buctootim

I do understand the logic of a system which attracts new foreign money to this country and the associated benefits they bring. We should aim to keep those seriously wealthy people who would otherwise live elsewhere -although there is a danger of repeating the issue with corporation tax where countries vie with each in a race to the bottom to offer the lowest possible tax rates. If people are leaving after seven years when they become liable for the £30,000pa tax levy then fine imo. It shows they weren't really wealthy and were therefore not making an exceptional contribution to the economy to justify their status. Good summary here http://news.sky.com/story/1460806/everything-you-need-to-know-about-non-doms

We arent talking about someone coming in to update windows. Patient Administration Systems are hugely complex and need to communicate confidential information securely on a national basis. The history of IT in the NHS is a minefield because its so complex - and its complex largely because it needs to support the fundamentally flawed internal market governments of successive shades have introduced. Both Labour and the Conservatives have wasted billions on systems which dont work. However the hidden cost is the amount of time clinicians have to put into to supporting the designing of the systems because no matter how competent IT contractors dont understand clinical practice and what clinicians need the system to be able to do. At least two private sector computer systems for the NHS have failed to work in the past 20 years and been scrapped after years in development. When I ran medical specialties at a teaching hospital in London probably 30% of my time and that of the Clinical Director (a senior consultant being paid £150,000pa) was occupied for two years trying to get Mcdonnell Douglas employees to understand issues like why a meatal lesion was different to a meatal ulcer and why it was important that it was possible to code separately (it meant the hospital got paid nearly double the amount per procedure). The system never did work and was scrapped. Off course the NHS got the blame, not McDonnell Douglas.

There is a world of difference between being tougher and abolishing the whole status. Abolishing non dom status would cost money reforming it could generate money. There is no contradiction. We arent talking about a relatively few mega rich foreign citizens having a base here. There are around 115,000 non doms in this country, a status you can inherit from your father or grandfather, even if you have lived here all your life. Its a corrupt and outdated system which needs reform.

So because we don't have the flat rate tax system you prefer its okay to let the super rich not pay tax? Stellar.

Gob

1. How big a GP practice do you think you need to be to be able to employ support staff who have IT, building management, staff management, clinical administrative (eg booking specialist clinics, referrals) and liaising with social services home care, not to mention people skills? Clue. Its far far more than the average practice size. Most 'practice managers' are in reality relatively low level admin staff and as a result the partners get involved in all significant aspects. 2. Obviously I dont know all GPs, but I know enough to have an informed opinion having worked in Health Authorities, GP commissioning and a teaching hospital for many years. GPs want to practice medicine, not run a business / bureaucracy. The introduction of the internal market 25 years ago started a process of gradually introducing more form filling and data collection which has only grown with each subsequent review. Somehere around 40% of a GPs time is spent on admin.

Gin

They get dividend stamps per vote. They can then cash them in at the House of Commons and save on expenses. Seems a fairer system to me.

Most GPs want to be employees and not contractors so they spend more of their time with patients and less on IT systems, receptionists reviews, getting the guttering cleared etc. Why should they not speak out against privatisation? Tim Worstall is disengenuous (a UKipper who'd have thunk?) by saying those mired in the current setup are hypocritical for wanting to change it.

He was questioned by Police a few hours after Downing Street discovered the material and reported it. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/senior-tory-adviser-patrick-rock-arrested-on-child-pornography-allegations-9166837.html

Quite - its arguably more admirable (though naive as it turns out) to make a pledge and then apologise if you don't achieve it than it is to construct deliberately vague aspirational language crafted by lawyers and to later profess amazement that anyone could have drawn any such an inference. All the Lib Dems fuss shows is that people dont want real world politics, they want warm words and spin.

Not really, the biggest attention was given to raising the tax earnings threshold to £10,000. The tuition fees was just of many and they clearly weren't going to get them all through a coalition. Maybe you remember the fees more clearly because of your job, but as this link shows it was just part of a long list. What is striking is how much the LDs have delivered and got little credit for. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8619630.stm

Surely, being an even handed kind of chap, you should be berating them for promising things they wont be able to deliver as they wont get an outright win.

They're called manifestos. All parties have them, even UKIP.

The pledge was for a Lib Dem government. They didnt win a Lib Dem government and were instead the junior partner in a coalition so didn't have the power to deliver. Its a totally different situation - like promising to buy your partner two weeks in the Maldives if you get that great new job you were after - but give her a weekend in Butlins when you get a weekends overtime instead.

Brighton

Bog

Unfair, but funny

Agree with that. If you are staying away for a year its got to have some point and substance to it. After three weeks of beaches, sightseeing and getting ****ed it all gets a bit samey and you start wondering why you're there. I'd volunteer for someone like VSO, or do BUNAC as mentioned above. Base yourself in one place with a real job to do and colleagues to work with and use whatever money you've saved for weekend trips or a few weeks travelling before after. http://www.vso.org.uk/volunteer/opportunities/vso-ics-for-18-25-year-olds

You've got to question the brains behind this programme when their attempts at anonymity for the writer extend to blanking out the signature but leaving "From Chloe Deakin" in the top left.

Agree with this. In any coalition both (all) partners aren't going to get everything they want, inevitably there is horse trading. The Lib Dems have had a positive moderating effect on this government. Their problem is that where their influence has been exerted its attributed to the Conservatives as being more caring than billed, whilst they are castigated for selling out on other policies. People say they want politics with less spin, but then lap up the media gloss without looking at the actual facts.

cheque

Its partly culture for sure - but we also share bloodlines and language with the Aussies and Canadians, thats why the link is strong. Familiarity is also important. You feel more comfortable with next door neighbours than with people 10 doors away. The English arent particularly similar to the Scots or Welsh but most feel more comfortable with them than, say, the Dutch.