“This reached its logical conclusion during the pandemic with the dishing out of £37 billion for a failed test and trace system to the usual suspects.”

This figure is thrown about all over the place as is “serco have been bunged £37B” but the facts don’t support it.

– £37B is the budget not the spend – and it’s for 2 years
– As of November last year the total spend was £5.7B with a run rate of <£1B / month
– >85% of the spend is on testing (of which we’ve done rather a lot compared to most countries)
– in the November spending update, Serco had only received 1.5% of the spend by that point
– for a failing system it’s been pretty good at alerting people of contact with someone infected – see “pingdemic” coverage
– contact rates for the “trace” element have risen consistently despite the refusal of many members of the public to answer the calls, share contact history or isolate when told to do so
– the “test” element has seen the UK doing more tests every day than the whole of the rest of Europe put together.
– The UK has done 248 million tests so far – double that off France and quadruple that of Germany

<span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>Only later – in 2013 – was the “hostile environment” policy introduced by the Conservative-Lib Dem Coalition. Additional changes in 2012 added to the pressure on migrants in the UK</span>

which is complete balls – the first reference to “hostile policy” was made Labour minister Jack Straw in 2000:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2000/apr/14/uk.race

Sorry is this the same racist Theresa May who:

– as Home Secretary took considerable political flack for substantially curtailing stop and search – which disproportionately impacts young black people?

– as Prime Minister conceived a major review into barriers faced by minority groups?

it would seem these days people are very quick to shout “racist” and these slurs almost always come from those on the left who a preach the  “new gentler politics”. As an aside it’s almosy always  David Lammy calling people racist – apart from when he says a judge can’t be any good because they are white and then we’re told it’s not racism it’s skmething else.

Amazon may well pay low tax but their business model is more akin to an infrastructure play whereby any profit is reinvested back into more infrastructure – over decades. In that scenario where capital investment is high profit will always be low (especially so if borrowing is leveraged to accelerate the investment). Low tax in isolation doesn’t tell us anything – you have to look at the P&L for the whole story.

“The Unicorn 5G electronic border solution will see to that, no doubt. There’s no way smuggling will get any worse post-Brexit is there?“

Except that the model for a  “unicorn” customs border already exists – between Canada and the USA. In the most recent pilot a road crossing between the two nations dealt with around $400m of freight movements a day and the digital infrastructure allows goods to be pre-cleared and moved without inspection. Both countries are now looking to scale the model to a full blown system:

http://canada.autonews.com/article/20180224/CANADA01/302249991/canada-u.s.-push-plan-for-getting-goods-over-border-faster?X-IgnoreUserAgent=1

Every time you hear this isn’t possible from the EU ask yourself “why” they are so insisistent it can’t work / hasn’t been done before and you’ll likely get closer to the real agenda – which is using the threat of hard borders and resurrection of the  associated conflict as a particularly low negotiating tactic. The simple truth is that it’s the EU that wants a hard border between Ireland and the UK and it should therefore pay for it and take liability for any social consequences.

A great idea for anyone who uses roads.

Exclusive: Traffic fatalities linked to marijuana are up sharply in Colorado. Is legalization to blame?

“I’d like to correct you – the spike in national debt was caused by the 2008 financial crash, not the labour party.“

This rather conveniently omits that the then Labour government had been overspending between. £30 and £50b every year in the 6 or so years leading up to 2008 to find their “investments” which subsequently turned out to be a waste of money. While other comparable economies were doing the opposite i.e. running no deficit or in some cases, a surplus.

So as a country we went into 2008 with a truck load of debt even before the bank bail outs and have all been paying the price since – with the government since 2010 effectively inheriting a pay day loan that was so big they had no choice but to continue borrowing or make massive cuts to spending.

The hilarious thing is that Labour now tell us austerity has crippled the country when compared to Ireland we’ve had very little austerity i.e. massive overnight cuts to public sector wages, job numbers and other direct spending. Had the government actually done that the UK would probably be in an even better position now albeit we’ve got by far the lowest unemployment rate in Europe.

Image source: https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/labour-lost-the-economic-argument-5-years-ago/

Folks it looks like the TJAgain cyber bot is having a logic failure – please can someone do a CTRL-ALT-DEL to restore the normal logical service? :D

Tjagain – factor in working tax credits, loss of child benefit and no state contribution towards nursery fees for 2 kids (30 hours a week per child) and the scouser is considerably better off than the 100K Londoner who needs to set aside c£50k salary to pay out £3k a month in nursery fees when the scouser gets it for free. But I rather suspect you already know this.

