remainers in the tory party will collapse the govt. The remainers are in the ascendancy now so it’s unlikely they’ll be put in a country vs party position. The brexiters might just be crazy enough to cut their nose off to spite their face but I doubt it. It’ll go to 2021/22. That’s probably no bad thing for Corbyn. Gives him time to bring back some of the moderates into the shad-cab and plenty of opportunity for the tories to further damage themselves. I still wouldn’t be surprised if he steps aside for someone else by then.

At the last election one of our staff voted Tory. She is pro eu and agreed with all the lib dem policies but voted instead to keep Corbyn out. Quite how that works I don’t know.

Reaminer votes to stop long term hardcore brexiteers? Doesn’t seem hard to figure out to me. (Although I am astonished the libs didn’t clear up last election.)

Yet still lost to one of the worst GE campaigns ever..

The election campaign was called solely because labour was about 25 points behind. The narrative was that Corbyn would be annihilated and replaced as leader, not that he would achieve their best share of the vote since 2001.

Even Corbyn’s most myopic opponents should concede that he ran a decent campaign.

I still wouldn’t be surprised if he steps aside for someone else by then.

Nor me. He’s acheived what he was elected to do. It really doesn’t matter who carries the momentum flag now. The moderates have lost. There’s no way he could have gone before they changed the nomination rules, now it doesn’t matter.

Yet still lost to one of the worst GE campaigns ever..

This. Any Labour front bench of the last 20 years would have thrashed May. (Except they wouldn’t, because May wouldn’t have dared to take on a decent Labour front bench in June 2017). Losing to May by 60 seats isn’t something to be proud of, it’s a disaster. However, that doens’t matter, cos he wasn’t elected to beat May. He was elected to change the nomination rules to permanantly hand the Labour party to his own wing of the party. In that sense it’s a triumph.

There is a lot of spin/manipulation going on behind Corbyn it seems – James O’Brien on LBC said his interview with JC was pulled in favour of someone less aggressive, apparently GQ magazine said that their interview with him was one of the wierdest they had done as he was so ‘protected’, and there is a lot of use of social media to make statements without the possibility of being challenged by an interviewer.

He made a lot of those gains in the last election with talk of gettinng rid of student loans and cancelling old loans, and from callers on LBC it seems a lot of people have seen through him and don’t trust him. And then the brexit situation where he has let himself been seen as a remainer (although I don’t believe that and note his reluctance to ever say anything actually commital), which is going to lead a lot of traditional labour supporters to also not trust him.

Plus there is no getting away from the Marxist leanings of McDonnell, which puts a lot of people off.

I was going to wade in but can’t be bothered. I’ll just say some of you tories/right wingers have a strange grasp on recent history and seem determined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

I was going to wade in but can’t be bothered. I’ll just say some of you tories/right wingers have a strange grasp on recent history and seem determined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

I think it shows their desperation. I’m not convinced by Corbyn’s leadership skills but there’s no doubt in my mind that Labour ran a smart, disciplined campaign.

I think what a lot of Corbynistas are unwilling to admit is just how bad the Tory campaign was.
(Bringing back fox hunting FFS? How out of touch do you have to be to think that’s a vote winner???)

As admitting so, would actually be an admittance of defeat.

Yes, Labours campaign was ok, but bloody hell, it wasn’t up against much!

I think what a lot of Corbynistas are unwilling to admit is just how bad the Tory campaign was.

On the contrary, I think most Corbyn sympathizers would be only too happy to acknowledge the complete car crash of the tory campaign. That being so, it still doesn’t detract from what was a very well run labour campaign.

I think what a lot of Corbynistas are unwilling to admit is just how bad the Tory campaign was.

The obvious answer is that it was both, but positions are far to entrenched and polarized for that to be admitted.

What I’m seeing in this thread is a consistent refusal to concede that he got something right. You’d expect that from tories but it’s disappointing that anti-Corbyn labour voters are still throwing their toys out of the pram.

I think what a lot of Corbynistas are unwilling to admit is just how bad the Tory campaign was.

What are you basing that on? I would say that pretty much all Corbyn supporters would freely admit that the tory campaign was a shambles.

positions are far to entrenched and polarized for that to be admitted.

I don’t think that’s remotely true. “The campaign was dreadful” is an obvious excuse for Tory members so they’re not going to be shy about saying so. (That goes for May too, far better to blame her own campaign that amdit she’s an all round duffer.) If anyone has a motive to big up the Tory campaign it’s Labour/Corbynistas/Momentum and I’ve not noticed them being shy about slagging off May’s campaign either. Pundits also agree it was dire.

Seems to be across the board acceptance that May’s campaign was a disaster.

Dreadful Tory campaign

Load of momentum for Labour…yet…

…Who won and did they increase their vote despite being crap. What does that say for those who came first loser?

The clearout of Labour is progressing very effectively and beyond the radar screen. They now how to cull better than fox hunters!!!

What does that say for those who came first loser?

Much as I hate to agree with THM..

Saying how well you’ve done when you’ve come second is a bit like EVERYONE getting a medal on sports day.

The impression I get of those Corbynistas who think they did well is you must have had exceedingly low expectations…..

The Tories were easy pickings yet…..

FYI I’m a Liberal.

Saying how well you’ve done when you’ve come second is a bit like EVERYONE getting a medal on sports day.

Well no, cos there’s a sports day every five years, sometimes less. So when you gain a huge amount of support, that’s significant, even when you didn’t win.

Plus there were multiple battles going on at the same time.

Labour should be 20 pts clear, right now, as for the fag end of the Major govt…

The impression I get of those Corbynistas who think they did well is you must have had exceedingly low expectations…..

Well yes, and I’m not sure why you think that’s a criticism. Again, the election was called because the tories expected to wipe Labour out. For labour to post its best result since 2001 was far better than anyone predicted, Corbyn supporter or otherwise.