Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

With the dim/libs only getting 9/10% in the polls....what will that do to their seat numbers?

If it stayed like that then their numbers would fall a bit. The Libs are lucky that they have quite a few safe seats. The percentage figure is across the country. That is not so important as there are seats that they would never take. What really counts is the percentage level in the seats that they hold. The very same demographics that help the Libs are the same as stop UKIP from getting seats.

i am much amused
fred's superior intellect thinks that no one will have noticed that he has shifted his line of attack on GPs

it started out at how inefficient and lazy GPs were

because that line of attack was fairly well demolished by today's facts, it has now rather shifted to how GPs are overpaid - but again tempered as a safeguard to "oh well, it's actually some part-time staff who get full-time salaries, and perhaps some practices aren't as efficient as they might be" ..... which either cannot be substantiated, or these part-timers have specific skills or somesuch that makes them worth extra pay

as usual, full-o'-shit-fred rants rubbish from his soapbox .... no doubt he'll now try to divert that by casting silly aspersions at me (well, that is his usual and predictable line)

Yes Haystack, any newcomer party has a big mountain to climb.

Altho, if results like this crop up, UKIP may actually get some seats, people are pissed off with more of the same from the 3 major parties.



Eastleigh by-election result


02.19 Liberal Democrats have won the seat with 13352 votes. The Conservatives have been knocked into third place by UKIP.

Here are the results in full:

Mike Thornton (LD) 13,342 (32.06%, -14.48%)

Diane James (UKIP) 11,571 (27.80%, +24.20%)

Maria Hutchings (Con) 10,559 (25.37%, -13.96%)

John O'Farrell (Lab) 4,088 (9.82%, +0.22%)

Danny Stupple (Ind) 768 (1.85%, +1.56%)

Dr Iain Maclennan (NHA) 392 (0.94%)

Ray Hall (Beer) 235 (0.56%)

Kevin Milburn (Christian) 163 (0.39%)

Howling Laud Hope (Loony) 136 (0.33%)

Jim Duggan (Peace) 128 (0.31%)

David Bishop (Elvis) 72 (0.17%)

Michael Walters (Eng Dem) 70 (0.17%, -0.30%)

Daz Procter (TUSC) 62 (0.15%)

Colin Bex (Wessex Reg) 30 (0.07%)

Liberal Democrat majority: 1,771 (4.26%)

Swing: 19.34% Liberal Democrat to UKIP

Electorate: 79,004 Turnout: 41,616 (52.68%, -16.61%)


This is the result last time around in 2010:

Huhne (LD) 24,966 (46.53%)

Hutchings (C) 21,102 (39.33%)

Barraclough (Lab) 5,153 (9.60%)

Finch (UKIP) 1,933 (3.60%)

Pewsey (Eng Dem) 249 (0.46%)

Stone (Ind) 154 (0.29%)

Low (Nat Lib) 93

Liberal Democrat majority 3,864 (7.20%) Turnout 53,650 (69.28%)


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/byelection/9901479/Eastleigh-by-election-result-live.html

That's about the size of it for UKIP, "may actually get some seats". In other words they are unlikely to make any serious impact and are unlikely to get any seats. Therefore any vote for them is wasted.nIf you want a referendum on the EU then you need the Conservatives to win. UKIP won't be able to give you a referendum. That will be Cameron's strategy.

income tax contribution
i was amazed to read that the top 1% of income tax payers contribute 30% of total income tax revenue, and i see no reason to doubt that analysis

whether the likes of philip green fall into that category, i really don't know, but to snip the obvious line of attack from the soapbox queens - it's no good complaining of immorality if some people choose to legally avoid paying maximum tax, or put the other way, to pay only the minimum ..... the tax man lacks any moral scruples at all, and if you want to block certain loopholes then the law has to be changed, though assuredly that will just open other avenues

Green never payed a penny in income tax on that 2005 huge dividend. Put through offshore accounts and then filtered out to Monaco.

If he off loads BHS, I wonder if he will be sniffing round Marks. He will then turn its clothes into no more than you would see in a market.(cheap and nasty) Hmmmmm

i agree that it really does stick in the throat, but like i said above ......

pretty much a rhetorical question, where does one draw the line, or ultimately, is it (not) just a personal choice provided that the law is obeyed?

If you and I lol filtered off in excess of £1bn,would there not be an investigation, no of course not. :-))

Cast Iron Dave moved the goalposts after the last election vis €uro in or out.

Do you seriously believe he will hold a ref is he gets back in?

cynic - 17 Nov 2013 20:25 - 32904 of 32905

income tax contribution
i was amazed to read that the top 1% of income tax payers contribute 30% of total income tax revenue, and i see no reason to doubt that analysis.................ends


Look at it another way /turn it on its head, why on earth are you trying to pay less tax when you are raking in all that money, money you couldnt possibly ever spend in a life time.

Its called GREED.

Another fact FTSE 100 bosses are now on a multiple of 74 times over the small business sole proprietor which also is just above the Naional average wage. The multiple back in 2006 was just 8.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No different of the story I remember about the Swedish pop Group that went by the name of Abba. At one time they were earning more than Volvo and to avoid paying tax were paid in potatoes. (no its not April 1 ) must of saved huge tax revenues some how. lol

So... yet again, why do you lot persistently vote for them?

Agree you will not spend it all, but it gives a huge sense of financial security, and your wealth can be passed on to family members to give them a good start in life. Your health is just as important.

Shut up Stan. :-))

Moonboot sums it up nicely!