“Back on topic – JC is on about £115k I believe”

Closer to £138k for parliamentary income.

Plus £10k a year for appearing on completely corrupt state TV thus legitimising states like Iran.

Oh, and there’s the £10-14K of pension income that he gets but “forgot” to declare on his tax return.

And his non contributory parliamentary pension pot estimated to be worth in excess of £2m.

Oh, and the £1m+ house that he has equity in exceeding £850k.

But apparently whilst he doesn’t consider himself rich his swivel eyed Marxist shadow Chancellor considers anyone earning £70K a year or more fair game as “rich”.

Fake? It’s filmed in a fake “house” which is actually Black island film studios. Those takes where she’s on the stairs – they don’t go anywhere.

Have to disagree with the Karavan recommendation above – it’s pretty dodgy – when we went earlier this year the burger place was charging for upgrades to “Angus beef” even though the patties were out of the same drawer in the fridge and the extra upgrade charge wasn’t being rung up through the till. The Mexican stall was doing nachos that can best be described as burnt nachos with a thick vomit like sauce on top. And the other burger bar near the entrance were staffed by complete nobbers who took great exception to being asked to do a burger without cheese as they “couldn’t do it without cheese” and then told my friend to learn proper English (he is Polish). In short – avoid.

“Public school pupils receive more in tax subsidies than the per capita”

Not sure this stacks up. As I understand it private schools don’t have to charge VAT at 20%. The average cost of privately school for non boarding was reported by the BBC in 2015 to be £13186, so VAT of £2837 per pupil was on average not received by the treasury. That compares to £4306 per capita funding the same year.

This will of course be the first “real world” problem for Corbyn if he gains power. Already committed to dismantling private education the State will need to either magic up significant new funding for running costs for state education and a massive increase in capital allocations or more likely cut funding for all pupils to accommodate the tens of thousands of pupils who will otherwise have nowhere to go in the state system.

[deleted – someone’s already suggested it]

Whilst you ask this, millions more are asking ‘What have we done to deserve all these bankers and parasites who get obscenely rich at the expense of everyone else’.

The city pays around £72B of tax each year – enough to pay more than half of the NHS budget or the cost of Army, Police and Fire combined. Although banker bonuses give a cheap headline most of the wealth flows into the pension schemes etc that anyone not in the public sector will rely on in their old age.

What “millions” should be asking is – if Corbyn’s crackpot policies do result in a flight of capital (as most international commentators seem to agree), how much more will those millions themselves have to pay? Each £2B increase the government spends is around 1p on the basic rate of income tax or thereabouts. Perhaps people will only really be able to connect the dots on Corbynomics when they are paying more than 50% tax.

“The simple truth is that Gove lied”

Presumably this is the same animal hating Gove that took animal welfare charities by surprise last month by announcing that live exports of animals would stop and sentences for animal cruelty would increase to 5 years?

http://www.smallholder.co.uk/news/15572344.Live_exports_of_animals_to_be_restricted_after_Brexit/

hatter – Member
Consistently decries people claiming benefits as scroungers who should be sent back to the work house but is happy to accept £7.6m of public money to do up his ancestral home.,

He doesn’t own the ancestral home – it’s owned by the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust.

Are we now at the point where money to save / restore old buildings must also go through a Momentum sub committee who will decide whether cash will be awarded based on who used to own the properties?

“There are tax deductible items which decreases the amount I pay tax on if that’s what you mean.”

The rules changed this year. HMRC now takes a % of the rent as tax and “deductables” can no longer be offset against tax. The % is set to increase every year until 2020 at which point c20% ish of rent will go straight to HMRC even if that means the landlord makes a loss when expenses are taken into account.

Not sure if you have noticed but the Labour leadership changed recently? So the relevance of the previous elections is somewhat limited unless you quote Corbyn and co?

Ah ok. Yes. Current Labour Party is “different” to old Labour Party despite the fact most of the MPs are the same.

Where were Corbyn’s and McDonnell’s voices in 2010 and 2015 then? Curiously there doesn’t seem to be any record of them speaking out against Labour discussions with the DUP back then.

It’s a interesting to hear all the criticism coming from the Labour Party and that they would never dream of negotiating with the DUP or offer financial inducements in order to secure a coalition.

Despite the fact they did exactly the same thing at the 2010 and 2015 elections.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7683450/General-Election-2010-DUP-now-being-courted-by-Labour.html

Same on mine – it’s the video advert in the middle of every page – which rather annoyingly plays automatically as well when it has eventually loaded.

