For many minor ailments it is often quicker and easier to speak to a pharmacist

For the young and mainly healthy, that’s a good idea. Learn a little more about how to care for ourselves too in the process, rather than expect someone else to ‘fix us’.

Problem with the NHS IMO is it’s free at the point of delivery. It means we a) don’t understand how expensive our treatment is and therefore see it as ‘no cost’ and therefore just assume we can have whatever treatment we want and b) there’s no disincentive to go asking for treatment just because we want it.

this ‘free at the point of delivery’ for everyone and everything isn’t really sustainable when we have an ageing population, let alone a population that’s made itself overweight and obese through its own behaviour, and all the associated illnesses that go with it. We now need to prioritise who gets ‘treated’ and who is ‘helped to help themselves’. The old should probably take priority IMO, although in all honesty it’s a major political minefield how we’ll go through a process of rationing.

As a healthy 42 year old, I should be on the list of ‘helped to help himself’ and as healthy 70+ somethings, so should my parents. However as they get older, they’ll probably need to have more done for them…

Not a lot wrong IMO with something similar to the French model where you pay for the treatment and then get a refund (means tested I think). Also, better incentives for the middle classes and wealthier to pay for private healthcare. Better spending their spare cash on that than 4x4s and foreign holidays, surely?

trying to persuade a British public used to everything we want, free at the point of delivery that they need to lower their expectations and do more for themselves – well, I’m glad I’m not a politician!

I speak as someone who’s spent a fair bit of time this year in the NHS – one broken wrist (pinned and plated) and one bladder infection. I have absolutely no idea how much all this cost – not ideal if you want me to be aware of the need for reform…

Some of the most successful economies, even the 1st world developed ones, seem to view these things as an important and diverse part of their economies, not replaced by creative and financial services! Still it must be working right, it does seem as though Britain is thriving and not desperate to slash costs, cut corners and save money absolutely everywhere. So yeah lets support where we can.

I’d agree with a lot of your assessment of how many UK assets are now foreign-owned – and that this is not ‘a good thing’ IIRC it’s how Enron went so spectacularly bust – it turned out they didn’t actually own of their assets, they’d sold them all off and were leasing them back

But, the OP is claiming that having a larger manufacturing sector would resolve all this. Which is somewhat missing the point. There’s plenty of money to be made in low volume, high value manufacturing, in services, in design etc etc. Also probably a good idea to wean us off a dominant financial services sector, consumer spending, a housing bubble and debt but that’s a whole other discussion!

A good rental sector is important for a dynamic economy

Agreed. But large numbers of inexperienced retail investors playing a leveraged bet on ever-rising prices, which only works at historically low interest rates, and produces poor quality, insecure accommodation is not really “good”.

I don’t know how many times I have to point out that BoE have repeatedly stated that the current situation is a threat to stability of the whole economy… this isn’t just opinion…

Article here

Institutional build to let would be a much better model for the country as a whole…

The markets seem to think it’s bad for anyone trying to make money from BTL

Patricia Mock at Deloitte told fastFT:

The £625m the tax will raise in 2016/17 is quite large in the grand scheme of things. It will reduce interest in the buy-to-let market and dampen lettings. But the whole point is to free up houses for other buyers, so the overall impact on house sales shouldn’t be too great.

Shares in Foxtons, which has a large exposure to London where buy-to-let is particularly prevalent, have fallen 3.7 per cent since the chancellor unveiled the extra stamp duty, and are down 0.2 per cent on the day.

Countrywide shares have dropped 2.6 per cent since the announcement and are now off 1.3 per cent on the day.

Shares in Aldermore Bank, a lender heavily involved in buy-to-let mortgages, slid 9.8 per cent after the measure was revealed, and are now off 5.4 per cent on the day.

supply of rentable property will gradually diminish and prices will rise as a result.

Assuming demand stays the same. Which it won’t – a lot of tenants are only tenants because the BTL landlord has bought the house the tenants wanted to buy for themselves. Or you do what a lot of people I know are doing in London and SE (including myself) and just leaving – going elsewhere where salaries are lower but living costs proportionally cheaper… Demand for housing is NOT price inelastic.

