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.

Well you dont normaly deal in specifics, lets face it yesterday you trotted out 2 pages at least of waffle refering to the Tax Avoidance schemes and had supposedly read the two articles that proceeded your waffle only to come up with this.........

Cynic what a plonker you looked......

cynic 21 Jul 2014 15:57 - 44085 of 44162

sticky - i confess i was unaware that this case had already been through a first tribunal, and that HMRC had first raised flags in 2011

TANKER - 21 Jul 2014 16:07 - 44093 of 44162

why did cynic post when he did not no the facts made him look a plonker

Have to say TANKER made me laugh with that comment......

"it takes two to tango and neither side looks much interested in peace, and assuredly it would not suit the assorted nefarious outsiders either".

No one would disagree but if Israel gave back the land that they have stolen, then that would be a start.

Eclipse 35
a repeat of post 44104, which is worth reading

an excerpt from the link i posted ......

The consequence of a successful HMRC challenge to a film scheme is that investors will lose the ability to offset the ‘loss’ of the partnership loan against their own personal tax liabilities. This means that the tax the investors sought to defer or shelter will then fall due. For most investors this is something that they understood and accepted.

What many investors were not warned about, however, was that they would also then become liable for income tax on the income paid by the film production company to the partnership under the lease agreement. This ‘income’ is of course used to repay the loan part of the investment and is never actually received by the investor.

This leads to a disastrous outcome where investors must pay, not only their own tax which they sought to shelter in the scheme, but also tax (usually at the highest rate) on ‘income’ they have never received.

Essentially, their tax bill could actually exceed their income. This could be financially devastating for many.

As a rough guide, in failed schemes an investor can expect to suffer losses equivalent to about 10 times his cash investment.

Claims against IFAs and Tax Advisors

Due to the complexity of these schemes, most investors sought advice from either or both of their IFAs or their tax advisors. In some cases, these advisors failed to appreciate the potential for a tax liability on partnership income and did not warn the investors of this risk.

Cynic,

Post 44157

I agree with you and Hamas certainly has a responsibility for its actions, but in simplistic terms Israel has abused the Palestinians of human rights in Gaza since the conception of Israel.

Israeli Governments have constantly ignored UN resolutions on Gaza.

Israeli governments had consistently striven to eradicate themselves of their "Palestinian Problems" and the world in general has looked on disregarding the suffering and social development of the Palestinians.


I am not saying that Hamas and the Palestinians are blameless in their actions, but what else can they do in order to get the attention of the world in general.

What is happening is sheer stupidity and unless there is a rethink by the Israeli leadership the bloodshed will continue.

Also, as time carries on the backlash will be greater on the Israelis.
------

If you were and Iranian and looked at Israel would you give up your Nuclear arsenal or your rocketry?

Also, do you think the Sunnis are going to be as disorganised as they appear now and stand back from what is happening in Gaza sometime in the future?

As some Jewish leaders believe in "retribution" when they are administrating it, however they may have to suffer the consequences of their own beliefs.

It is crazy!

stan
it is the continued encroachment (annexation) of more and more land by the israelis that shows the contempt in which they hold the opinion of the rest of the world, and in the eyes of israel, the palestinians themselves, rank well below even that

yes, i agree a good proportion of the annexed land should indeed be vacated, though back to what point i am unsure


fred
i fully concur that the manner in which the palestinians are treated is worse than despicable and shows a complete lack of memory of the jews own treatment in poland and similar - i'm sure there must be a better way of putting that


i am equally appalled that, to the best of my knowledge, the leaders of british jewry are deafening in their silence on this whole issue
i actually wrote on this subject to my local rabbi, who is "reform", well-respected and regularly appears on radio and certainly offers excellent advice onthe thorny issue of mixed marriages, but even he never responded

hilary - sympathies ! I didn't know which was worse on Friday, watching the cricket on Sky or listening to Peter Alliss at the Open.

Cook needs replacing and hopefully will get his form back. But Joe Root isnt the answer hes only a kid. The captaincy could ruin him.

Looks like the selectors are going for a Mike Brieley temporary appointment.

Desperation a 10 man team again.

Squad just named, Cook Keeps captaincy..............total madness. Woakes comes into squad.

Why the Tories should know privatising Job Centres won’t work
22
Tuesday
Jul 2014
Posted by Mike Sivier

Parked on the dole: Closing Job Centres and handing responsibility for finding work to private companies would condemn thousands – if not hundreds of thousands – of people to a life on benefits (if they don’t get sanctioned and starve)

It’s incredible that allies of George Osborne are backing proposals to shut down all Job Centres and let private companies fill the void.

