I’m in Halifax and have been with Plusnet for several years.

WFH, streaming/gaming without issue.

The majority of suppliers will be using the Openreach infrastructure (aka BT), so its just a case of picking the one with the best deal.

I’ve just renewed for ~£28 per month and constantly get 70mbps

the key thing to the quality of the home is the manager

Working in the industry, this is the primary reason for a home being good/bad/indifferent

General information here: Paying for your own social care (self-funding) – Social care and support guide – NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Unless she has significant wealth, paying for your own care is very expensive (easily +£1000 per week) and a good home is going to want to know that you have the funding in place for your whole stay. Local Authority rates are not commercially viable for most operators, so they dont want you to run out of funding after a few months.

Depends on her reasons for wanting to go into a Care Home?
(as our ex-director said “nobody aspires to go into a Care Home”)

McLarens still struggling to be a championship team. They should have pitted Piastri first (leading car), which would have avoided the mess they got themselves into.

Max still has a huge lead. The likelihood of Lando catching him is slim and it makes much more sense to concentrate on the constructors, with a harmonious team. Lando needs to think about 2025 when he needs Oscars help.

Nico’s advice to Andrea Stella after the race was spot on about being clear on what the teams view is. That can be about pre-race agreements, strategies or tyre choices. All things where McLaren havent been 100% over the past few races.

It’s odd that Red Bull moved quickly to re-contract Yuki when there were rumours of interest elsewhere (was it Audi?)

I imagine its linked to the current Honda deal/funding/sponsorship

The first thing i’ll say is GCSE’s dont matter in the real world. As long as you get a C (or whatever it is now) its zero barrier later in life. Theres too much pressure on kids at this stage.

If she follows this up a level to A Levels, its going to increase in difficulty by x1000 and become harder to be at the top of the class.

Having had to go through a difficult patch (and recover) is a good life lesson to learn.

But I 100% would support the need for CGT on own residence.  I know that pre-election they said they wouldn’t but it’s crazy that the comfortably off make money on property booms whilst the poorest are increasingly trapped.

You’d completely break the housing market by doing this, as it puts a penalty on moving home.

Given the example on a previous page, it would make zero financial sense of an elderly person downsizing, which would free up housing stock, due to a potential high tax bill

My dad bought his house in 1964 for £6,000, it’s now worth several hundred thousand (about 450 fwiw, albeit he has extended twice and of course invested in it over the years, plus remortgaged to finance a business so he is a long way from 444k in profit) I’m assuming if he was to sell he wouldn’t pay tax on 444k?

Loving that Guenther gets a cameo

PCA – BTL acts as a mechanism to transfer money from poor to rich

Which in a lot of ways is public money (via housing benefit) being transferred to the rich.

We need more social housing, which keeps the money in the Governments pocket

Bumping up council tax won’t work. The cost will just be pushed on to the Tennant.

If the property is let out, the Tennant will pay the council tax directly at the standard rate.

Its only if the property is vacant or used as a holiday let/2nd home that the landlord will be charged extra

Deflating the market would hit those people hard

You wouldnt want to deflate the market, as that will open up various issues. It just needs to stagnate so as wages grow, the housing wage/housing multiple recover to a reasonable ratio.

This will be happening naturally as increased interest rates will be limiting lending multiples due to affordability, which will dampen demand/prices.

You keep the rules on “Primary” residences the same as that affects a big percentage of the population, but keep increasing the costs of secondary home ownership, which only impact the richest.

Aren’t 95% of the things on this thread simply never going to be done as they would be unpopular with a large number of voters….?

I suspect the sensible suggestions would be welcomed by 95% of the population.

Its the loud/vocal/influential rich 5% who would be against it

Today Lewis reminded himself that he is a multiple world champion.

It was great to watch and now is 6 different drivers that have wone so for this year (we all thought it would be another Max walk over after Bahrain)

Lando/McLaren just need to make that final step to join Lewis & Max

I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to have seen or photographed this checklist but leave it on display in a house my daughter rents and what laws have been broken?

The landlord wont have broken any laws. They would have been given a “reasonable” amount of time to rectify any issues as long as they have been completed by the deadline thats fine.

Fair wear and tear and principle of betterment, etc. Would you agree?

As long as its left in a “similar” condition as found, (less reasonable wear & tear) thats all that can be claimed against a deposit. If everything was done correctly that deposit should have been held by a 3rd party, so its up to the Landlord to prove the damage, rather than the other way around.

how complex does it get if 1/4 of the tenants wants to kick up and sue and the other 3/4 are ‘meh, move on’?

