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.

Centrica to hike gas, electricity prices in August

LONDON (Reuters) - Centrica said it will hike domestic gas and electricity prices in August, following increases in wholesale gas costs. | Full Article

---------------------------------------------

But this adds interest to spare cash in the economy:

House prices rise unexpectedly in June

06 JUL 2011 09:46 BST
LONDON (Reuters) - House prices rose last month at their fastest pace since October, mortgage lender Halifax said on Wednesday, providing a glimmer of hope that downward price pressure may be abating. | Full Article





I think that interpretation of data is fanciful.

Fred & Stan , having a pie and pint.

Caption is "Gordon Brown and Rupert Murdoch sit side-by-side at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2007. The pair spoke on the telephone on Tuesday night"




Here is another good one

I wonder if the News of the World hacked into that conversation!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2808184/A-decade-of-business-under-Blair.html



Your Money in the Blair/Brown years

10 very taxing years

Pension funds' tax freedom abolished
Income tax thresholds not raised in line with earnings
Upper limit on National Insurance Contributions removed
Married Couples Allowance scrapped for most husbands and wives
Mortgage interest relief at source (Miras) abolished
Peps and Tessas replaced by less generous Isas
IHT and Stamp Duty thresholds not raised in line with house prices
Average householder pays 480 more in Council Tax
Tax
HM Revenue & Customs now pockets 2.34bn more each week out of what Britons earn than it did in 1997. Government figures show we paid 115bn in tax and national insurance in 1996-97, while this tax year, 2006-07, the Revenue expects to collect more than double that, at 234bn, an increase of 119bn.

In 1996-97, there were just over two million higher rate taxpayers, but in 2006-07, more than 3.2 million people will pay tax at the higher rate, as increases in tax thresholds have failed to keep up with rising earnings.

Average earnings have risen by 41pc since 1997, according to BDO Stoy Hayward, but the threshold after which individuals have to pay the highest rate of tax has only increased by 31pc.

Gordon Brown removed the upper limit or ceiling on National Insurance contributions (NICs) and introduced a new upper band of NICs which now applies at 1 per cent on all earnings above 645 a week.

Pensions
Private sector retirement funds pay an extra 5bn a year tax as a result of Gordon Brown abolishing these funds' ability to reclaim dividend tax credits on their shareholdings back in 1997.

Higher taxes combined with lower investment returns and interest rates to cut the annual in come received by private sector pensioners by more than three quarters during the past decade.

Actuaries Watson Wyatt calculate that a typical with-profits pension after saving for 20 years is worth less than half what it would have been 10 years ago and annuity rates used to convert pension funds into income have also fallen by nearly half over the same period.

Once these two cuts are combined, the resulting income is down by 78pc for a man and 76pc for a women, for savings of identical amounts.

Stamp duty & house prices
House prices across the country have roughly trebled in the last decade, although there is much regional variation, according to the Halifax house price index.

Since Gordon Brown became Chancellor, stamp duty thresholds not raised in line with house prices. As a result total stamp duty revenue from residential property sales has soared from 675m to 4.6bn

The current 250,000 and 500,000 stamp duty bands have been in place since July 1997, but the percentage payable has increased, from 1.5 per cent for properties between 250,000 and 500,000 to 3 per cent today. For properties above 500,000, the percentage payable has also doubled, from 2 per cent to 4 per cent.

Inheritance tax
The Chancellor's failure to increase the inheritance tax threshold in line with rising property prices means that more homeowners are now liable for death duties.

The Exchequer is expected to receive 3.6bn this year from inheritance tax alone, against the 1.6bn it received in 1996-97.

Halifax calculates that the number of properties in the UK valued at more than the current inheritance tax threshold of 285,000 now stands at 1.5 million, or 8 per cent of all owner-occupied properties. It forecasts this will more than triple to 4.6 million by 2020 if the threshold is only increased in line with the Retail Prices Index (RPI). If the inheritance tax threshold had been linked to house prices, it would now be 425,000.

Council tax
When the Chancellor came to power in 1997, the yield from council tax was 10bn. Now it is expected to bring in nearly twice as much, a total of 23.4bn this year.

Accountants Grant Thornton calculate that increase is equivalent to 3p on the basic rate of income tax. The average householder is paying 480 a year more in annual council tax, over and above inflation, compared with when Labour came to power 10 years ago.

People with second homes no longer get a 50 per cent discount on their council tax as the Government scrapped this benefit in 2004.

