pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Posts: 8,318
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Post by pjw1961 on Apr 17, 2024 21:48:51 GMT
... The one thing that most British people have in common is a distaste for Bullies. They don't like hypocrisy either. Why didn't she just apologise and say she's been given bad advice?Having said that I very much hope she's found not to have done anything wrong. Because it is ultra-thin stuff. To quote the Guardian today: "Rayner, according to her aides, is entirely confident she has done nothing wrong, which is why – when the police confirmed last week they would investigate after all – she pledged to step down as deputy leader if she was found to have committed a crime. Stephen Watson, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, told BBC local radio on Tuesday that Rayner was under investigation on a number of counts. But he added: “That is a neutral act. It does not imply that the information gives us any hard and fast sort of evidence upon which to base anything at this stage. It is simply: we have an allegation, we are going to get to the bottom of what has happened.” The force has not publicly said what it is investigating, although reports suggest that a team of at least a dozen officers will examine tax matters and potential election law offences arising from Rayner’s electoral roll registration. One Tory HQ insider admits that this is “puzzling”, as HMRC usually investigates tax offences while prosecutions under election law must be made within 12 months of an alleged offence. Even (James) Daly (Tory MP), who initially contacted the police, has struggled to say what he thinks Rayner has done wrong. “I asked the police to investigate certain matters that were in the public domain regarding … certain things,” he said during a cringeworthy Sky News interview." www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/17/tory-attack-dog-reheats-failed-ploy-used-against-starmer-to-go-for-rayner
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Post by isa on Apr 17, 2024 22:23:07 GMT
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oldnat
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Extremist - Undermining the UK state and its institutions
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Post by oldnat on Apr 17, 2024 22:58:06 GMT
They don't like hypocrisy either. Why didn't she just apologise and say she's been given bad advice?Having said that I very much hope she's found not to have done anything wrong. Because it is ultra-thin stuff. To quote the Guardian today: "Rayner, according to her aides, is entirely confident she has done nothing wrong, which is why – when the police confirmed last week they would investigate after all – she pledged to step down as deputy leader if she was found to have committed a crime. Stephen Watson, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, told BBC local radio on Tuesday that Rayner was under investigation on a number of counts. But he added: “That is a neutral act. It does not imply that the information gives us any hard and fast sort of evidence upon which to base anything at this stage. It is simply: we have an allegation, we are going to get to the bottom of what has happened.” The force has not publicly said what it is investigating, although reports suggest that a team of at least a dozen officers will examine tax matters and potential election law offences arising from Rayner’s electoral roll registration. One Tory HQ insider admits that this is “puzzling”, as HMRC usually investigates tax offences while prosecutions under election law must be made within 12 months of an alleged offence. Even (James) Daly (Tory MP), who initially contacted the police, has struggled to say what he thinks Rayner has done wrong. “I asked the police to investigate certain matters that were in the public domain regarding … certain things,” he said during a cringeworthy Sky News interview." www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/17/tory-attack-dog-reheats-failed-ploy-used-against-starmer-to-go-for-rayner Since we still have no suggestions from Police Scotland as to what criminal activity may have been involved with SNP finances, almost 3 years on and £1m+ investigation costs, on the basis of an "allegation", the Rayner case clearly needs even more stringent investigation, which the Home Office will insist on.
If Manchester police can't find something soon, then blue tents need to be erected outside her current and former homes, while the gardens are dug up to search for evidence of something or other.
After all, there's no smoke without fire - as politicians blowing smoke frequently suggest.
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Post by eor on Apr 17, 2024 23:15:40 GMT
On the Angela Rayner thing... firstly it's a bit curious to see so many posters eager to say "it's only £1500" or whatever. Is there a sliding scale we can use for what's acceptable to cheat on your taxes by being clever? £1000 for a backbench MP, £5000 for a cabinet minister, £20k for the PM? How does it work?
Secondly, and more importantly... just like those confidently declaring either way, I have no idea if Angela Rayner has actually done anything wrong here. But what all this scrutiny does highlight very well is how simplistic and futile a lot of the demands for means-testing on various payments, benefits and thresholds actually is. Families are complicated and dynamic, and so are households, and the two don't necessarily line up that well, at least for long.