Was it let as 1x contract for the whole house, or 4x contracts as a HMO?

And she’s now saying that as well as fighting to get all the deposit repaid she wants to ‘sue’ the landlord for charging a going rate for a very substandard, ‘illegal’ property and get some of the rent repaid.

Where do we stand on that?

Probably not worth the hassle really. You’d have to prove that it was “uninhabitable”, have all the documentation/evidence and correspondence.

Frankly, to me as long as we get deposit back in full, it’s part of the Uni experience

Unless you have the skills/experience to peruse this yourself i’d just chalk it up to part of the “Uni experience”

If it was me i’d give Checco up to the summer break to sort himself out, otherwise replace him with Ricciardo and Lawson in the RB jr team.

If, and its a big if, Danny steps up keep that line-up for ’25, otherwise promote Lawson, bin-off Danny and put another junior driver in the second team.

Sainz to Mercedes for 25&26 while you place Antonelli in the Williams to gain experience, like Ferrari are doing with Bearman (and did with Russell)

By the time we get to 27 i’m expecting Lewis and Fernado to have retired, freeing up more seats in the top teams.

I cant see Checco lasting the season at this rate

All the banks are concerned about is the security they have in the asset and your ability to pay back the debt.

Several applications will be fine, as long as theres an underlying rational for them.

The only thing to consider is all of the fees/charges of setting up/cancelling these deals
It may be cheaper/less complicated to take out a personal loan for upgrades

Finally a solution to track limits nonsense?

I’m hoping so

Always thought that they needed a “low grip” surface behind the kerb, so it was a natural time loss for being off-track, rather than a potential advantage. Looks like they can easily remove it for bike or other events, where it might be an issue.

Lets see if it works

He lost the podium because he ran the hard compound for the final stint.

If you listen to the High Performance podcast with Albon he explains the issue very well.

When RedBull had a car advantage Perez could be 0.4 seconds a lap behind Max and that would still be P2

Now that the others are catching up that 0.4s gap is putting him P6-10

Given that Lawrence Stroll has said that he’s planning for top 3 status for the team, when do we think he’s going to suggest to his son that perhaps his career in racing is going to be outside F1..?

Rumours are that he’ll move over to WEC once Aston join in 25

Potentially opening the door for Tsunoda to tie in with the Honda engine switch

I can see that there might be no options for next year, but he already had a contract covering that.

What happens if Lewis wins the championship with Ferrari in 26 and then retires?

Hes already taken himself out of the driver market for that scenario, with the contract extension.

Albon sticking with Williams

WTF?!?

As a driver of his level, why would you rule yourself out of any opportunity of driving for a race winning team for the next 3 years?

If anyone can turn Williams around its Vowles, but its going to take several years to do so so it feels like hes writing his career off?

Unless hes been told that all the other opportunities have been closed off, but what happens the day that either Lewis/Alonso retire. Either hes stuck at Williams or that ‘vote of confidence’ is undermined by exit clauses.

Been commuting by motorbike for 10+ years and never had any issues.

For bikes/scooters just pick up something cheap/secondhand/japanese as once winter comes the road salt will make anything look tatty rather quickly.

If you can cycle and have a car licence, getting your bike licence is fairly straight forward. Just find your local riding school and they’ll be able to provide you with everything you’ll need to pass your test (can recommend someone in Huddersfield if you’re based up here)

Personally, i’d just take each of the 4 tests individually (and was the advice I was given). Takes the pressure off of having to pass as you have another test booked the next day.

The whole reason for the Government introducing the Minimum wage as to move the balance to the Employer rather than the state.

Wages + benefits have broadly been the same in total across the years, its just as the wages have become a bigger % of the total number.

There is a lot of wage compression going on, where you may only get 2% or NLW. Seeing it a lot in the industry I work in where people are wondering if its worth 10p an extra an hour for all of the extra responsibility above an entry level role.

Unfortunately you have to vote with your feet an move into other companies for wage progression.

Sometimes the insurance companies dont want to be in a certain segment of the market, so crank up the prices.

Compare the Market will give you some ballpark figures.

Also think about increasing your excess too. My thinking is that if i have to claim, its going to be a big amount, so dont mind having a big excess (~£500 seems a good balance)

And in ’96 Williams had no competition and Hill only just beat Villeneuve who was in his first season.

If you’re Frank you knew you didnt need Hill, as Villeneuve would be faster in ’97 and was proved right when he won the championship that year. Theres no way Hill would have been champion again in ’97.

