What the otherjohnv said.

For many companies, awarding a pay rise matching inflation will translate to job losses next year – companies are dealing with inflation across all costs so reducing headcount is one of the few options to balance the books.

I’m self employed but held my 2021 rates for this year partly to ensure I’m not pricing myself out of the market.

The energy companies (BP / Shell) already pay c40% corporation tax on UK profits – so for the ones listed in London the country does very well out of that.

That’s on top of the license fees they pay to secure rights for reserves in UK waters and the per barrel tax they pay on everything they extract.

To listen to Sir Keir you’d be mistaken for thinking the oil / gas companies are making £170b excess profit on the back of Uk consumers – when he knows perfectly well it’s the estimate of profit from global operations. UK ops will generate c£20b a year excess profit of which we’ll get £8b a year anyway.

One other point that escaped Sir Keir in his criticism of government borrowing vs. a windfall tax is that the issue right now is liquidity for retail energy companies.

A windfall tax wouldn’t generate any returns until some time after the financial year ends with the result that the government would need to borrow even if it did a windfall tax – in order to offset the gap between market prices and the level paid by consumers and provide the liquidity that’s immediately required.

“ Looks like after totally shunning Sunak at the announcement yesterday and those she is appointing to cabinet, she is doing very little to settle the divide in the Tory party.”

It’s this kind of statement that really underlined why politics is so tribal / now puts so many people off.

Having actually watched the announcement yesterday I saw Truss specifically thank Sunak from the stage – there was no “shunning” apart from a confected story of refusing to shake hands when it was clear to see that no hand was proffered by Sunak in the first place.

I’d also wager that even that most experienced politician would have an “oh carp” moment in the few seconds after they had just learned they would be PM the next day. Indeed there’s a story in the Times today describing how Tony Blair stuffed up his PM inauguration with the Queen immediately after he was elected because he was “flustered”.

The old model Nest outdoor cameras are still available if you search around. They are much better than the new ones because the updated versions only save “clips” so miss a lot of events because the sensor isn’t great. Same on nest doorbells.

Ah – that’s great Fossy – thanks. I was looking for how to set the end time in the same schedule – didn’t realise it was a separate schedule for on / off.

Fossy – can you help me get our Tapo 110 plugs up and running?

I’ve tried to use the “schedule” option to set an automatic turn on / turn off time but it doesn’t seem to work.

When I have programmed “on” to 08:00 using a “custom time” I then find there is no option to set an “off” time – if I set the “off” radio button it shows 08:00 and if I change it to 18:00 and go back to the “on” radio button the time on that has been changed to 18:00.

This is on the IoS app. How does it work on yours assuming it works properly?

I’ve tried it on two plugs and it’s the same on both…

Had the Bosch one – it failed within 3 months. Bought a makita one (with chuckless blade changing) and it’s done years of service.

I’d do a variant of the post above but you need to factor in income tax on savings interest – which could wipe out any marginal gain.

Ideally:

– keep the fixed rate mortgage
– stash the inheritance in cash savings (ideally shovel as much as possible into a cash isa each year)

But

– pay off the monthly mortgage payments from savings so you’re getting an immediate benefit in cashflow

Then pay off the outstanding mortgage balance when the term expires.

If you’re using 4g be mindful of the fair use limits.

Lebara (uses Vodafone) has no limit, EE is 1 terabyte and 3 / smarty has no limit.

The evidence is overwhelmingly clear – making and receiving calls whilst driving (hands free or not) distracts drivers during AND after the call.

Making calls whilst driving can slow reaction times more than drink / drug driving.

Anyone who does this is therefore completely irresponsible:

– especially if they are a cyclist
– especially if they have a child in the car

All of the companies I’ve worked with in recent years have polices similar to TiReD’s employer – taking calls or teams meetings whilst driving is a disciplinary offence because of the risk to the driver, passengers and other road users.

https://www.brake.org.uk/how-we-help/national-campaigns/the-change-we-want/drivers/hands-free-phones

Declaration of interest: knocked off my bike 3 times so far by distracted drivers who were on the phone – and a lot of near misses due to the same.

It’s a criminal offence to purport to be a solicitor without being registered as one. A quick check of the SRA / solicitors register will determine if the person / firm is real – and if not a call to the local police would be a sensible next step.

