Re: The General Election Thread : Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:18 pm  

BobbyD wrote:

And replace it with what? Totalitarian state control? How are you going to get all teachers of the same standard to make sure everyone get's the same level of education? How are you going to ensure all class sizes are the same? What about kids with special needs, or are you just lumping them in with everyone else? Or are you going to conveniently just turn a blind eye to the startling impracticalities of it all, because, y'know, private = rich = bad and therefore we have to drag everyone down to that level, then the likes of DaveO and cod'ead will be happy.

Then what if a parent wants young Timmy to do a bit of extra reading? Will that be banned? And when you've churned out this generation of robots, what jobs are they going to do?

Lol. Got bored of the other accounts did you?

Re: The General Election Thread : Wed Apr 08, 2015 12:00 am  

Him wrote:

Lol. Got bored of the other accounts did you?

Wait for the lecture on opinion polls...

Re: The General Election Thread : Wed Apr 08, 2015 12:44 pm  

DaveO wrote:

Well that was probably a bad example given the state run nursery school my wife works for also has to use Biffa. That is refuse collection was privatised. The school has to pay for it and she is forever battling duff invoices etc.

How naive are you and Dally? You don't expect to pay less tax (local or otherwise) when a service once provided by the LA (or central govt) is now provided by a private company do you? Lowering taxes has never been what privatisation was about.

You have to pay twice. Obviously.

I didn't naively call for a tax reduction, I suggested business rates should be scrapped but other taxes increased to compensate.

Re: The General Election Thread : Wed Apr 08, 2015 3:42 pm  

Dally wrote:

I didn't naively call for a tax reduction, I suggested business rates should be scrapped but other taxes increased to compensate.

Business rates should be revised but there's no reason they should be scrapped. Although I would favour the scrapping if it was replaced with Land Value Taxation. At least that way, those companies involved in land banking or simply sitting on empty or derelict plots, would have to pay their fair share of tax. Hopefully that would reduce the burden on active businesses

Re: The General Election Thread : Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:13 pm  

DaveO wrote:

Well that was probably a bad example given the state run nursery school my wife works for also has to use Biffa. That is refuse collection was privatised. The school has to pay for it and she is forever battling duff invoices etc.

One of our neighbouring businesses cancelled their contract with Biffa in favour of some other shyster, a few weeks later Biffa came along, and while I watched them out of the window they took their wheelie bin AND our wheelie bin away, they were so quick that I couldn't get out fast enough to stop them.

I rang the Biffa Leeds office up to tell them to get onto their driver and bring our bin back, the plonker on the line thought that we'd had it stolen, maybe because I told him that Biffa had just stolen our bin, so he told me that the only way to get a replacement would be to ring the police and get a crime number, then they'd send another bin around - so I rang our local police and asked for a crime number for a crime that hadn't happened at all and the person in the police station kept asking "But why would anyone steal a wheelie bin ?" I did try to explain that I knew who had stolen it and when I told him it was the company who supplied it to us in the first place he hung up.

I stopped paying for the "service" and sent back their invoices every month with "Give us our bin back" written in red ink on them, we never resolved it before we closed that business

Re: The General Election Thread : Wed Apr 08, 2015 8:58 pm  

Still about a month to go and things are becoming even more tiresome - I'm wondering how I'm going to be able to put up with another 4 weeks of this childish rubbish.

However, I'd just like to pay huge thanks to the leader of the Greens, Natalie Bennett - Has a leader of a political party ever provided so many unintentional laughs during an election campaign before?

I know there is a lot of good intention about the Greens, but they really are a bunch of crackpots, who are away with the fairies, and in Bennett they have a leader who is truly on another planet.

Interviewing her must be an absolute dream for any TV or radio show producers because she is absolute gold - Any interviewer just has to say the magic words '....and how are you going to pay for that?' to any of her bonkers policies and, bingo, the stuttering and general know-nothingness begins and you suddenly have political gold.

Keep it up Ms Bennett, you might make this election almost bearable.

Re: The General Election Thread : Thu Apr 09, 2015 4:29 am  

Dita's Slot Meter wrote:

Still about a month to go and things are becoming even more tiresome - I'm wondering how I'm going to be able to put up with another 4 weeks of this childish rubbish.

However, I'd just like to pay huge thanks to the leader of the Greens, Natalie Bennett - Has a leader of a political party ever provided so many unintentional laughs during an election campaign before?

I know there is a lot of good intention about the Greens, but they really are a bunch of crackpots, who are away with the fairies, and in Bennett they have a leader who is truly on another planet.

Interviewing her must be an absolute dream for any TV or radio show producers because she is absolute gold - Any interviewer just has to say the magic words '....and how are you going to pay for that?' to any of her bonkers policies and, bingo, the stuttering and general know-nothingness begins and you suddenly have political gold.

Keep it up Ms Bennett, you might make this election almost bearable.

Not too dissimilar to Farage then.

Leaving the EU and reducing foreign aid, with UKIP as the catalyst appear to be all we need to produce the magic money tree

Re: The General Election Thread : Thu Apr 09, 2015 4:58 am  

The none dom thing is truly bonkers - how is this going to be administered. How are they going estimate how much tax a Russian billionaire should pay? HMRC will have no juristriction to investigate earnings in a foreign country. Whilst not ideal better to at least get the 60k plus tax on any UK earnings and the huge spend these people get through here than nothing. Better to concentrate on getting companies to pay tax on UK earned perofits

Re: The General Election Thread : Thu Apr 09, 2015 7:54 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

The none dom thing is truly bonkers - how is this going to be administered. How are they going estimate how much tax a Russian billionaire should pay? HMRC will have no juristriction to investigate earnings in a foreign country. Whilst not ideal better to at least get the 60k plus tax on any UK earnings and the huge spend these people get through here than nothing. Better to concentrate on getting companies to pay tax on UK earned perofits

Zac Goldsmith, born, bred, educated in the UK was elligible for non-dom status, inherited (along with about £200,000,000) from his father. He voluntarily relinquished non-dom status, as did Lord Noon because they both knew it was inequitable. The "flight of money" threat is simply another scare tactic, similar to the one we faced when cracking down on spiv bankers and traders.

As soon as any individual or company states "I/we pay all UK taxes that are due", you simply know that they have some serious dosh to hide from the taxman.

In 2008 the Institute of Directors predicted flight from the UK when Labour first proposed the non-dom levy:



The sky didn't fall in then and it's doubtful it will now

Re: The General Election Thread : Thu Apr 09, 2015 8:05 am  

Looks like the tories are getting increasing desperate and more personal. Michael Fallon now says that Miliband would stab the UK in the back, just like he stabbed his brother in the back He conveniently forgets that Ed and David Miliband ran in an open leadership campaign and Ed won by the rules that were clear and transparent from the start. He also seems oblivious that whether or not Labour manage to achieve power with the help of the SNP, there isn't a snowball's chance of Trident being scrapped, unless the tories and every other party voted against it and that ain't going to happen

Looks like the tories are getting increasing desperate and more personal. Michael Fallon now says that Miliband would stab the UK in the back, just like he stabbed his brother in the back He conveniently forgets that Ed and David Miliband ran in an open leadership campaign and Ed won by the rules that were clear and transparent from the start. He also seems oblivious that whether or not Labour manage to achieve power with the help of the SNP, there isn't a snowball's chance of Trident being scrapped, unless the tories and every other party voted against it and that ain't going to happen