The point of killing BTL is too many ill-informed ‘investors’ have poured into it, thinking it’s easy money/guaranteed, without understanding the risks (which include personal bankruptcy) hence BoE calling it out as a systemic risk.

Someone has to own rented property, unless you think we should outlaw the rented sector entirely?

to the extent it’s got to now – yes. A leveraged bet on ever-increasing prices – it’ll go spectacularly bust and bring the banks back down if we don’t get control over it. I have no problem at all with institutional build to let – high quality, managed property built specifically to rent – which also has the benefit of increasing supply which is badly needed.

I am not a politically minded person but is this all the doings of the Conservatives?

The Conservatives didn’t create the ageing population or the obesity crisis to be fair. Neither did Labour.

I do wish one of our political parties would just step off their partisan soapbox just once and explain to us the many non-political macro factors which mean a lot of what we’ve got used to over the last generation is going to be much much harder to provide without massive tax increases.

We’re in a crisis but no-one’s being honest about it, hence our expectations are out of whack with what the state can realistically provide.

Rents will just rise to reflect it.

good luck with that. Wages aren’t moving enough. Anyway, that’s just stupid – the more people pay in rent, the less they have to spend in the real economy and the longer we stay in stagnation… low growth, deflation, low-paid jobs, no money left over to pay for pensions, lower tax take making it harder to pay of the debt/fund the NHS etc etc etc

BTL is doing huge amounts of damage to UK economy – hence it’s being undermined slowly and steadily. BoE have it as one of the major warning signs to keep an eye on in terms of stability of the economy. It’s a very unstable/risky ‘business’ model – essentially a leveraged bet on ever-increasing house prices…

It’s sad that people are happy to screw the younger generation over so thoroughly, just to try and make themselves richer

We would do much better as a country if we recognise our successes and try and back those.

this ^^^ is really important. IIRC the quality of manufactured stuff in the 70s – British Leyland anyone?, was dire. How many Austin Allegros and Vauxhall Chevettes do you still see on the roads? IIRC the Japanese came along and absolutely kicked our butts on the quality front and we simply couldn’t compete…

It was recognised that our strength as a nation is much more in creativity, invention, design – the ideas, and that we’d be better off letting other countries do the manufacturing whilst we played to our strengths. this progressive creative streak is centuries old – it’s not an accident that the industrial revolution began in the UK, and also rocknroll/pop music for what it’s worth… (our creative industries are considered world class btw)

OP – I suspect you’re going to stubbornly stick to your opinion, no matter what counter arguments you’re given and no matter how many flaws in your argument are pointed out (e.g. confusing exporting services with emigration!). Good luck with that attitude….

Not got any advice to offer OP except good luck. IME when these things happen there’s a lot of fault at the employer’s end – mis-recruited, bad management, impossible targets etc etc but it’s the employee who takes the hit in terms of having to find a new job and having to explain it to new potential employers – whilst those who made mistakes or were dishonest at the employer end just carry on as they were…

That said, I was managed out a few years ago after a year in a job where, if I’d been told the truth before taking it, would’ve gone nowhere near the place… I have my position clear to anyone who wants to know why I was only there a year – along the lines of the role was not what I thought it was going to be and after a year of trying my absolute hardest to get it to work, I decided I wasn’t in a senior enough position to make the changes that I thought were required, accepted those changes were outside my sphere of influence and gave my notice. This is all true, which is important.

I’ve just got a new job offer today for a new role and no-one even mentioned that short period – so you may find that you’ll be ok anyway.