Dissolve the whole frame using sodium hydroxide and the Ti bits of the b/b should be left over at the end. It can be a bit explody so do it outdoors.

Putting aside the tragic nature of the events still to be faced by his parents, two things strike me:

1. His initial injury has been attributed to a stupid / dangerous viral craze on social media

2. 4m young people now have referrals to NHS mental health services – with many childrens charities and medical practitioners attributing cause to social media e.g. extreme weight loss, bullying via vanishing messages, post a photo every hour or get humiliated etc etc.

It’s clear that social media has had a catastrophic impact on young people and they need greater protection from services where they are the unwitting product.

Could be to avoid the scenario where the bike they want to buy has mysteriously had the frame number filed off / deliberately damaged to make it unreadable

Angela Rayner won’t be happy with that – Sam Tarry is reportedly her other half.

He also joined her on her essential lockdown / business trip to Durham in which Sir Keir enjoyed a korma and a few cheeky pints.

In other news McDs have put up the price of a cheeseburger by between 10-20p depending on the outlet – to £1.09 or £1.19

It’s the first price increase in 14 years and had the Cheeseburger price tracked inflation over that time it would now cost £1.30.

Carbon Fibre made in some parts of Europe can have less than 1% of the emissions footprint of Carbon made in Asia:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/carbon-fiber-production-almost-zero-co2-emissions-hans-hansson

Do we known how UK recycled steel tubing e.g. that sourced by Starling, stacks up against the lowest CO2 forms of Carbon Fibre?

Likewise, has Starling factored in the CO2 footprint of the industrial gasses they use to weld their frames?

Having said that, fair play to Starling for looking at the impact of their operations – it’s something that all companies should be doing.

Mine’s a Murmur Trail.

Tax cuts for business means more cash to hire and pay people.

Likewise, raising tax on business just results in less investment / business growth so more of the same.

The accelerated shift to organic farming contributed to a food crisis:

https://time.com/6196570/sri-lanka-crisis-organic-farming/

(Declaration of interest – I always buy organic where I can)

As did fuel shortages. Germany has already started rationing, other countries in Europe will follow:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62167060

The ripple effects of covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine are hammering many countries across the globe.

Jacket no tie. If they don’t offer the job because you didn’t wear a tie that’s a bullet dodged.

+1 for the Howies plain coloured t-shirts recommended above – great quality and perfect for wfh in the summer.

It’s just lame virtue signalling from a company that trades on its values yet continues to be led by a CEO who reportedly bullied employees over an extended period and then opened an “independent” investigation in which the outside investigators were secretly feeding who-said-what straight back to the company.

“Just to get back on track a bit, when global oil prices are dropping all the time, down another 10% now, to below $100/barrel, how can the current prices at the pump be justified“

Because:
– the fuel in the forecourts was likely ordered weeks ago at a higher price
– because the spot price for oil today doesn’t reflect a price you can buy at tomorrow so there’s always some averaging
– because $100 a barrel is pretty meaningless without knowing the grade of oil, where it’s coming from, the cost of moving it, how long it will take to move it , the cost of refining it, the cost of transporting it from the refinery to the forecourt etc etc.
– because the price is in dollars and any economy that has a different currency will see changes in exchange rates
– because the spread today was actually been $108 and $132 for Brent crude
– etc etc.

Ltd Co with one director – it’s just a company asset so buy it and use it.

That said, I haven’t because I can’t really justify it – but with a previous client I cycled to their office every day so would have been able to justify a modest bike purchase through the company on that basis.

You may still have a claim under the consumer rights act.

Whilst the manufacturer may only offer a 2 year warranty if the first unit failed at less than 2 years any additional failure could be enough to achieve a successful claim against the original retailer citing the goods are not fit for purpose – particularly if the unit has only been subject to limited mileage.

It will make zero difference for 5 x reasons:

1. No-one has ever received the maximum permitted sentence when it was 5 years and then 10 years
2. The sentencing guidelines give too much relief for trivial factors
3. People’s behaviour will only change when the police show more interest in detecting cases in which cyclists are seriously j hired or killed
4. We need to build 5-6 new prisons to ensure the maximum tariff can be given to all of those convicted
5. General society sees motoring offences as trivial and the majority standard of driving reflects that.