Married couples allowance
The Conservatives were first to reduce the value of this allowance - which allowed husbands and wives to receive slightly more income before they had to pay tax than they would have done as single people - by restricting it to the basic rate of income tax during the 1990s. Then the allowance was abolished by Mr Brown in April 2000, for all couples except those already aged 65 or more on that date. For those whose spouse or civil partner was born before April 6, 1935, but aged under 75, the allowance continues to be worth up to 606.50 off their tax bill, and for those whose spouse or civil partner is aged 75 or more, it is worth up to 613.50.

Mortgage interest relief at source (Miras)
Homebuyers used to be able to cut costs by claiming mortgage interest relief at source (Miras), until Mr Brown abolished this in April, 2000. Once again, the Conservatives had opened the door to this tax raid by restricting the value of Miras gradually over the years before Labour came to power in 1997. According to Halifax, in 1988, mortgage tax relief effectively reduced the mortgage costs for a new first time buyer in the UK by 954 a year.

Peps and Tessas
Savers could shelter 9,000 in a personal equity plan (Pep) and a further 9,000 over five years in a tax-exempt special savings account (Tessa), until Gordon Brown scrapped both schemes in 1999.

With an individual savings account (Isa), the successor to these schemes, investors can save up to 7,000 free of tax each year.

Gordon Brown reduced the tax benefits of receiving dividends within Isas in 1999, costing the basic rate taxpayers 27 a year, based on 7,000 invested in an equity Isa paying a 3.5 per cent dividend.

Hays,

If you notice the body language, Brown is leaning away form Murdock. Perhaps, it is due to the smell.

Gadfly and Blair have a lot in common and admiring one another.

Is Cameron carrying their bags.

Hear the Share price of News International is dropping.

I wonder why.

ISAs and Pensions,

Old hat. Can't see why you are squawking so much.

They were used as tax avoidance and could be utilised only by those with "free" cash.

(Yes, I have un-cashed Pensions and Isas.)

By the way Coulson was appointed by Cameron to the "heart of this government", not by the previous government. Also, that was after his period as a tory party advisor, following his resignation from News of the World under a "cloud".

It is about time that Cameron, Clegg and Brown accept their responsibilities. They are supposed to be in control of events, rather than being eventful.

They can't go on ducking the responsibilities of their actions.

PAYING OUT OF COURT SETTLEMENTS should have open eyes,

aldwickk, have you met Fred and stan?

What is nauseating to me, is the feeling that the tory government trying to buy future favours with the Murdoch family, by its squirming.


Just heard there are question marks being asked in America about ethical standards of the "Murdock Press" there.

If I had shares in any Murdoch's enterprise I would sell them, if I could.

Brown just looks like he is falling asleep as usual.

Coulson was not at the 'heart of this government', he was just a media advisor.

And Coulson is just being questioned.

Dreams.

I suppose he could have been the little squirt, slumped at the corner of the bar where Stan and I last met.

Fred, when you was a nipper did you hate the conservatives. Was the first word you ever spoke ( cannot think of the conservative leader in 1920) related to the cons.

The little squirt as you call him will have something to say about that. I await.

Hays.

Every PM needs its Willie. I supposed that was Coulson's role.

its willie or his willie

Yes his right , Fred & Stan were having a dance off , I didn't realise it was a gay bar.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cELwKLkROc&feature=related

I am getting worried now. Depends what cheeks.

Dreams,

He is probably having a lie down.

Thinking probably exhausts him.

As far as hating the Cons. when I was young, the answer is no.

My sister was a member of the young conservatives. Some of her friends were very attractive. Learnt a lot.

Don't hate the cons, dislike some for themselves, their elitism and ideological stances and values.

Also, dislike the move to short termism to appease the mob behind them.


I have a liking for some of the thinking moderates in previous tory administrations, while not necessary agreeing with all their policies or the manner they implemented their policies.

Had and still have a few tory friends, but I have outlived a lot of them.

But, they were prepared to have their views challenged without reacting as if they themselves were being threatened.

Must prepare our Uova Florentina, before I get told off.

Aids,

Do you have an underlying problem with, or fears of homosexuality.

To many, from your seemingly covert intimation, it would appear to be so.

Only of Stan in a dress , high heel's and heavy make up dancing with you in your learther bikers gear . Didn't like that Mexican looking moustache of yours.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cELwKLkROc&feature=related

Sounds like cissie and Ada / Les Dawson.