One lesson I learnt was that in interview, if my gut feel says this place/manager doesn’t feel right, then listen to my gut feel!

good luck

I’ve just been out on my bike in beautiful autumn sunshine. Almost all drivers were friendly and careful.
I have a job offer after several months of looking. Whilst it means I big pay cut the overall package is good and as it means moving from London to Milton Keynes, my cost of living will be lower so overall finances should be ok.
I won’t be working in financial services anymore, which after 20 years could well turn out to be a revelation :-)
I have no debt and I’m happy with who I am. My parents are in great health and my brother’s doing a great job of bringing up my nephews as happy people – which is a greater achievement on his part than most people realise…
Oh, and I don’t live in Syria

Why does it matter who was at fault?

I think it’s social media and our ability to broadcast our opinions to everyone, all the time, which seems to have led to everyone having an opinion about everyone else, for everything they do… at the end of the day none of us were there, no-one got hurt so who cares what we think?

As in most situations when something goes wrong, there’s faults made all over the place and there’s lessons to be learnt. Personally I think we should focus on lessons to be learnt rather than trying to apportion blame all the time.

ie: I’ve just come back from a ride and did something similar to the cyclist here. I almost always stay in the traffic or filter on the right, on the basis I’m more visible to the driver. Just this once, I decided to stay in the cycle lane on the left hand side as I passed static traffic sitting at the red light. Lights changed and the woman on my right, who definitely was NOT signalling pulled left across me – no signal, no observation. I braked so I’m ok.
She definitely was at fault – I was in the cycling infrastructure and she didn’t signal but at the end of the day, I know better than to use cycling infrastructure which puts me in a dangerous position. Lesson learnt – go back to filtering on the right…

Just my point of view without any evidence but I would have thought the cyclist has priority as they’re through traffic.

However, I wouldn’t make that assumption if I was on the cycle path – the second I saw a car pulling out of that driveway I’d be looking over my shoulder to check for no traffic behind, getting into primary and making eye contact with the driver pulling out…

It’s called ‘long copy’ ie: it’s a written ad, it’s not short and it tells a story. It’s also not new:

So much advertising now is digital, designed to work on screen and especially on small screens, and designed purely to get you to take an action or make a transaction there and then, that long copy is not something you’ll see that much of – certainly not outside of direct mail or press.

There was a time when advertising was actually engaging like this. There’s plenty that still is, but a lot isn’t…

You’re right that our economy and our future are a mess but thank God you’re not in charge of policy if you think a massive debt crisis, globalisation, climate change and an ageing population will be resolved by increasing the size of our manufacturing sector! If was that simple, do you think we’d be in such a mess??

it’s a bit of a First Worlder’s rant if you ask me. Look at the situation from the point of a Chinaman who used to be a peasant farmer and now lives in a city with a well-paid factory job and a hell of a lot more wealth than he ever dreamed of… what looks bad to you is a massive gain for a significant proportion of the population of what we used to call the Third World…

I’d be rich as and when they invent the same thing for riding bikes :-)

Stylish… £10 from Uniqlo

But if you can’t see the reality that we’re becoming less and less skilled in making stuff, then man, you really are blinkered.

Who cares if we’re less skilled at making stuff? It’s not the only way to run an economy…

Oh, as well as Cotic, go and do some research into ARM, considered to be market dominant in the field of processors for mobile phones and tablets
Wikipedia

We’re still dominant and world class, just in other sectors these days…

Ahem: OP you said earlier you were more interested in ‘reality’ than statistics and then, to back up your view, posted up two sets of data published by the UK Office for National Statistics!

I think your basic premise that the UK making fewer things is BAD is faulty – it’s subjective, and that’s why people are pushing back.

Our competitive advantage is changing – globalisation means we have to adapt our relative advantages if we want to stay a rich country and you seem to be advocating that we resist change rather than adapt. Darwin would suggest that’s a daft strategy.

Seriously, go and email Cy and ask him why he manufactures in Taiwan and hear it from a successful UK business who has real-life choices and real-life decisions to make…

OP – go and ask Cy at Cotic why he gets his frames made in Taiwan and you’ll get your answer from a real-life, UK-owned and UK-based (and presumably UK tax-paying) company dealing in the realities of the relative costs of manufacturing in UK vs Taiwan and the prices we UK consumers are prepared to pay…

I agree it may be preferable for many reasons to buy UK-made kit but there’s stark realities that the people running these organisations have to make if they want to survive and continue to create jobs in the UK – especially when UK consumer is skint and trying to save money…

” Mes tétons explosent de joie !

