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Politics 2023 (Read 465713 times)

galpinos

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#1400 Re: Politics 2020
September 09, 2021, 03:21:36 pm
Interstingly, a graduate earning over £27,295 will have an effective marginal tax rate of 42.25% taking into account student loan payments according to a few twitter economists*. This is about the same marginal tax rate as someone earning £90k......

*Not done the calc myself!

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#1401 Re: Politics 2020
September 09, 2021, 04:01:00 pm
I find it interesting that whenever the discussion is "when are the govt actually going to tackle the climate crisis" somebody always points out that you couldn't win an election on that platform as it wouldn't be popular.
Well I suspect that you couldn't win an election on raising taxes either & yet the party that's been in power for almost my entire life always does exactly that (rightly so IMO BTW , setting aside the debate about "how", as it's necessary).
I

seankenny

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#1402 Re: Politics 2020
September 09, 2021, 06:15:38 pm
A back of the envelope calculation from an economist/climber friend on Twitter:

Brexit makes us all on average 4% poorer per year. Average tax share is 35%. The Brexit hit to taxes is therefore roughly the 1.5% extra NI contribution.

As ever, Brexit is just about making us poorer.

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#1403 Re: Politics 2020
September 09, 2021, 07:05:07 pm
A back of the envelope calculation from an economist/climber friend on Twitter:

Brexit makes us all on average 4% poorer per year. Average tax share is 35%. The Brexit hit to taxes is therefore roughly the 1.5% extra NI contribution.

As ever, Brexit is just about making us poorer.

Just watched Sky news. First time I’ve watched tv new in years (an accident this time), interesting assessment on the causes and knock ons of the driver shortage. Both haulier’s reps and Supermarket reps interviewed blaming Brexit, squarely and the Morrison Warehouse fella, stating prices would be rising from next week, as their “old price” stock will be gone by Saturday. One wholesale rep, talking about 50% increases in cardboard packaging costs and 70% on plastic, on top of some eye watering cost increases on produce this month. Then he chimed in with “of course, we’ve had to significantly increase our drivers rates, just to retain the few staff we have left” or words to that effect.
Then they switched straight into the story about Priti Nasty’s, sorry, Patel’s “Turn back the boats” policy, then a long stream of people (experts) laughing at her and explaining why it won’t work, is illegal and will just end up killing people.

I got a bit depressed, really, so I opened FB, with the intention of finding something funny, only the first post was my Aunt, essentially giving Priti Nasty both barrels (Aunt is a retired social worker) and the first comment underneath, in appalling spelling/grammar was the “this country can’t even look after it’s own elderly/homeless/pink fluffy kittens with three legs and CoPleteLy diFEffeEnt Coultuors” etc etc.

I had to comment. Will probably be in trouble later.

Anyway, you all know I’m fairly pro military, not exactly lefty hippy of the month, but fucks sake, how the fuck does anyone not realise the money spent on Trident, or (not “and”) Afghan, or Iraq, or Syria, or whatever, would fund free care homes for all for decades.
(It’s never “can’t”, it’s “won’t”).

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#1404 Re: Politics 2020
September 10, 2021, 09:21:44 am
I believe it is at least partly because income tax is devolved to Scotland. So raising income tax would only impact the other nations but a portion of the funds raised would be allocated to Scotland to do with as they want. Cue headlines in the Daily Mail...

only partly devolved

"The Scotland Act 2016 provides the Scottish Parliament with the power to set the Income Tax rates and bands that will apply to Scottish taxpayers' non-savings, non-dividend income for the tax year 2021 to 2022.  Responsibility for setting the tax-free Personal Allowance, and reliefs and exemptions, remains reserved to the UK Parliament. Income Tax on savings and dividend income is also reserved and continues to be paid to the UK Government. Therefore, Scottish Income Tax remains part of the UK Income Tax system and is not a fully devolved tax."
https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-income-tax-2021-2022/


TobyD

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#1405 Re: Politics 2020
September 10, 2021, 09:51:18 am
A back of the envelope calculation from an economist/climber friend on Twitter:

Brexit makes us all on average 4% poorer per year. Average tax share is 35%. The Brexit hit to taxes is therefore roughly the 1.5% extra NI contribution.

As ever, Brexit is just about making us poorer.

Yes, it'll probably get worse as well.  But I think that it's not just made us poorer,  it's also made, on average and in general discourse,  a more divided small minded place,  more inward looking, paranoid and miserable. It's also made the breakup of  the union probably inevitable. The only tangible thing that the UK has gained is that we can now use Magnitsky sanctions I believe,  I am given to understand that we couldn't do this in the EU. 
Unfortunately this government is so devoid of morality there's little chance of them employing them against some of the unpleasant people who deserve them.

seankenny

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#1406 Re: Politics 2020
September 10, 2021, 01:22:22 pm

I’m struggling to find it all as offensive as I’m being told I should.