The proposal to let the private sector find work for Britain’s unemployed is actually being considered for inclusion in the Conservative Party’s election manifesto for 2015, according to the Huffington Post.

It quotes a ‘senior Tory’ who told The Sun: “Introducing competition into the job search market is a natural Conservative thing to do.”

This means Conservatives are naturally unimaginative, if not altogether stupid.

Have they already forgotten the lessons learnt from the way work programme provider companies treated jobseekers that were sent their way – as Vox Political reported last year?

The process is known as “creaming and parking”.

Work programme providers knew that – because they get paid on the basis of the results they achieve – they needed to concentrate on the jobseekers who were more likely to find work quickly. These people were “creamed” off and fast-tracked into work, thereby creating profit for the companies.

And the others? Those who need more time and investment? They were “parked” – left without help, to languish in the benefit system for months and years on end – in a situation that Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has said many times that he wanted to reverse.

In fact, his policies have perpetuated the problem.

And now George Osborne wants to spread this practice to all jobseekers, across the country.

It’s time the voting public woke up to what the Conservative Party is, and “parked” it in the history books where it belongs.

Monday, July 21, 2014
That Was The Reshuffle - That Was!



Last week saw Prime Minister David Cameron reshuffle his cabinet and with it we were predictably bombarded by the Tory supporting right wing press about how dramatic it all was and how many women were going to be put into so-called big jobs.

Wirral West MP and nonentity minister for employment Esther McVey (better known as Esther 'McVile') was tipped for one of the 'big jobs'. You may recall that not so long ago McVey was preaching to us all how tough it was for everybody (her included) and how we all must cut our cloth accordingly and share the 'necessary' pain. In the event McVile McVey took her own advice literally and got designer Vivienne Westwood to 'cut' her a £585 'cloth' outfit for her much looked forward to sashay up Downing Street in front of photographers where she was eagerly looking forward to being told what her new big job was going to be. I wonder how much her matching shoes and clutch bag cost? (Bet they didn't come from Primark!) Wondering if McVey actually paid the full cost of her Vivienne Westwood outfit and designer unknown clutch bag and shoes or has she claimed for the cost on her £170,000 per year parliamentary expenses? You know those expenses she is able to claim on top of her MP's and currently ministerial salary?

Certainly her 'pain sharing' gives us all 'foodbank' food for thought and perhaps it's unkind to the pain sharing Esther McVile McVey to indulge in a spot of Schadenfreude in which turns out to be the one bright spot of the entire boring reshuffle farce, but what the heck?! I confess I am reduced to a hearty smirk if not an outright chuckle at the thought of Esther staging a sit-in inside Downing Street after being told she wasn't going to be promoted after all, she was going to stay in the underling role of her junior ministerial post as minister for employment. She threw a major hissy fit (just like Iain Duncan-Spit the Pensions secretary once did) and threatened to resign, because no way was Esther going to face the embarrassment of Sky's Adam Boulton asking her what 'big job' she got and did not want to publicly 'flagellate herself by 'sharing her pain' on emerging from number 10 on the famous steps. That'll teach Esther for believing David Cameron, after his advisers briefed she was going to be offered a major port folio, we keep telling her that Cameron's lies so much he would find it impossible to lie straight in bed!

Seems that Cameron and his politically motivated reshuffle and blatant electioneering from number 10 (paid for by the taxpayer) is wise to the fact that McVile is actually detested by a large part of the electorate namely the disabled, the unemployed, and those adversely affected by the bedroom tax etc. Having got rid of one political hot potato (Michael Gove but not his two right wing maniacal mates Jeremy cHunt and Iain Duncan-Spit who definitely should have gone with him) he wasn't going to promote a new one which may cause him electoral embarrassment, female or not!

Apparently Esther's 'sit-in' inside number 10 caused the weak and dodgy PM David Cameron a headache, what was he to do? He had just managed to calm down Iain Duncan-Spit. Apparently the grossly misleading, disingenuous and downright lying hypocritical Spit didn't want a knighthood just yet (the offer to try and bribe him to go quietly), he is having too much fun being vile to the disabled, poor, unemployed etc. So Cameron decided that Esther would keep her current job as planned but be allowed to sit around the cabinet table as long as she had no voice. She can join the Deputy PM Nick Clegg who also has no voice, they can both make the teas and coffees and provide the choccy biscuits! Esther's not too proud apparently because she has accepted this role which must be excruciatingly embarrassing because not only is she still a junior minister without a proper port folio, she is now a junior minister without a voice as well as without a proper port folio! Apparently the only thing she isn't without is the cabinet minister's taxpayer's funded pay rise, (she still gets one of those), so will she still be telling us all that we 'must all share the pain' after her hefty non port folio non voice non cabinet promotion/promotion pay rise? How will she look the electorate in the eye and say the unemployed must work for their benefits as it is unacceptable to do nothing for them when Ms McVile herself is in receipt of a cabinet mister's salary which she doesn't earn? Does the fact that she has no voice around the cabinet table prevent her from doing the decent thing and refusing this pay rise? Or will she (as ever) along with this corrupt, hypocritical, incompetent, misleading and much reviled Tory government just 'take the [pay] rise' and put her middle finger up to the electorate and add it to her large taxpayer funded salary while claiming for all and sundry on her taxpayer funded expense account while preaching to us that we 'must all share the pain'? After all she went to a lot of trouble to choose that Westwood outfit for her big day, which could have kept a family of four in food and away from the foodbanks for at least five weeks!