I got hit by a Polish car / driver years ago. The driver was evasive about his insurance details so I called the police.

The police has a chat with the driver and assured me it would all be ok and they were satisfied he had insurance.

The conclusion was that he didn’t have any insurance and got away with it. I saw the same guy driving round for years afterwards – still on Polish plates but the local police DGAF.

Our Weber is like Trigger’s broom – 15 years old now and still good as new.

I’d definitely buy another one.

There’s normally a right of appeal if a credit provider refuses to lend.

I recently got turned down for a mobile contract where the credit search was performed by Vodafone. I wrote to vodafone and explained why I thought the rejection was wrong – and they subsequently overturned the decision.

It might be worth doing this to ensure the rejection hasn’t been caused by a data issue e.g. wrong data entered / credit file has an error in it etc.

Most of the examples above have little if anything to do with Brexit – and a lot of the “proof” of brexit damage is pretty tenuous. That’s not to say there isn’t any – just the data isn’t conclusive.

High Inflation in the UK
– Is broadly inline with Germany / France when the timing of inflation measures is taken into account
– Is lower in the UK than some EU countries (serbia, macedonia, Poland @13.9%, Romania @ 14.49%, Czech Republic @ 16% etc etc.)
– Is largely supply side and driven by war, fuel and supply chain issues – so less to do with Government decisions.
– The Bank of England sets interest rates independently of the Government so they are accountable for controlling inflation.

Petrol / Diesel / Energy prices
– Are lower in the UK than some EU countries
– Comprise significant levels of fuel duty – with at least two of the main political parties having recently voted to remove the freeze on the duty “escalator”
– reflect the UK’s politicians decidion not to approve any replacement nuclear between 1997 and 2010 as a police decision
– We burn gas to make electricity and have to import it because we decided to limit domestic production
– France gets most of its electricity from Nuclear / there’s no supply side pressure on that so minimal price increases

Strikes
– are taking place across Europe and Asia
– Baggage handlers are on strike at Brussels Airport, Schipol and Oslo airport this week
– At Brussels airport all outbound flights yesterday were cancelled due to a strike

Air Travel issues
– Baggage Handler shortages are said to be (by Michael O’Leary / RyanAir) more a reflection of poor planning/ late recruitment / need for security vetting – so his Airline and other operators haven’t really had any issues whereas Tui, BA and Easyjet have but started much later with their recruitment for 2022 (October for Ryanair, February for the others)
– Many former staff need to be re-vetted before they can start work
– A lot of former staff found other work in the economy and don’t want to go back to shift work on low pay
– The travelling public want cheap flights but that leaves low skilled workers stuck on low pay

The economy is knackered
– But the UK achieved a record value of export goods to the EU (an all time record) in April – and that’s with the car industry still crippled by the global chip shortage. If that wasn’t the case the value of goods exports would have been 10-20% higher still
– The UK returned to pre-covid levels of economic activity in November last year – many countries still haven’t – including germany
– There are record number of people in work

My take on the strikes – it’s those on the lowest pay without good pensions that are most exposed to price inflation. So we need targeted measures / pay rises for those groups. Everyone else – not so much.

At the end of the day the only certain outcome of everyone getting a pay rise at or above inflation is that inflation will be even higher next year – putting the economy at risk of a dramatic recession of the sort that many countries round the world are already dealing with.

“Track and trace. Billions of pounds to app development and programmers which amounted to something akin to my O level computer studies project.”

The reality:

– a £37b budget (over 2 years)
– actual spend in year 1 was £13.5b against budget of £22.2B
– year 2 underspend is greater
– total spend on the test and trace app was iro £76 million – of which c£35m was the failed attempt by NHS digital to write its own app before apple / Google effectively mandated governments had to use their own app
– c85% of the spend went on “test” including additional lab capacity, test stations, reagents, logistics etc etc. you know – the stuff that the population used 500-600m times.

The cost per test has been reported as commensurate with the amount spent per test in other countries.

So what’s a peak STW conspiracy / “bungs to mates” actually turns out to be an audited (national audit office) underspend of £10B+ against budget and in line with the amounts spent by other countries.

Option 1 – or if you have one use an external socket and plug a homeplug into that (or in a waterproof enclosure).