I'm struggling with not becoming increasingly despondent about what sort of country this is becoming to be honest. I find it quite hard not to agree with Hillary Mantel. (Widely reported) From the attitude towards asylum seekers to the ignorance of the current slow demise of the farming and fishing industry, totally unethical foreign policy and general populist bullshit, I am really sad that anyone has any enthusiasm for this government, which is certainly not Conservative and has become a vehicle for Boris Johnson's fabricated personality.

Phew, I needed to get that off my chest.

Don’t get me wrong, I  pretty much agree with most of that, except I don’t think it’s a matter of what have become/are becoming. We’ve always been like this and none of the things you mentioned are new, if anything we’re slightly better these days than we were a couple of decades ago. Possibly things felt better ten years ago and have regressed somewhat since, but still better than it used to be.

Ahhh, but direction of travel is kind of important! As an example, I was having dinner with friends just before the pandemic hit, six of us of which I was the only white person, the general consensus around the table was that in respect of racism things were definitely getting worse in a way none of my companions had seen before. We're talking about professionals in their early-mid 40s here, so nothing as bad as the 1970s but that strikes me as a fairly low bar. The mood took a sombre turn for sure. Who wants to live in a time of declining tolerance?

Away from the purely anecdotal, I was struck by this description of American youth as "Generation Disaster". Now there are a lot of things in the post that don't affect young people in the UK, eg the opioid crisis, the huge reach of the US military, and there are some things that are much worse in the US than here, like massive inequality (don't believe for a minute that UK inequality is anything like that occuring in the US). But it's an interesting paradigm through which to think of young adults' experience in growing up in the post 9/11 world.

The main thing of course is the great recession of 2008. Real wages tanked for over a decade. Stagnation has led to a rise in intolerance and poor governance. The cost of housing and education has increased. Then there is the rising threat of climate change where action is not commensurate with risk. And smartphones might have changed the way we relate to one another in ways that we don't fully comprehend.

These things are new.


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#1407 Re: Politics 2020
September 14, 2021, 09:57:16 am
Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) Tweeted:

Vaccine passports were on. Then off. Now they maybe on again. One day. Delaying their introduction - if that’s what is happening - does have one interesting consequence. Large events in October with 1000s attending won’t need them. Events like, say, the Tory Party Conference. https://twitter.com/bbcnickrobinson/status/1437528972603047939?s=20 :chair:

It really seems that this government makes decisions based entirely on the few members of it who appear to have any actual power, and exactly what they want to do themselves,  completely ignoring the fact that they're supposed to be running a country. 

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#1408 Re: Politics 2020
September 16, 2021, 10:01:02 am
Re the reshuffle, this simple graphic on the BBC gives an overview of Boris Johnson's decision tool:
BBC News - Cabinet reshuffle 2021: Who is in Boris Johnson's new cabinet?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58574180

It seems that he's pretty much looked at the approval ratings of party members and sacked everyone at the lower end, other than the glaring omissions of Priti Patel, and himself.

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#1409 Re: Politics 2020
September 16, 2021, 10:19:20 am
Gavin Williamson referred to him as the "Prime Minster" in a recent tweet. Probably good he's not in education anymore.

https://twitter.com/gavinwilliamson/status/1438120945013645316

(The "end of an error" comment is genius). 

galpinos

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#1410 Re: Politics 2020
September 16, 2021, 10:31:17 am
Liz Truss is the Foreign Secretary. I cannot even......

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#1411 Re: Politics 2020
September 16, 2021, 11:23:46 am
Liz Truss is the Foreign Secretary. I cannot even......

Not surprised, surely.

It’s an entire cabinet of unpopular reality TV stars and sycophants of dubious claims of actually being Homo Sapiens.

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#1412 Re: Politics 2020
September 16, 2021, 11:07:32 pm
Liz Truss is the Foreign Secretary. I cannot even......

O, don't be so harsh.  Her popularity with the conservative party members will be invaluable in dealing with the inevitable consequences of the Afghan withdrawal,  the Taliban, ISIS not to mention Iran, Russia,  China...

After all she made that amazing speech about cheese a few years ago,  she'll walk it. (Google this if you're not familiar with it, I'm sure its around somewhere)

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#1413 Re: Politics 2020
September 17, 2021, 07:50:36 am
Not to mention Dorries, eating cockroaches probably means she's overqualified.

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#1414 Re: Politics 2020
September 17, 2021, 08:45:12 am
This Aukus thing seems to be a bit Aukward too!

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#1415 Re: Politics 2020
September 17, 2021, 09:23:04 am
Wonder if in history they will look back and pinpoint this as the pivotal event that kicked off WW3 / Cold War 2.

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#1416 Re: Politics 2020
September 17, 2021, 09:38:00 am
Liz Truss is the Foreign Secretary. I cannot even......
she made that amazing speech about cheese a few years ago

This one you mean? Worth watching to the end to see the bonus acting skills…or maybe she really does get that angry about cheese?


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#1417 Re: Politics 2020
September 17, 2021, 02:16:58 pm
Dorries is another Uber-Christian Wingnut:

 "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use."

Many of the new cabinet have close connections with Corner Stone and “Lawyer’s Christian Fellowship”, which all sounds quite cuddly, but are really extremely Fundamentalist, Protestant cabals, with very, very, dark aims and desires. There are several other, similar, extreme Christian groups now represented in Johnson’s conclave.