How long would you wait before asking for payment?

Just let us know when you have it – the drinks will be on you

There is very little high quality engineering and manufacturing

Does this belong in the ‘bullshit which becomes true through repetition’ thread?

Google translate ain’t too bad IMO

Peut-on recommander un Anglais service de traduction en français ?

Je l’ai fait en trouver un il ya quelques années , mais elle semble avoir disparu et je ne me souviens pas comment je l’ai trouvée

Je ne peux pas compter sur un outil de traduction en ligne

De préférence, un locuteur natif

Merci

Presumably you can google a translation service? Or try your local university?

Are those men really small or the bike really big?

Whilst I support your sentiment, why shouldn’t we progress over time away from something we used to be good at into new things e.g. services, computing, software etc etc? Competitive advantage changes over time and to remain wealthy we have to adapt and stay nimble.

+ UK consumers are mired in debt (before interest rates have gone up, which they will do) and have barely had a payrise in 8 years – a lot of people can’t afford the higher UK prices that come from our relatively higher wages.

Don’t forget that when you buy from a foreign manufacturer you’re often providing someone with a job who was previously in poverty/subsistence living. It’s a pretty good way of helping to equalise global wealth, rather than keeping it all for ourselves.

+1 for First Direct.
The app is good and customer services are excellent.

First Direct matches all of those
Not it don’t – cut & pasted off their web site:

If after six months you do not pay £1,000 per month into your 1st Account you may have to pay a fee of £10.

Assuming you earn more than £12k a year you’ll pay no fees.

As an aside, now that Visa Europe has been sold back to Visa Inc by the banks because of the European legislation which limits the revenue they can make from payments, and PPI and various other forms of revenue all now gone, expect more fees to be levied on your current account from all banks.

Personally I have no problem with this – it costs to run the systems and to employ the people who work in customer services etc so being given it for free is forcing banks into running loss-making services which is never realistic in the long run

spare lights for redundancy? lame. just carry spare batteries.

Doesn’t solve the problem at all. If a rear light dies whilst you’re riding, you won’t know. Having two or three on at the same time means if one goes, you’re still legal and still lit up, and therefore still safe.

+ all my lights are rechargeable – most being USB so spare batteries not an option.

House prices will go up for ever and ever and ever and never ever fall again. Ever. Amen
Leveraged BTL is a foolproof, guaranteed investment rather than a speculative gamble based on historically low interest rates which will never ever go up. Ever.
We’ll never ever have to pay off all the debt we’re in and it’s all ok so long as we can afford the monthly repayments…

PS the five LED light punter was riding across a part of London that’s so well lit it is literally visible from space

five seems excessive but my experience of driving at night in London is the amount of ambient light from streetlights actually makes seeing people very very hard – there’s no contrast for bike lights to shine out against. It would be easier to spot cyclists lights if it were pitch black.

Best practice from what I can tell re bike lights is 2 front and 2 rear, one flashing and one constant each end – flashing to be noticed, constant to allow drivers to gauge your distance, also has the benefit of redundancy.

I took my front-facing helmet light off for a couple of night-time commutes last year on the basis it may be overkill and nearly got knocked off 3 times in one ride from people pulling out on me. It went straight back on – it’s a nice bright Moon and definitely works in terms of getting people to look before they step out into the road!

Also, having this many lights is to help my lawyers if I ever need them – much easier to laugh at the driver’s lawyer who claims the driver didn’t see me…

With 26ergeddon I can see me picking up another in the future, they’re already getting offensively cheap.

Like the one I’m selling :-)

I’m selling mine!

Soul for sale. Devil need not apply

I’ve seen quite a lot of proviz in London. And when I say seen I mean SEEN! – easily the most visible clothing IMO.

