saint si

Wait - who went to KES?

Getting tired of hearing this nonsense. Name a party or even a group of parties that you would support in coalition that scored more than 50% of the total votes.

You know VAT is a tax levied on and paid to HMRC by the seller, not the consumer? Yes, ultimately the burden falls on the consumer. But the same is true for all other taxes on businesses. It's just much more transparent with VAT as it's shown as being directly linked to the price (retailers like it that way as they can imply their prices are lower but it's the pesky government that is pushing them up, and it's not their fault, honest).

Ok well that's that solved. 20% of what exactly?

OK but Starbucks are not actually evading any tax due, so that's not HMRC's problem (and boy, do they have a lot of problems). We can of course make new taxes, or change how the current taxes apply - that's easy to write, but clearly much harder to implement without a whole host of unintended consequences or loopholes (not to say we shouldn't try). Also would be interesting to know what Starbucks pays in VAT, rates and employers' NI before we simply proclaim they pay no tax.

The weather is better on the south coast, for one...

The only people with fingers in their ears are the ones that refuse to entertain the idea that the private sector can make a valuable contribution to healthcare in this country.

Their average league attendance in 2012/13 was 12,232. Presumably that was the "hardcore support" that "follow wherever and whatever".

Solid grasp of what a release clause is.

I dunno about admired. I mean - i don't particularly give a toss about these sort of stupid election campaign side-shows, but it's not at all savvy of them to think that nobody would dig in to it. To be honest, the Telegraph probably deserves the most derision for publishing it.

To be honest, that it came from CCHQ was the least shocking part! I didn't expect 5000 small businesses to spontaneously self-organise. However, it looks like the Tories have done a pretty shoddy job and I am sure some researchers are being fired ... https://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/27/small-business-letter-to-the-telegraph-an-attempt-to-defraud-the-electorate/

Sure, if the balance sheet, share price, shareholder dividends and wholesale existence of the banks is completely meaningless and of no value to the economy. Looking forward to my newly "rebalanced" pension when all those IOUs (aka "loans") are written off.

Here's the actual image used on the article: https://nbcsportsworld.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/0421-jose-fonte.jpg?w=1200

Can't help thinking that the English MPs for English laws is playing perfectly in to the SNP's hands. They're not really interested in voting on matters that impact only England... but creating more divides between Scotland and England is just what they want. The more the laws, powers, policies, economies (and ultimately culture) of Scotland and England deviate, the more chance they stand of delivering independence.

Well.. (1) you posted up to 2011, which is only 1 year after the last election, and any party/coalition coming in to power in 2010 would have virtually zero impact on 2011 taxation and spending, so any spending profligacy you were showing was entirely due to the Labour government. (2) the graph you posted shows debt, not deficit; If the national debt levels off then at that point we no longer have an increasing problem - we are paying down the debt (though in part due to increasing GDP, and which may therefore still mean we are running a budget deficit year to year). Having tinkered further I think this is the most useful graph to look at. Shows data up to 2014, and uses the 2014 dataset (most recent available on the site). This indeed shows that the debt is increasing more slowly and starting to level off: http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/spending_chart_1997_2014UKp_14c1li011mcn_G0t

Not sure what point you're making? Might be more useful to show up to 2015 too. http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/spending_chart_1997_2015UKp_12c1li011mcn_G0t

It's a lot of things, but it's clearly not regressive. You can bet that there's a pretty strong correlation between personal wealth and property value. There may be outliers where "poor" people can't afford to live in a £2m house, but downsizing wouldn't necessarily be a terrible idea in that situation. In terms of implementation, unless I'm missing something, wouldn't it be easier to just require councils to introduce a new top band of council tax and then reduce central government contribution to council spending on a like-for-like basis? Would solve issues with cost of valuation and would ensure no additional cost of collection. Probably wouldn't be so politically interesting, and less valuable in the battle for votes.

eBay sellers are subject to VAT just the same as they would be for transactions outside eBay. It's not eBay's job to collect / pay the VAT - that responsibility falls on the seller (where VAT applies).

Maybe what he actually did? Used police training to apprehend the suspect without resorting to lethal force? Good on the cop on this occasion. And just so you know SS, "charging toward cop" is not equivalent to "running / stumbling away from cop"

The state pension *is* the single biggest component of the welfare budget (45% or thereabouts) http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/08/uk-benefit-welfare-spending I won't be drawing state pension... mainly because I don't expect there to be one by the time I hit 70-something. Workplace pensions all the way... BTW just to be clear, I'm not remotely saying you don't deserve your pension or anything like that!

Upvote! Not to mention that having some debt is desirable as governments can borrow at relatively low rates and then use that money to invest in infrastructure or stimulate the economy in other ways. Also much of the debt is owed to pension funds and suchlike - so those interest repayments are just going back in to the economy.

http://www.snp.org/about-us First sentence: "The SNP is a social democratic political party committed to Scottish independence. " The UK in its current form (principally a union of England and Scotland) would cease to exist. Just because Sturgeon is turning on the charm during the TV debates, does not mean that they have abandoned this goal. The referendum last year? A mere starting point.

You don't select a representative audience by asking for X labour, Y tories, Z lib dems etc. You select it by taking a balanced cross section of society that is reasonably representative of the population at large. Asking for and then trying to force-fit to a particular percentage of voting intentions would actually make it less fair.

*it's

For that model you need to state income AFTER taxation (including NI). i.e. net income, not gross. £50k gross is going to be about £36k net. Running same numbers (i put £100 for council tax - no idea what you used) - it's 27% /17m households