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Off Topic Coronavirus and NOTHING to do with football thread

Discussion in 'Watford' started by andytoprankin, Mar 21, 2020.

  1. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member Forum Moderator

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  2. Bolton's Boots

    Bolton's Boots Well-Known Member

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    Got this from a friend who had been angered by Johnson's response to criticism over the 1% pay rise for nurses - his "we've given them as much as we can" claim. I hope the maths is correct...

    "I guess he's hoping that we'll forget that he gave his mate Cummings a pay rise of about 50% last year. But how much would a proper pay rise for nurses actually cost Westminster? What if Rishi Sunak gave each one of them a £10,000 pay rise, heroes that they are?

    According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council, there were about 550,000 nurses in England and Wales as at March 2020. A lot of those will be working part time - but let's assume they're all full-time, and work out 'worst-case scenario' figures. £10,000 for each adds up to £5.5billion.
    Let's then assume that the government borrows this entire sum, and has to pay interest on it. This isn't how government spending works, as most sane economists would tell you, given that governments print the money they spend - but 'worst case scenario' (see above).According to Bloomberg's daily reports, UK two-year gilt bonds today have a yield of 0.08%. The Bank of England interest rate is currently almost identical, at 0.10%. I'll go with the higher one, for worst case. That makes the annual interest bill £5.5 million. Which sounds like a lot.

    But what is Westminster's tax take on that increased income? This has to be very approximate, as different personal circumstances mean different tax bills. That said, I ran a basic set of numbers though MoneySavingExpert, and the increase in tax take for HMRC, across those 550,000 people, is a little over one billion pounds. That's £1,000,000,000.00. For the benefit of Sunak and Johnson, that's a lot more than five million.

    So at a (worst case) annual cost of about £5 million to get the money to pay nurses, HMRC increases its revenue by over one billion pounds. And remember - these nurses are spending in shops, and paying VAT. The shops are likely hiring more staff, who then pay even more income tax to HMRC, buy stuff and pay VAT, etc., etc. The actual increase in tax revenue to HMRC would actually be much higher.

    These guys pulled together over £30billion for Dido Harding, and her test-n-trace system is so awful (remember when their excel spreadsheet ran out of columns?) that she had to go onto Twitter last week to try to find people with Brazilian covid. I'm pretty sure that we can afford to give nurses a decent pay rise, and I'm equally confident that they'll be overjoyed to pay the extra tax - taxes that will more than finance it
    .
     
    #3942
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  3. Toby

    Toby GC's Life Coach

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  4. andytoprankin

    andytoprankin Well-Known Member

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    Bloody hell, Toby. It’s just so galling that all you can do is throw your hands up. And they know it. Someone should get some serious stir for defrauding the public like this.
     
    #3944
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  5. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member Forum Moderator

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    Test and Trace staff were instructed to use their personal email accounts to handle individuals’ health data in what has been described as a “shocking” breach of privacy regulations, PoliticsHome can reveal.

    One former staff member has now reported the outsourcing giant Sitel to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) after she was left "horrified" by the practice.

    In internal messages seen by this website, staff working on Test and Trace were advised to use their personal emails to share details of cases despite concerns being raised about potential breaches of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

    The incident, which occured in January, saw a manager instruct call handlers to use their own email accounts to send case information for review because Sitel's internal systems made it "unmanageable" for details to be shared securely via their online platform.
     
    #3945
  6. andytoprankin

    andytoprankin Well-Known Member

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    What the hell is going on? <yikes> I’m presuming that ‘manager’ was one of the thousands of ‘consultants’ the Public Accounts Committee are looking into, as well.
     
    #3946

  7. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member Forum Moderator

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    We should not forget that Didi Harding who is in charge of this lot was in charge at Talk Talk when they had a massive security leak of personal data.
     
    #3947
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  8. Toby

    Toby GC's Life Coach

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    I'm baffled by that. Any fine they get will just come out of taxpayer funds...

    And apparently creating a reliable free broadband network across the country would have ruined us.
     
    #3948
  9. Bolton's Boots

    Bolton's Boots Well-Known Member

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    #3949
  10. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member Forum Moderator

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    Have I got news for you must be in danger.

    "English Fascism, when it arrives, is likely to be of a sedate and subtle kind (presumably, at any rate at first, it won’t be called Fascism)” George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
     
    #3950
  11. Markthehorn

    Markthehorn Well-Known Member

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    Cannot be a great surprise that countries in the EU are struggling given the chaos over the vaccine output.

    Lives have been put at risk due to the meddling going on.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56382608

    Certainly don’t think people should be booking holidays just yet to these places.

    Have you got yours OFH?
     
    #3951
  12. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member Forum Moderator

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    Not yet Mark. It is likely to be next month. The only one in this part of the country available is the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Supplies of that were slowed as the company tried to meet demand by extending the factory in Belgium. A French company, Sanofi, has agreed to use their facilities to produce more of the Pfizer one, but there is a time lag of a few months before they come on stream. Distribution of the Moderna vaccine also ran into problems, with Italy and France both saying they were receiving fewer doses than expected. It looks from reports that all of the companies producing the vaccines wildly over estimated the amount they could produce. There are huge profits to be made, and I think the £, $ or € symbols were flashing in a few eyes.
     
    #3952
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  13. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member Forum Moderator

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    The Mash Report has been cancelled by BBC bosses, apparently because of its left-wing bias - no doubt at the behest of the government. What sort of a State are we moving towards?

    please log in to view this image

    please log in to view this image
     
    #3953
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  14. Bolton's Boots

    Bolton's Boots Well-Known Member

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    Was bound to happen I suppose...

     
    #3954
  15. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member Forum Moderator

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    Still waiting for a Christmas present that was resent without the cheese. Posted on the 6th March, arrived in Dover on the 8th, and has sat there ever since. Maybe someone should have been honest about the problems that would arise and stop trying to kid me that everything is now normal.
     
    #3955
  16. Bolton's Boots

    Bolton's Boots Well-Known Member

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    #3956
  17. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member Forum Moderator

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    So if I finish up in the Crown court accused of GBH or actual bodily harm, the maximum spell in stir is 5 years. However if I am caught with my can of spray paint being used on a statue, or standing outside Parliament on my own shouting what I think about Johnson, then a spell of up to 10 years inside is possible. This is quite ridiculous, yet what the government wishes to impose on everyone.
     
    #3957
  18. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member Forum Moderator

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    please log in to view this image

    This collection of flags, orange plywood, stackable chairs, and a mid-range Samsung TV cost ten times as much as my house.
    @RussInCheshire
     
    #3958
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  19. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member Forum Moderator

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    Just how damning is this about the buffoon? Most of here have seen this, but finally others much closer to the seat of government are prepared to admit that he is totally useless. He said he takes responsibility for the response to the crisis. He should now agree that his decisions have cost thousands of lives, and go.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-56406393
     
    #3959
  20. Toby

    Toby GC's Life Coach

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    My guess is about 70% went on 'consultancy' fees. I'd be VERY surprised if the project manager was a friend of someone in Government.
     
    #3960
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