The downside, of course is it’s designed for full darkness. Daylight it’s less useful and I can’t quite be bothered having kit for daylight and kit for nighttime, especially as one ride can carry across both.

Not quite the same thing but I bought one of these recently, which seems a good combination of hi-vis and reflectivity. Not sure just how breathable, and the fabric is shiny so my bag slips around a bit but overall it seems pretty visible both night and day

Hump Flare

There has been so much abuse of/by the self employed over the years though, basically opting out of PAYE and paying in dividends yet still really working full time for a company.

It sometimes works better for the company though – the ability to lay people off at zero cost and with no notice. I suspect Osbourne is after the tax though. He may not have his numbers right though – my day rate was such that now I’m going back perm my overall annual tax contribution will be lower than it was as a contractor – he may well be shooting himself in the foot here, as well as increasing the number of unemployed, not least because companies may have to lay people off to cope with the increased costs of a larger perm workforce…

Get talking to an accountant who specialises in self-employment/limited companies and make sure you understand all the ins and out re additional costs.
e.g. you may have to pay accountants fees, possibly VAT and possibly indemnity insurance.

Otherwise, good luck. I’m going back perm after 4 years as a contractor. I much preferred it, it frees you up from a lot of nonsense and allows you to get on with the work. It’s especially good if you’re not built for corporate, you get a much better sense of what you can achieve when your environment suits you.
The only reason I’m going back though is I can’t find another contract for love nor money, after 4 months of looking… so make sure you factor in extended periods of low or zero income if the work dries up, especially as UK economy is still very sickly and another recession is very possibly around the corner (manufacturing is already in recession)

+1 for the seam sealer you use on tents

Any trails to be had on Chobham Common?

I started MTB there back in the mid-nineties. My drivetrain was gone within 3 months from the grinding it got from all the sand… It’s also very flat

There seems to be a lot of anger out there. I guess it’s the price society pays for making “progress”……

Sorry for the thread hijack…
I don’t think it’s ‘progress’ I think it’s realising that our future will be less secure and less wealthy than before and than we expected. Our current lifestyles and ‘wealth’ are based on an unsustainable mountain of debt – at government level, at corporate level and personal level. 2008 was not the start of this, but the problem making itself known. As we continue to fail to produce any real growth or jobs its’s becoming clearer and clearer that our reality is a whole lot less pleasant than we expected it to be and our future is likely to continue down this trajectory. Fundamentally I think people are just scared about the future…

I would expect that if that were to be a sidewind – which it will at some point in the ride, that you’ll be at risk of being blown into oncoming traffic…

I remember a load of shouting once from the car behind me – I was in Spain on an MTB trip and on a quick road hop from trail to trail.
I turned round to find out just why I was being abused and realised they were shouting encouragement :-)

I got more heckling as a runner than I do as a cyclist – the old “Run Forrest Run” thing – only 25 years behind the times!
I got a major screaming tantrum the other week from a ‘lady’ driver who didn’t understand that an off-camber cycle lane down a steep hill which was full of wet leaves wasn’t a safe place to ride. I was so astonished at the sheer amount of emotion she was putting out that I just sat and looked at her till she ran out of steam. It reminded me of a tantrum my godson had aged 3… quite funny really, although not terribly becoming for a young woman 8O

If cyclists are getting more abuse at the moment I suspect it’s because society as a whole has moved on from abusing women, racial minorities, Jews and homosexuals and those who need to abuse people have very few groups left to take their issues out on…

That said I’ve just done a 25m loop and got absolutely no abuse at all, which was nice

I should point out I’m no longer a mountain biker – 3 broken bones since 2007, two needing pins and plates (1x scapula, 1x clavicle and 1x wrist), with about 4 of those years mainly riding road that’s not a great record!… I’ve now gone full stiffback roadie. The savings in time and money are immense! The fitness is also a lot better.

MK looks pretty good, although I may have to head down to the Chilterns to get some hills in. I like hills :-) I’ll join one of the clubs…