“It cost my sister £3000 to have each of her children in Holland because of gaps in the insurance”

It cost me £2360 for 4 nights in an NHS hospital because my wife needed a bed with enough space for a cot AND a chair for me to sit on after some complications with the birth. Other NHS hospitals provide the same for free. So the “free” system here is anything but.

for just5mins to try and pull him out of his parallel universe

Just to be clear – I agree with the comments made on the papers.

I was actually speaking to the behaviour of us as voters / individuals though. If our first response is to abuse candidates from parties we don’t support, or abuse those who support them this is completely self defeating and makes things worse – it also emboldens politicians who think the same behaviour is ok.

Wouldn’t it be better if we respected all candidates for having the courage to put themselves forward, listened to their policies and then did a bit of thinking for ourselves? We’ve had some terrific orators from all the mainstream parties and even if we disagree we should at least listen to them first.

That’s all I’m saying.

goodbudget – can also be accessed via a browser

“This election has to be of the lowest quality I remember, both main parties are filled with people who are just hopeless and are actively disliked internally and externally. Heaven help us.”

And it’s just going to get worse – the level of respect we give to people standing for parliament (for all parties) has pretty much reached the level where we feel entitled to abuse them. Couple with this with the systematic abuse and value judgements made by the left on anyone they disagree with and we’re rapidly heading towards a democracy in which people stop talking about politics for fear of retribution.

A perfect example of this is one of our local candidates for the election – she told me that earlier in the day she’d knocked on the door to a house to be answered by an 8 year old girl. The mum called from the kitchen to ask who it was and when the candidate replied “hello I’m your local candidate” received a torrent of abuse from the kitchen. When the mum finally came to the door her 8 year old daughter told her “but mummy that’s Amelia from School’s mum”.

I can’t see any sane person would put themselves forward for office moving forward – we’ll just be left with the dross who have never done anything and can’t do any more than talk sound bites and simplistic contradictory responses to complex problems – Dianne Abbott is probably the best example of this at present but I’m sure there are many more in all 3 main parties.

From an opinion piece in today’s paper by Lord Carlile – former LiB Dem peer and most recently the independent scrutiniser of anti-terror legislation:

“Last Friday I attended a hustings meeting at which the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, spoke for the Labour Party. Incoherent and incomprehensible might be too generous a description of her performance. The notion that she could lead the Home Office should leave us all in frozen apprehension.

Mr Corbyn appears to believe, with extreme naïveté, that it is possible to negotiate with organisations which inspire the belief that it is desirable to bomb and knife women and children on a night out. This is extremely disappointing. I have known successive Labour home secretaries who understood the issue and acted on the merits.”

Do we all feel safer now?

9 fat Bald ugly unfit white fat

Ah, the “progressive” left…

Not sufficiently investigated? Ok, what could more investigation have done? Short of random searches of his flat for chemicals (which I guarantee would have you lot up in arms about his human rights being breached) they could do nothing, nothing based only on his suspected intent.

One of the attacker’s neighbours has been reported in the press today stating that he spoke to them on Saturday afternoon as they were unloading a B&Q hourly hire van being used to move furniture –

“he was euphoric and wanted to know how he could hire a van”.

If this is true, the plan for Saturday night was put together in the late afternoon before B&Q shut and then actioned only 2-3 hours later. I’m dubious on whether any level of security or interception could have prevented the attack if these timings prove to be correct.

What comments? The only comment is from Lifer who said there are other factors but didn’t say what they are.

As rich is subjective and not exactly scientific it is best not to use it. It also seems very emotive for greedy right wingers.

Which is funny because it came straight out of the mouth of John McDonnell who has a very nice £1.5m pension pot he hasn’t paid a penny towards. But sitting on £1.5m you haven’t paid for yourself apparently = “working class hero”.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/apr/19/how-much-earn-rich-70000-labour

Only if there are no other factors, which there are.

So what are they, and why did that last Labour Government reduce Corp Tax from 31% to 28% while they were in office? Surely if the rate makes no difference to actual receipts there would be no point?

Corbyn’s Corp tax increase is a master stroke.

Ahem:

– Corporation Tax receipts in the last full year were a record £56Bn – with the rate now standing at 19%. So reducing the rate brings in more money.
– The last time Corp Tax was 26% (the Labour pledged level) the rate raised £39Bn in tax – and that’s from 2011
– Labour claim raising Corp Tax back to 26% will bring in another £19B over and above the record receipts last year – so £75Bn in total and double what the rate brought in during 2011

The most likely outcome is that at best Labour will see a reduction of Corp Tax receipts back to £39Bn, leaving them with a new £36B spending gap (equivalent to 13p on basic personal taxation).