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#1418 Re: Politics 2020
September 17, 2021, 07:08:43 pm
Marina Hyde is fucking genius.

I had to balk at the Spectator’s suggestion that Nadine “will oversee a more punchy attitude to the culture war aspect of her brief”. Sorry, but what culture war aspect of her brief?! Psychologists say that if you give a child a present and they end up playing with the box, then the toy you gave them was too complicated for them. If you give a minister a brief that encompasses the entire media, the UK’s data strategy, regulating big tech, 5G rollout, cyber-security, the charity sector, the whole of sport and the £100bn-plus creative industries, and they spend so much as ONE NANOSECOND fanning up some culture war nonsense about panto, that isn’t so much playing with the box as taking a shit in it. And nobody, other than fellow infants, wants to see that.

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#1419 Re: Politics 2020
September 17, 2021, 10:54:36 pm
Wonder if in history they will look back and pinpoint this as the pivotal event that kicked off WW3 / Cold War 2.

Aukus, or the cabinet reshuffle?

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#1420 Re: Politics 2020
September 17, 2021, 11:02:27 pm
Marina Hyde is fucking genius.

I had to balk at the Spectator’s suggestion that Nadine “will oversee a more punchy attitude to the culture war aspect of her brief”. Sorry, but what culture war aspect of her brief?! Psychologists say that if you give a child a present and they end up playing with the box, then the toy you gave them was too complicated for them. If you give a minister a brief that encompasses the entire media, the UK’s data strategy, regulating big tech, 5G rollout, cyber-security, the charity sector, the whole of sport and the £100bn-plus creative industries, and they spend so much as ONE NANOSECOND fanning up some culture war nonsense about panto, that isn’t so much playing with the box as taking a shit in it. And nobody, other than fellow infants, wants to see that.

She certainly does righteous fury very well.  The appointment of Dorries is obviously entirely meant to irritate anyone with an actual interest in culture,  sport or the arts. She's nowhere near as dangerous as Priti Patel or Truss, both of whom are considerably more ideological and ambitious

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#1421 Re: Politics 2020
September 20, 2021, 10:04:18 am
This seems as though it's a decent overview of the Aukus submarine deal:
https://www.politico.eu/article/why-australia-wanted-out-of-its-french-sub-deal/

It doesn't seem as though the Australians have behaved as foolishly as I'd judgementally first assumed,  as the circumstances of the deal have changed significantly and the French have had a lot of problems with it. It still seems pretty diplomatically inept on the part of the UK in particular though.  Pissing off our nearest trading partner,  who we are trying to sweet talk into dealing with the migrant 'crisis' in the channel and on border controls, as well as China on the eve of the COP 26 talks is surely idiotic? I can't imagine Liz Truss managing to impress either of those parties into any cooperation to be honest. 

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#1422 Re: Politics 2020
September 20, 2021, 11:53:39 am
Wonder if in history they will look back and pinpoint this as the pivotal event that kicked off WW3 / Cold War 2.

Aukus, or the cabinet reshuffle?

Aukus, not that shuffling of a handful of joker cards!

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#1423 Re: Politics 2020
September 20, 2021, 07:45:35 pm
[quote author=TobyD
She certainly does righteous fury very well.  The appointment of Dorries is obviously entirely meant to irritate anyone with an actual interest in culture,  sport or the arts. She's nowhere near as dangerous as Priti Patel or Truss, both of whom are considerably more ideological and ambitious
[/quote]

You say that but to those of us that work in this sector it is potentially devastating. I don't know a huge amount about her and I hope to be proven wrong but I've seen the 'she knows what people like' argument used about her several times. Unfortunately people are at best naïve (we don't know what we don't know) and at worst just plain daft. I hope we don't end up in a world of vacuous reality TV and no challenge or excitement within the cultural world. I worry that arts as a tool for social justice or rehabilitation or health and wellbeing will be done for.

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#1424 Re: Politics 2020
September 20, 2021, 10:49:19 pm

You say that but to those of us that work in this sector it is potentially devastating. I don't know a huge amount about her and I hope to be proven wrong but I've seen the 'she knows what people like' argument used about her several times. Unfortunately people are at best naïve (we don't know what we don't know) and at worst just plain daft. I hope we don't end up in a world of vacuous reality TV and no challenge or excitement within the cultural world. I worry that arts as a tool for social justice or rehabilitation or health and wellbeing will be done for.

I really agree with you,  the UK has a world class film and theatre industry, incredibly good museums,  galleries etc, brilliant writers and a recently very successful sporting scene.  It needs defending,  nurturing and promoting. 

However I'd still maintain that pissing off China, France and anyone else they feel like is probably a bit more dangerous,  if equally irritating.

This is not going well,  is it? The fruits of the UK's new sovereignty and diplomatic freedoms: https://www.politico.eu/article/us-china-and-india-snub-boris-johnsons-climate-meeting/
« Last Edit: September 20, 2021, 11:17:56 pm by TobyD »

 

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