The idea that taxes and benefits can be confidently levied and assessed on them given enough computers is miles away from reality.
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steve
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Posts: 12,089
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Post by steve on Apr 17, 2024 23:17:58 GMT
What is it with these Tory mps and online dating sites!
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Post by eor on Apr 17, 2024 23:20:00 GMT
For it to work, adults will have to be made to show a document with Date-of birth to buy cigarettes in a few years' time. Could any shopkeeper tell the difference between say an 18 and 19 year-old by sight? Well no - but then they couldn't tell the difference between a 17 year old and an 18 year old either, so they already need to see ID under the current system. In fact anybody who doesn't look obviously over 25 is automatically ID'd when buying cigarettes or alcohol anyway. I hold the record amongst my friends for being ID'd for buying alcohol at nearly 38. (like all such claims amongst us there was an independent cross-check for whether the shop was subject to Ask Everyone Or Lose Your License measures and it was not )
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steve
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Post by steve on Apr 17, 2024 23:24:32 GMT
eorCapital gains tax on the sale of a house which you have lived in for some period and where you've made some improvements and paid fees for sale and purchase can be absurdly complex. It's entirely possible to get the amount wrong. We've been looking at the potential liability we might have on a similarly modest house and neither me or my accountant can get the same figure twice, we'll probably have to go with our best estimate. That's not tax evasion.
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Post by mercian on Apr 17, 2024 23:26:01 GMT
What is it with these Tory mps and online dating sites! It's not just Tories. Chris Bryant was at it years ago. Perhaps that's what gave them the idea?
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steve
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Post by steve on Apr 17, 2024 23:28:08 GMT
eorMy daughter routinely gets asked for proof of age at nearly 30 and was recently refused entry into a pub because her provisional driving licence was out of date! As she pointed out she didn't intend to drive the pub wtf did it matter if it had expired.
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Post by mercian on Apr 17, 2024 23:29:03 GMT
Well no - but then they couldn't tell the difference between a 17 year old and an 18 year old either, so they already need to see ID under the current system. In fact anybody who doesn't look obviously over 25 is automatically ID'd when buying cigarettes or alcohol anyway. I hold the record amongst my friends for being ID'd for buying alcohol at nearly 38. (like all such claims amongst us there was an independent cross-check for whether the shop was subject to Ask Everyone Or Lose Your License measures and it was not ) The local supermarket self-checkout won't let me buy booze until an employee proves that I'm over 18. I usually offer to show them my bus pass but they don't take me up on the offer.
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Post by eor on Apr 17, 2024 23:32:14 GMT
eor Capital gains tax on the sale of a house which you have lived in for some period and where you've made some improvements and paid fees for sale and purchase can be absurdly complex. It's entirely possible to get the amount wrong. We've been looking at the potential liability we might have on a similarly modest house and neither me or my accountant can get the same figure twice, we'll probably have to go with our best estimate. That's not tax evasion. And that's without the complexity of you and Faith separating and one of you taking on the house on your own for a while but then forming a relationship with a different partner and it's the same house but not the same family and go calculate...
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steve
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Post by steve on Apr 17, 2024 23:32:45 GMT
mercianBryant didn't use his local party funding or disclose the personal details of other mps while using a dating site.There's nothing wrong with using a dating site it's the add ons that are the isdue. You do understand the difference don't you?
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steve
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Post by steve on Apr 17, 2024 23:46:47 GMT
Brexit
Is bad for your health.
"Drug shortages are a “new normal” in the UK and are being exacerbated by Brexit, a report by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank has warned. A dramatic recent spike in the number of drugs that are unavailable has created serious problems for doctors, pharmacists, the NHS and patients, it found.
The number of warnings drug companies have issued about impending supply problems for certain products has more than doubled from 648 in 2020 to 1,634 last year.