It's business that really rules us now

Lobbying is the least of it: corporate interests have captured the entire democratic process. No wonder so many have given up on politics


George Monbiot


The Guardian, Monday 11 November 2013 20.31 GMT

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/business-rules-lobbying-corporate-interests




‘Tony Blair and Gordon Brown purged the party of any residue of opposition to corporations and the people who run them. That's what New Labour was all about.' Photograph: Sean Dempsey/PA


It's the reason for the collapse of democratic choice. It's the source of our growing disillusionment with politics. It's the great unmentionable. Corporate power. The media will scarcely whisper its name. It is howlingly absent from parliamentary debates. Until we name it and confront it, politics is a waste of time.

The political role of business corporations is generally interpreted as that of lobbyists, seeking to influence government policy. In reality they belong on the inside. They are part of the nexus of power that creates policy. They face no significant resistance, from either government or opposition, as their interests have now been woven into the fabric of all three main political parties in Britain.

Most of the scandals that leave people in despair about politics arise from this source. On Monday, for instance, the Guardian revealed that the government's subsidy system for gas-burning power stations is being designed by an executive from the Dublin-based company ESB International, who has been seconded into the Department of Energy. What does ESB do? Oh, it builds gas-burning power stations.

On the same day we learned that a government minister, Nick Boles, has privately assured the gambling company Ladbrokes that it needn't worry about attempts by local authorities to stop the spread of betting shops. His new law will prevent councils from taking action.

Last week we discovered that G4S's contract to run immigration removal centres will be expanded, even though all further business with the state was supposed to be frozen while allegations of fraud were investigated.

Every week we learn that systemic failures on the part of government contractors are no barrier to obtaining further work, that the promise of efficiency, improvements and value for money delivered by outsourcing and privatisation have failed to materialise.

The monitoring which was meant to keep these companies honest is haphazard, the penalties almost nonexistent, the rewards can be stupendous, dizzying, corrupting. Yet none of this deters the government. Since 2008, the outsourcing of public services has doubled, to £20bn. It is due to rise to £100bn by 2015.

This policy becomes explicable only when you recognise where power really lies. The role of the self-hating state is to deliver itself to big business. In doing so it creates a tollbooth economy: a system of corporate turnpikes, operated by companies with effective monopolies.

It's hardly surprising that the lobbying bill – now stalled by the House of Lords – offered almost no checks on the power of corporate lobbyists, while hog-tying the charities who criticise them. But it's not just that ministers are not discouraged from hobnobbing with corporate executives: they are now obliged to do so.

Thanks to an initiative by Lord Green, large companies have ministerial "buddies", who have to meet them when the companies request it. There were 698 of these meetings during the first 18 months of the scheme, called by corporations these ministers are supposed be regulating. Lord Green, by the way, is currently a government trade minister. Before that he was chairman of HSBC, presiding over the bank while it laundered vast amounts of money stashed by Mexican drugs barons. Ministers, lobbyists – can you tell them apart?

That the words corporate power seldom feature in the corporate press is not altogether surprising. It's more disturbing to see those parts of the media that are not owned by Rupert Murdoch or Lord Rothermere acting as if they are.

For example, for five days every week the BBC's Today programme starts with a business report in which only insiders are interviewed. They are treated with a deference otherwise reserved for God on Thought for the Day. There's even a slot called Friday Boss, in which the programme's usual rules of engagement are set aside and its reporters grovel before the corporate idol. Imagine the outcry if Today had a segment called Friday Trade Unionist or Friday Corporate Critic.

This, in my view, is a much graver breach of BBC guidelines than giving unchallenged airtime to one political party but not others, as the bosses are the people who possess real power – those, in other words, whom the BBC has the greatest duty to accost. Research conducted by the Cardiff school of journalism shows business representatives now receive 11% of airtime on the BBC's 6 o'clock news (this has risen from 7% in 2007), while trade unionists receive 0.6% (which has fallen from 1.4%). Balance? Impartiality? The BBC puts a match to its principles every day.

And where, beyond the Green party, Plaid Cymru, a few ageing Labour backbenchers, is the political resistance? After the article I wrote last week, about the grave threat the transatlantic trade and investment partnership presents to parliamentary sovereignty and democratic choice, several correspondents asked me what response there has been from the Labour party. It's easy to answer: nothing.


Tony Blair and Gordon Brown purged the party of any residue of opposition to corporations and the people who run them. That's what New Labour was all about. Now opposition MPs stare mutely as their powers are given away to a system of offshore arbitration panels run by corporate lawyers.

Since Blair, parliament operates much as Congress in the United States does: the lefthand glove puppet argues with the righthand glove puppet, but neither side will turn around to face the corporate capital that controls almost all our politics. This is why the assertion that parliamentary democracy has been reduced to a self-important farce has resonated so widely over the past fortnight.

So I don't blame people for giving up on politics. I haven't given up yet, but I find it ever harder to explain why. When a state-corporate nexus of power has bypassed democracy and made a mockery of the voting process, when an unreformed political funding system ensures that parties can be bought and sold, when politicians of the three main parties stand and watch as public services are divvied up by a grubby cabal of privateers, what is left of this system that inspires us to participate?

Twitter: @georgemonbiot A fully referenced version of this article can be found at monbiot.com

sticky - that was neither the point nor the question nor anything else really .... however, don't tell me that you don't avoid tax at least to some extent, as it would simply not be credible

that being so .....

I agree cyners on Spread bets but certainly dont go out to avoid tax or evade tax. Just think about it, my profession accountant.(semi retired)

Can you imagine how my prof bodies would come down hard on me and suspend me. Would stop me from practising, not that I do anymore but I do the odd job and still pay the prof annual fees just in case.

Ive seen it happen.

it's certainly a personal choice, but i see nothing nothing at all immoral or untoward in taking sensible action to lessen one's IHT or income tax liabilities

obviously, there have always been some pretty aggressive measures on the market, but again i agree, to follow those courses is most assuredly asking for trouble and HMRC investigation