Meanwhile Nicky Morgan the new Education Minister who does apparently have a voice around the cabinet table (she thinks), becomes the female version of Michael Gove, holding almost identical views takes up her position, not because she may be good at the job, but simply because she is a woman and Cameron wanted to decorate his front bench in the House of Commons with females in order to stop Ed Miliband drawing attention to his previous all male front bench!

I think Cameron must be quite pained that he couldn't use Esther McVey, her being a woman AND possessing a Northern accent (and all that), the fact that he didn't must mean that he is more terrified of the result of the 2015 general election than we realise!

Meanwhile the Tory right on the backbenches are being appeased by Cameron turning the Conservative party into a pale imitation of Ukip - whatever happened to Cameron's 'compassionate Conservatism'? And old Guard like left leaning Ken Clarke are leaving active party politics and are starting to dish the dirt on Cameron and Osborne. He went off-message when he revealed that Margaret Thatcher wanted to privatise the NHS and he persuaded her not to do it, appeasing her only with introducing private companies and the market into the NHS, which of course leads us to where we are today with the NHS. Labour having saved the NHS from the Tories during their 13 years are now seeing Cameron trying to finish the job that Clarke's appeasement allowed Thatcher to start!

Of course these are just a few of the great many examples of how the Conservative party is actually imploding and is split asunder, but don't expect the right wing Tory supporting newspapers to report anywhere near the truth (and forget the Guardian who doesn't know its political right or left arse from its elbow these days) also don't expect the biased broadcast media like the Tory BBC and Murdoch owned Sky News to inform you of the truth, they won't they are far too busy obsessed with bacon sandwiches and personally attacking Ed Miliband to report the truth!

They keep saying that voters are not convinced about Ed Miliband, well how can they be when they are forced fed a diet of rancid right wing fat Tory lies on a daily basis? The papers are doing the Conservative Spin Machine's bidding on behest of right wing lobbyist and finger in all bent and twisted pies Lynton Crosby. They are desperately trying to divert attention away from David Cameron and his daily flops and failures, his appalling lack of judgement and gross incompetence by pointing the finger at one of the few honest men in politics - Ed Miliband! Odd really as Miliband has had more success in forcing this atrocious government to act than any other opposition leader in history, but don't expect to be told this!

Electorally, Cameron has been an abysmal failure, in 2010 despite having everything going for him and up against a deeply unpopular PM in Gordon Brown (who the Tories blamed for the GLOBAL recession and what the greed of their Tory banker mates did to this country) he failed to win a majority and had to crawl to the Liberal Democrats to form a government. In flattering Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg's ego giving him the Deputy PM's job, Cameron was able to manipulate a change in parliamentary terms making them a mandatory 5 years so he couldn't be ousted from his job. All the indications are that Cameron is going to be a loser in 2015 yet again as the polls still stubbornly indicate a Labour majority or a Labour largest party hung parliament. This is unprecedented in British politics for an outgoing government who lost so badly at the polls to be able to get themselves back in just one term, but the right wing press and the Tories do not want us to know this, they want to paint the picture that Miliband is a failure, when really he is not, he is a success, against all the odds, Miliband is a success and it's David Cameron who is the failure and I cannot envisage Cameron's token cabinet females, so placed for election purposes only is going to make much difference to that!

Cook won Ashes series less than twelve months ago. 3-0

What has gone wrong?

Its not just The Captain. Only two or three play to a level every game from what I see.

Its not enough.

Cant understand todays selections CD.

Obvious to a blind man that Cook needs to go back to County Cricket and get his confidence and form back.

IMO he shouldnt have taken the captaincy anyway, hes too good a batsman to have that responsibility.

Agree with you gf, and it's easy to be a good captain when most of your team are playing well - as they were less than twelve months ago. Cook has now become a liability. As Botham said, "his brain is scrambled". The only thing he seems to be good at now is picking his nose!