Mark Dayan, the report’s lead author and the Nuffield Trust’s Brexit programme lead, said: “The rise in shortages of vital medicines from rare to commonplace has been a shocking development that few would have expected a decade ago.” The UK has been struggling since last year with major shortages of drugs to treat ADHD, type 2 diabetes and epilepsy. Three ADHD drugs that were in short supply were meant to be back in normal circulation by the end of 2023 but remain hard to obtain.
Some medicine shortages are so serious that they are imperilling the health and even lives of patients with serious illnesses, pharmacy bosses warned.
The UK has been struggling since last year with major shortages of drugs to treat ADHD, type 2 diabetes and epilepsy. Three ADHD drugs that were in short supply were meant to be back in normal circulation by the end of 2023 but remain hard to obtain.
Global manufacturing problems linked to Covid, inflation, the war in Ukraine and global instability have helped cause the UK’s unprecedented inability to ensure patients can access drugs.
But Britain’s departure from the EU in 2020 has significantly aggravated the problem, laid bare the “fragility” of the country’s medicines supply networks and could lead to the situation worsening, the report said.
“A clear picture emerged of underlying fragilities at a global and UK level, not fundamentally rooted in Brexit but exacerbated by it in some specific ways, especially through some companies removing the UK from their supply chains,” it said.
The UK’s exit from the single market has disrupted the previously smooth supply of drugs, for example through the creation of a requirement for customs checks at the border, as has Britain’s decision to leave the EU’s European Medicines Agency and start approving drugs itself. The UK is now much slower than the EU at making new drugs available, the report found.
Post-Brexit red tape has prompted some firms to stop supplying to the UK altogether.
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Post by mercian on Apr 17, 2024 23:56:14 GMT
steveYes of course, but your original post on this was "What is it with these Tory mps and online dating sites!" and that is what I was replying to.
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Post by expatr on Apr 18, 2024 0:46:42 GMT
On the Angela Rayner thing... firstly it's a bit curious to see so many posters eager to say "it's only £1500" or whatever. Is there a sliding scale we can use for what's acceptable to cheat on your taxes by being clever? £1000 for a backbench MP, £5000 for a cabinet minister, £20k for the PM? How does it work? Secondly, and more importantly... just like those confidently declaring either way, I have no idea if Angela Rayner has actually done anything wrong here. But what all this scrutiny does highlight very well is how simplistic and futile a lot of the demands for means-testing on various payments, benefits and thresholds actually is. Families are complicated and dynamic, and so are households, and the two don't necessarily line up that well, at least for long. The idea that taxes and benefits can be confidently levied and assessed on them given enough computers is miles away from reality. Very good points
And I think this is what people are saying when they say "only 1500" This is absolutely the level of money which could happen easily through wrong advice, uncertainty about what bit of the law actually applies, a simple mistake etc (And the Dan Niedle stuff on this shows that this is really unclear). And this is absolutely why HMRC would never have gone chasing this (and indeed they didn't at the time). It is not a "the principle of the thing" at all.
In the public mind creatively (though legally) claiming non-dom status when you are part of the f*ing legislature or own part of the f*ing media to avoid millions in tax being "avoidance" and thus perfectly OK, whereas not fully understanding some pretty complex and ambiguous rules and thereby "maybe" (although not clear) avoiding 1500 being "evasion" and thus evil and criminal is a nonsense, and plays into a sense of "one rule for the rich, one for the rest of us". So overall even if this plays out with Rayner resigning I think public sympathy will be on her side (lots of people could imagine and sympathise with her situation, very few with Ashcroft's, Harmsworth's or Sunak's).
And so long term this does nothing to help the Tories (the posh boys who are fairly obviously torn between fancying and fearing her will have their little masturbatory moment, the rest of the population will look on in disgust) and little to damage Labour.