Frank was always in favour of throwing someone new into the car (Villenueve/Zanardi/Montoya/Frentzen). Sometimes its worked, sometimes it didnt, but at the time everyone though Frentzen was as fast as Schumacher given their time together in Sportscars (also Wendlinger).

Williams? The team whose glory days were characterised by managing to lose all their drivers as soon as they became world champions

Frank always wanted to put all his money into the car and knew that if he had the fastest car on the grid he’d have a queue of drivers waiting at the factory doors. So much so, that Senna supposedly offered to drive for free in ’93.

If you’re thinking about buying a flat you’ll need to factor in additional legal fees and also look into communal charges and contributions to sinking funds.

You’ll also need to factor in the additional mortgage payments you’ll have to make for when the property is empty, as you’re not going to get the start/end dates of ownership to match those of Uni course.

I’d also look into the interest rates of those who specialise in these types of mortgage. They are likely to be higher than the rates you’ll find on the high street. Also, if you’re the guarantor they are going to base the affordability of application on your capacity to fund the additional £1000 per month within your current finances.

I’ll speak to our property agent at work tomorrow as his son is currently at Durham Uni, and see where there opinion is.

You need to factor in the Conveyancing fees (or whatever they might be called in Scotland) to buy and sell the house thats going to be +£5k before you start

Then in the first 2 years of a Mortgage 95%+ of that will be spent on interest to the bank. Thats likely to be equal to the amount of rent you’ll pay, plus any other fees the bank may want.

If you own the home you’ll need to factor in repairs/maintenance which is generally ~1% of the value of the home per year.

I doubt it’ll be any cheaper to buy vs rent, plus you have to take on all that additional risk.

Sure I read that Marko was quoted as saying that RB could/would not match the mega offer Audi have already made to Sainz

Thats just Marko being Marko.
If you have the fastest car on the grid theres no need to offer big money to someone

Its a case of who blinks first

Red Bull and Mercedes have plenty of options, so theres little reason for them to confirm any of their drivers until later in the year. Sainz is just going to have to play a waiting game.

I’m sure Alonso got a firm no from both of those teams and so decided to extended with Aston.

Audi is such a gamble and I cant see them breaking into the top half of the grid in the short term

So is The Useless Hulk replacing Bottas or Zhou?

Probably little difference between Bottas and Hulk, but Hulk will help with all of the German PR

Expecting Zhou to be dropped with Bottas position being on hold until the rest of the grid settles down.

Hopefully Hulks move opens the door at HAAS for Bearman and Antonelli is being lined up at Mercedes/Williams

Is there any rule of thumb regarding what is likely to be offered?

If its a US company then expect it to be absolute minimum, or they just make your life so unpleasant that you decide to leave before it gets to a redundancy stage.

Whats the current EPC rating of the house?

If its a 1970’s build its not going to be great and unless its super insulated, it might not produce the heat you want. ASHPs work on a lower but more continual heat output, so you need to be minimising the heat loss.

The other thing to mention is that Elec is x3 the price of Gas, so your energy bill is going to increase.

I’d be thinking about life today & tomorrow, not how it might be in 5 years time.

What life do you want to lead once you retire?

Can you start to live that life now in your current job and would the new job prevent this?

Controversially i’d say not to bother with a Pension at that age.

The moneys going to be locked up for at least 30 years, and there will be other things which require the cash in the short/medium term (Australia trip/House purchase/etc..)

Yes you might miss out on the compounding and tax benefits, but you’ll be far better placed to make the most of these benefits once you hit the higher tax band.

Unsure why there is need for legislation when the numbers of people smoking falls year on year:

https://ash.org.uk/uploads/Smoking-Statistics-Fact-Sheet.pdf?v=1697728811

(page3)

Its a problem which will solve itself

I’d have thought half of the point would be to hang out with the locals?

Unsure on that site, but there should be something University linked for students?

One thing to mention is that you still need to be above National Minimum wage after any kind of salary sacrifice scheme (pensions/shares/etc)

If hes not paying much tax at the moment, then these might not be options which are available to him.

Its not looking great for Sainz and Albon is it?

RB – Max + 1 (probably Checco now he accepts hes racing for 2nd every weekend)

Ferrari – Charles & Lewis

McLaren – Norris & Pistri

Mercedes – Russell +1 (sounds like they’re going to take a chance on Antonelli)

Aston – Alonso & Stroll?

The only other reasonable seat is to take a punt on Audi (maybe for Sainz given his fathers connections)