At which point they will likely determine that having defined “Rich” as people earning >£150K in 2010, and >£70K in 2017, it will be defined in the future as anyone earning >£35K.

Labour’s “rich” tax is actually just a south east tax – someone on £80k in London would have similar disposable income after living costs as someone on £40-50k in most of the rest of the country. Of course they know this plays very well to voters outside of London who are typically not on £80k but it shows the simplistic and divisive nature of their policies.

Edit: the “rich” are people earning £70k not £80k – https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/money/2017/apr/1https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/money/2017/apr/19/how-much-earn-rich-70000-labour9/how-much-earn-rich-70000-labour

She genuinely looks ill.

She is ill – and as a result has to inject herself with insulin five times a day. I’d also imagine the PM has been pretty busy dealing with briefings after Manchester so she’s probably doing 20+ hour working days as well.

It’s a noticeable trait of the left to cast themselves as “progressive” and having zero tolerance of discrimination against people living with disabilities etc. yet there’s no end to constant highly personalised value judgements made of people who have a different view (see endless recent examples of people being called racist or scum and this then flowing through social media as a proven fact) or the pretty unpleasant imagery of Theresa May of the sort above and references to her being a skeleton etc.

Having seen first hand the disability and subsequent loss of sight in a type 1 diabetic I find it pretty distasteful – and would say the same of anyone making the same jibes against any other MP as well.

Aracer – and what would be its “fair share”?

Nearly 60% of all households now make no net contribution to the running of the state – with many of these demanding more state spending and tax cuts.

Maybe it’s about time to have the difficult conversation that if we want more spending on the state that will ultimately require all of us to pay significantly more tax?

JiveHoneyJive – perhaps that’s because the army is largely a fixed cost.

I thought Rudd did pretty well – and was surprised to read this morning that her father died unexpectedly at the weekend. Taking the battering she got last night on top of losing a parent would certainly break me.

The “debate” was a joke though. Whilst the 6+ parties shouting at the current government undoubtedly gets the thumbs up from the media it just reduces political discourse to a new and entirely counter-productive “low” – and it’s made worse by a baying, heckling audience. No matter what we think of the policies we should at least offer our elected MPs the courtesy of listening to them without hectoring – and that applies to all sides, government, the opposition – the whole lot.

Instead of a calm dispassionate analysis of the pros and cons of all the parties’ manifestos we just get a shouting match. Talking to colleagues and friends I’ve yet to find anyone who has actually read the manifesto of the party they support and most seem quite surprised at some of the manifesto pledges when we’ve discussed them.

binners – Member
One of the senior guys from Ryanair was on five live this morning matter-of-factly stating that it wasn’t scaremongering to point out that in the event of no deal, then flights between mainland Europe and the UK would cease, and that they were very concerned this could happen

One can only imagine what conclusions we could draw if there were 200+ carriers not domicilied in the EU and still managing to run thousands of flights across and landing in / taking off from “EU airspace” every day..

– Labour are trying to improve public services and are open about the fact it will cost. They are also open about where they plan to get the money to cover it.

That’s the most hilarious thing I’ve read on this whole thread.

oldnpastit – that list is a joke but a perfect example of taking the very worst possible outcomes, no matter how unlikely and then presenting them as fact / something that will definitely happen.

* Tariffs on all UK goods exported to the EU won’t “almost certainly trigger a major recession” – the typical tariff will add 3% to cost. For most exporters the drop in the pound easily offsets future tariffs and that’s before any tariff related allowances granted by the Government,

* “Massive bureaucratic non-tariff barriers to British exports – sixty pages of forms for every consignment” reads very much like it’s written by someone who has very little experience of export controls / customs brokerage. In reality most documentation is generated automatically and depending on fright routes will be cleared in advance as it moves across borders. The likes of DHL, Expeditors etc. already do this tens of thousands of times a day worldwide for their customers.

* No access to the Schengen database and other EU security and policing resources – would be entirely self defeating for the UK. Why would the EU’s leaders want to make their own citizens less secure?

* British citizens don’t need to apply for trip-specific visas or stand in two hour long queues at many non EU airports. As some of the largest recipients of Brit tourist spending do we seriously think Spain, Greece, Italy etc. would have no interest in speeding the flow of tourists through their airports?

* Many of the World’s leading scientific and research programmes already include institutions in China, Singapore, North America etc. Most of the world’s leading research isn’t exclusive to the EU so the impact is massively over exaggerated.