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Post by isa on Apr 18, 2024 1:03:26 GMT
A useful guide as to where elections are taking place in England on 02 May. A surprisingly small geographical area, but presumably not in population terms. The accompanying charts demonstrate the scale of CON losses last year, particularly in the South East, seemingly corroborating James E's recent analyses. My local authority, (Somerset), has no council elections, but I can still have my say in terms of Police and Crime Commissioner. And I will. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck5k72r9nygo
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Post by moby on Apr 18, 2024 4:39:25 GMT
On the Angela Rayner thing... firstly it's a bit curious to see so many posters eager to say "it's only £1500" or whatever. Is there a sliding scale we can use for what's acceptable to cheat on your taxes by being clever? £1000 for a backbench MP, £5000 for a cabinet minister, £20k for the PM? How does it work? Secondly, and more importantly... just like those confidently declaring either way, I have no idea if Angela Rayner has actually done anything wrong here. But what all this scrutiny does highlight very well is how simplistic and futile a lot of the demands for means-testing on various payments, benefits and thresholds actually is. Families are complicated and dynamic, and so are households, and the two don't necessarily line up that well, at least for long. The idea that taxes and benefits can be confidently levied and assessed on them given enough computers is miles away from reality. I wouldn't call it a sliding scale, more like there's one rule for people who can afford accountants and another for the rest of us that can't. We are also setting a new precedent if we are now asking for disclosure of a prospective MPs tax affairs before they enter parliament.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Apr 18, 2024 6:02:22 GMT
News this morning of another conservative MP losing the whip, Mark Menzies. Though it wasnt clear if he had already lost said whip, but the newspapers today have a splash about the story. Something about ringing people in the middle of the night begging them to bring him thousands of pounds because he had been locked in by bad people, which were later reimbursed from campaign funds. R4 noted this brings the total of sitting conservative MPs who have lost the whip to 18, making them the fourth largest political group in the commons. i see one of the links above says the conservatives have known about this matter for three months, but have only withdrawn the whip now it has become public.
Scotland to abandon decarbonisation targets, following a report saying its utterly impossible to meet them. Of course, in most respects the ability of the scottish government to fund such measures depends on the money made available by the westminster government for doing the same, so although they have discretion in their spending, in practice this is a consequence of the decision of the Westminster parliament. The implication is that while the report was for scotland, it will also apply to England, that the UK does not have a hope in hell of meeting its notional decarbonisation targets. Which will be because the conservative government chose to abandon and wind down schemes to do this. People will recall it has now ordered new nuclear and more oil and gas extraction rather than alternative renewables energy. The Scottish report said the idea of switching to heat pumps is massively failing. Other alternative ideas such as CO2 extraction and planting trees also seem to be not happening.
Shortages of prescription drugs are growing. This is apparently a result of our leaving the EU integrated drugs regime. There seem to be reports of quite mainstream drugs in short supply, as well as the question whether drug companies are even bothering to apply for new drugs to be certified for use in the UK. We used to get them certified along with the whole of the EU so it wasnt a question whether the UK market alone was worth it. There seems to be an issue behind this that the NHS forced drug companies to accept lower prices for drugs, but now they just arent interested in certifying them in the UK to sell at a low price. Brexit means...more expensive drugs.
IMF issues a warning the UK government budget is critically unbalanced and must be corrected. We have no credible plan to control the growing budget deficit. (I mentioned before australia has a higher credit rating than the UK). The suggestion is the government needs an emergency budget to raise taxes or cut funding.
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Post by alec on Apr 18, 2024 6:12:34 GMT
Doesn't take a genius to correctly interpret a graph like this. /photo/1
Such clear discontinuities indicate a step change in conditions, and the reversal of the long term trend in early March 2020 allied to the fact that the incredible rise since then has mirrored covid case numbers while doesn't reflect periods where the NHS waiting lists recovered tells us all we need to know.
In other countries the impact of covid on long term health is starting to become more widely recognised, but in Conservative led UK, allied by a compliant opposition, we're still living in La La Land. This week the Director of the National Institute of Health, a government appointment and the main medical research funder in the US, came out very clearly to state that unlike many 'normal' viruses, we now have undisputable evidence of persistent infection in multiple organ systems that cannot be detected by PCR tests, that can last for years, and which is directly linked to long covid along with a host of other illnesses not currently being linked to past covid infection history. This has been known by researchers since mid 2020, but has been a major point of contention, with many on the minimizing camp firstly claiming it was only fragments of viral RNA that hadn't been fully cleared, then having to accept it was replicating virus, but claiming this was only in a small subset of people with specific vulnerabilities, but it's now officially accepted that persistent replication is a risk from infection that can affect pretty much anyone, regardless of vaccine status, age, comorbidities, infection history, severity of acute infection, or general health status. Indeed, quite a number of researchers who have been correct in their assessment to date are saying that at present, there is zero evidence that anyone who has had covid has fully cleared the virus; in every case where comprehensive biopsies and tests have been undertaken, they have found it.