I seriously doubt his judgement, but I don't know who would replace Cook. Bell and Prior are both 3 years older than Cook (and, in any event, Prior is out for the rest of the India series). I don't think Jimmy Anderson is captain material, plus he's also a couple of years older than Cook. The only possible contender is Stuart Broad, but I'm not convinced about him. Everyone else is too young and inexperienced at the moment.

I think you've just got to accept that this is a squad in transition which won't mature for another twelve months or so. The only danger is that, during that time, they 'forget' how to win. It would help if the top order batsmen weren't in such poor form right now, and if they could find a long term replacement for Graeme Swann.

Their had been talk of bringing back E Morgan as captain but thats obviously off the radar now. I dont think his batting in test matches is the required standard but just thinking back to Botham Mike Breirley changed Englands fortunes overnight and he wasnt really a test batsman.

Big headach for England just like it is for the Football team, how on earth can you put Wayne Rooney as England captain, he doesnt demand respect from the rest of the team and his form in big games and competitions is woefull, and remember Im a Utd fan. Hes a player way overated imo.

Fishfinger,

I agree - it's a headache. The problem is that, when you are successful for a long period as the England cricket team were up until quite recently, it's difficult to get rid of established and experienced players who form the backbone of the team. You then invariably find that they all depart in quick succession and you have to start all over again from scratch, which is what's happening now.

But, Australia were in that same position just 18 or 24 months back...

22 July 2014 Last updated at 12:32

Five ways Aldi cracked the supermarket business

By Magazine Monitor
A collection of cultural artefacts

Karl Albrecht, the co-founder of German discount supermarket chain Aldi along with brother Theo, has died. But how has Aldi become a household name, asks Chris Stokel-Walker.

1. Basic store layout
Walking into an Aldi is a totally different experience to walking into a gargantuan superstore such as Tesco or Asda. Bright, spacious rooms decorated with huge gaudy hoardings are replaced with small, dimly-lit shops with narrow aisles and sparse shelves. The chain sells a fraction of the items bigger supermarkets do, focusing on a single own-brand variant of any given product. As German newspaper Der Spiegel wrote in 2010, talking about Aldi's first forays into retail in Germany, "this nation of sensible shoppers got the grocery market it deserved: as cheap as possible, practical and with absolutely no frills."

2. Sell bursts of unusual items
The supermarket is famous for its flash sales. Ski poles, cycling equipment and tablet computers have all made fleeting visits to Aldi's shelves - but only in limited numbers. These higher-price items, available for a short time only, are "a great way of getting people to come back to the store," says retail analyst Graham Soult. "It's random stuff but it taps into the quirkiness of Aldi, that they sell items the other supermarkets don't."

3. General penny pinching
The financial fastidiousness of the Albrecht brothers as they led Aldi to success in their native Germany was well-known. Checkout staff had to hand type product codes into their tills in Germany until the early 2000s because the firm didn't want to pay for swish scanning systems that had been standard in other supermarkets for decades. Staff at its headquarters were said to have been chastised for using brand new pencils, rather than wearing out the lead on older ones. And the site where both brothers are buried in Essen was spruced up after complaints with new rhododendrons - bought, on offer, from Aldi's own store.

4. Satisfying middle-class shoppers
Aldi's customer base has changed as savvy middle-class shoppers started using the store. Its proportion of shoppers in the UK classified in the AB social category has increased from around 13% in 2012 to 19% today. The supermarket has altered its stock to cater to them. Alongside continental cheeses and meats - already seen as exotic - it has branched out into more luxury items. Late last year it introduced cut-price fresh lobster tails and serrano ham in time for Christmas. Last month it began stocking trendy Wagyu beef steaks at a reduced price.

5. Be in the right place at the right time
Aldi's massive growth in the UK coincided with a time of tightened purse strings. Low price is still the key. "In the last few years everything seems to have aligned," says Soult. Reportedly the only public statement that co-founder Karl Albrecht said in the entire history of the company was made in 1953, but was as pertinent to British shoppers in the post-crash world of 2007 as it was to German shoppers in the wake of World War Two: "Our advertisement is the cheap price." It has also benefited from a change in what shoppers want supermarkets to be. "In the 1990s, supermarkets were getting bigger and bigger," explains Soult. "Now the trend has shifted, and smaller stores like Aldi are what people want."

Indeed indeed Hilary. We ruled the World for what about 3 to 4 years and then the South Africans came to the fore.

Well worth a look at the Woolworths Museum. Brings back memories. Still going in the USA and Australia. Much much smaller company.

http://www.woolworthsmuseum.co.uk/

For all those Tory voters upset by the pic of George Osborne with drugs & a hooker, here it is again. pic.twitter.com/juNcjpwqC1” #Skypapers '