“So youre saying 12 years of Tory incompetence and mismanagement of the economy has left Johnson no way to keep feeding the nation”

Perhaps I’ve missed it but could you point me to Labour’s specific policy related to this?

Given it’s a supply side issue (ammonia) created by Covid and then amplified in the last 12 weeks / the war in Ukraine it’s hard to see how any government could have seen this issue coming – not least as it takes 5-10 years to site, plan, procure, build and commission new manufacturing facilities.

The FT also reported last year that supplies of Carbon Dioxide were reduced by 50% across many EU countries – and they are still facing the same problem as us now.

https://www.ft.com/content/475ca564-66b1-49b7-b6ce-f6f682deeac8

I’m pretty sure that the proposed deliberate breach of the ministerial code relates to state aid for CF industries and erection of tariffs to protect their revenue.

CF industries operates the only two manufacturing sites in the Uk that produce Carbon Dioxide – as a by-product of fertiliser production.

One site is already due to close – the other is running at a crippling loss due to the surge in the price of oil.

Without domestically produced Carbon Dioxide the reliability of uk originated foodstuffs would be severely impacted – more so if (Road) tanker based imports from Europe became subject to industrial action.

At a stroke, production and movement of all chilled / frozen foodstuffs would cease causing a food crisis.

So Johnson’s choice is:

1. Follow the ministerial code, do not agree (illegal) state aid and tariffs to enable CF to continue UK production of fertiliser – and then carry the political can when everyone is rioting about food shortages

Or:

2. Deliberately break the code by providing trade finance guarantees to CF industries / impose tariffs on fertiliser imports and run the risk of retaliatory action by other governments.

Lebara are £22.50 a month (30d rolling) and that gives 20 gig of roaming data.

As she’s performing a “role” (dental therapist) rather than providing a business to business service she will be “inside” ir35. There is a threshold on turnover which may determine if she or the hirer are responsible for determining the correct ir35 status.

Trying to operate as it “outside” IR35 would be a clear slam dunk for HMRC as there would be very limited grounds for claiming your daughter is anything other than a disguised employee.

That means the hirer should pay her via PAYE and pay employers national insurance. If they are not paying her through their own payroll e.g. via an intermediary, the employers national insurance must be paid to the intermediary or she will be potentially liable for paying it herself.

My advice is that your daughter engages as PAYE for both hirers and then completes a self assessment every year to ensure income tax and employee NI hasn’t been underpaid / overpaid. This also ensures the hirer is fully responsible for employers NI and that they pay for things like the minimum pension contribution.

The judge in the Carole Cadwalladr / Arron Banks case ruled:

– Cadwalladr had no facts to support the claims she made against Banks
– Cadwalladr had therefore defamed Banks
– Cadwalladr should not pay any damages because even though she had no facts to support her claim she believed it was correct and her followers were all in their own echo chamber on twitter thus no damage was done to the reputation of Banks

Comments from the Judge:

“it may reasonably be inferred that the vast majority of the defendant’s followers on Twitter “are likely to be persons within her own echo chamber” and “it’s probably right that they wouldn’t have thought very much of [the claimant] by that time”. In my judgment, those within the jurisdiction to whom the Tweet was published are likely to consist of people whose opinion of the claimant was of no consequence to him.

The claimant’s case on this issue is essentially dependent on drawing an inference of serious harm from the combination of the gravity of the imputation and the extent of publication. While I have been persuaded, on balance, to draw such an inference in relation to the TED Talk, in my judgment, the claimant has not established that the Tweet caused (or is likely to cause) serious harm to Mr Banks’s reputation.”

If it’s an Apple device it’s possibly due to Private Relay – or could be down to an exit router managed by your ISP.

We have showers at work but nowhere to shave.

Just get a travel shave mirror with a suction cup fitting and shave in the shower. You’ll get a better shave and save quite a bit time compared to faffing round at a sink after you’ve had a shower.

“The thing that I hadn’t appreciated is that the energy companies are getting around the price cap by bumping up the standing charges”

The standing charge increase reflects the cost (levied by ofgem on existing suppliers) of switching the customers of the failed retail energy companies to the ones that are still going. It’s capped as well – so like the cap on gas / electric cost means almost all retail energy suppliers are making a loss on it.