Everywhere in the world where covid is regularly circulating we see the population getting sicker. At some point, we will decide to act, and use the multiple tools we have available to re-engineer the environment to aim for elimination of covid, like we have with a host of other severe diseases. I just wish Labour woke up to this, They'll get nowhere with health, education and the economy until they start to address this threat.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Apr 18, 2024 6:19:18 GMT
On the Angela Rayner thing... firstly it's a bit curious to see so many posters eager to say "it's only £1500" or whatever. Well thats because to people on a parliamentary salary, never mind a city one, this is small change.
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Danny
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Posts: 9,605
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Post by Danny on Apr 18, 2024 6:20:31 GMT
What is it with these Tory mps and online dating sites! are you talking about menzies?
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Danny
Member
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Post by Danny on Apr 18, 2024 6:23:37 GMT
eorMy daughter routinely gets asked for proof of age at nearly 30 and was recently refused entry into a pub because her provisional driving licence was out of date! As she pointed out she didn't intend to drive the pub wtf did it matter if it had expired. This seems to be common, it was a surprising exception that to vote you can use expired ID.
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Danny
Member
Posts: 9,605
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Post by Danny on Apr 18, 2024 6:27:38 GMT
mercianBryant didn't use his local party funding or disclose the personal details of other mps while using a dating site.There's nothing wrong with using a dating site it's the add ons that are the isdue. You do understand the difference don't you? There is a claim he used his party funding for something weird involving bad people locking him in until they were paid.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Apr 18, 2024 6:34:10 GMT
Doesn't take a genius to correctly interpret a graph like this. /photo/1 What photo? did the link go wrong?
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Danny
Member
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Post by Danny on Apr 18, 2024 6:43:59 GMT
In other countries the impact of covid on long term health is starting to become more widely recognised, but in Conservative led UK, allied by a compliant opposition, we're still living in La La Land. This week the Director of the National Institute of Health, a government appointment and the main medical research funder in the US, came out very clearly to state that unlike many 'normal' viruses, we now have undisputable evidence of persistent infection in multiple organ systems that cannot be detected by PCR tests, that can last for years, and which is directly linked to long covid along with a host of other illnesses not currently being linked to past covid infection history. This has been known by researchers since mid 2020, but has been a major point of contention, with many on the minimizing camp firstly claiming it was only fragments of viral RNA that hadn't been fully cleared, then having to accept it was replicating virus, but claiming this was only in a small subset of people with specific vulnerabilities, but it's now officially accepted that persistent replication is a risk from infection that can affect pretty much anyone, regardless of vaccine status, age, comorbidities, infection history, severity of acute infection, or general health status. Indeed, quite a number of researchers who have been correct in their assessment to date are saying that at present, there is zero evidence that anyone who has had covid has fully cleared the virus; in every case where comprehensive biopsies and tests have been undertaken, they have found it. Everywhere in the world where covid is regularly circulating we see the population getting sicker. At some point, we will decide to act, and use the multiple tools we have available to re-engineer the environment to aim for elimination of covid, like we have with a host of other severe diseases. I just wish Labour woke up to this, They'll get nowhere with health, education and the economy until they start to address this threat. Covid is circulating everywhere. Some countries like Japan were essentially immune to it back in 2019, and thats why they had tiny case numbers compared to most. So the seriousness obviously depends on frequency of infection, more mild cases or fewer serious cases, thats the choice. But apart from that there is no way to stop it circulating. You seem to forget that the purpose of lockdown was to prevent circulation and eradicate the disease, before vaccines would make it impossible to return in the future. Utter failure. Medical authorities are not doing what you suggest because they recognise it would be pointless because there is no way to prevent spread of covid through society, and implicitly it was also pointless when we did it in 2020. As to complex harms post infection, that they exist really isnt surprising. What you still fail to do is quantify them in any way which is a serious danger to society, they just arent. But also you impute covid with being uniquely dangerous, whereas its likely all the same issues apply to many other viruses we have always lived with. Covid is not an unusual disease. Our DNA is significantly copied from or shared with viruses (quick google suggests 8%).
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Post by EmCat on Apr 18, 2024 7:07:35 GMT
As with Wragg, it's not so much what they did, but more that, when faced with extortion / blackmail (pay up £5k for Reasons, in this case; give us other names in Wragg's case), they immediately concede. The government line, for many decades, has always been "we don't negotiate with terrorists". While the individuals concerned weren't being coerced by members of organised terrorist groups, they were still undeniably being terrorised. The fact they caved immediately almost seems as though normalising acquiescence is being done. The defence of Owen Paterson for a minor issue, which ultimately led to Johnson's downfall, seemed to be one of defending a point of principle. If Paterson had done it, then Johnson most definitely had, so the defence was to make the issue go away. (Which it didn't). Hence, I wonder what succumbing to extortion a random senior MP has done? The implication being that if it was "ok, really" for Wragg and Menzies to cough up, then, when the investigation does unearth something similar from someone else, then that person will try the "but it's ok really just to pay up straightaway" defence.
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Post by johntel on Apr 18, 2024 7:15:59 GMT
They don't like hypocrisy either. Why didn't she just apologise and say she's been given bad advice? Having said that I very much hope she's found not to have done anything wrong. "They (British people) don't like hypocrisy either."
Again, is there any evidence for "British people" disliking hypocrisy (among others, of course, - not in themselves) more than people anywhere else, or is that just another example of crass exceptionalism?? I was talking about British people , not anyone else. Never mind, I can understand you may be a bit raw after the Scottish hypocrisy on climate targets
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Post by johntel on Apr 18, 2024 7:19:31 GMT
Well no - but then they couldn't tell the difference between a 17 year old and an 18 year old either, so they already need to see ID under the current system. In fact anybody who doesn't look obviously over 25 is automatically ID'd when buying cigarettes or alcohol anyway. I hold the record amongst my friends for being ID'd for buying alcohol at nearly 38. (like all such claims amongst us there was an independent cross-check for whether the shop was subject to Ask Everyone Or Lose Your License measures and it was not ) That's nothing, I'm ID'd just about every time I use a supermarket self-service checkout. Darn it, just seen that mercian got there first
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Post by johntel on Apr 18, 2024 7:21:40 GMT
eor Capital gains tax on the sale of a house which you have lived in for some period and where you've made some improvements and paid fees for sale and purchase can be absurdly complex. It's entirely possible to get the amount wrong. We've been looking at the potential liability we might have on a similarly modest house and neither me or my accountant can get the same figure twice, we'll probably have to go with our best estimate. That's not tax evasion. I'm making a citizens arrest on you for gross hypocrisy.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Apr 18, 2024 7:32:15 GMT
The government line, for many decades, has always been "we don't negotiate with terrorists". While the individuals concerned weren't being coerced by members of organised terrorist groups, they were still undeniably being terrorised. The fact they caved immediately almost seems as though normalising acquiescence is being done. We do not know that they did. It makes more sense to believe wragg supplied contact details because he though there was going to be a party than he knowingly handed them over to a malefactor. Especially since there seems to have been no comeback such as police intervention against said malefactor. And with menzies, just how do you get into a situation locked in by bad guys, demanding money, without having done something to have involved them to begin with. It sounds more like said bad guys were providing some sort of service and wanted payment. Then this morphed into a question of whether constituency funds should have been used to pay for this, whatever it was. The defence of Owen Paterson for a minor issue, which ultimately led to Johnson's downfall, seemed to be one of defending a point of principle. If Paterson had done it, then Johnson most definitely had, so the defence was to make the issue go away. (Which it didn't). It smacks to me someone felt it better to claim extortion than voluntary transactions.
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