We sat in the “conservatory” bit. The speed some oiks go through that crossing is literally criminal.
I witnessed the most pointless job in the world being done yesterday. Mrs Plym and I were sitting in our car....having arrived early at a Crematorium.....although they preferred to call it a...Cemetery and Ceremonial Park. It was showery and blustery and all the leaves were being blown around in endless circles. Along comes an employee with his... leaf blower... rearranging all the leaves in more endless circles and even gave a little blow under my car for good measure.....what the hell was he trying to do... dry the leaves or something.....needless to say you couldn't tell the difference after he had passed by.....it was a reasonably large car park so he could go on for ever. We were there for a 3.30pm service.....so maybe he was clocking off soon and wanted to look busy until then.....maybe tomorrow he'll be blowing the leaves off hundreds of graves and the car park will just have to stay leafy.
Be thankful someone is at least doing something. We've had spells of torrential rain here in the past week or two and I've twice witnessed Hyde Park shopkeepers poking into the storm drains to clear leaves and other debris to stop huge lakes of water coming over their thresholds. If you don't know Hyde Park, it's sort of downhill of everywhere so blocked drains all around force the water their way. What do we get for our council taxes?
Too many compulsory services without being allowed the funds to do the job properly is the answer to that one notdistant. It's so central government can blame somebody else when it goes wrong. It also gives Mr Angry from Kent the chance to have a pop at yet another set of people he isn't personally satisfied with. Last time the Royal Mail now the Council Workers and parking people of course because he left his car somewhere he shouldn't for too long. Mind you I do get a bit narked at all the blocked drains though. Whatever happened to gully suckers...........
Reports in the papers today that those going over the 45% tax the threshold who also have student loans to repay (ie high flying people in the financial & legal services sectors) face marginal tax rates of between 60 and 90%. Amongst other things, this is because they are denied the tax free £12,500 band as well as copping high rates at the top. I know some won’t feel much sympathy but these people have worked harder to qualify and establish themselves and whether anyone likes it or not, provide invaluable services to business generally. Thresholds haven’t been increased for years and are frozen for 5 years plus. At the bottom end, if inflation goes on like this, while the state pension may increase to compensate, it won’t be long before those relying on it will start to pay tax. This is an utter nonsense. The Conservatives may have made vote catching promises not to raise tax, holding percentage rates fixed while allowing inflation to drag the poorest into paying tax and middle ranking earners into penal rates is deception on a grand scale. Index the thresholds and raise the rates to compensate. Let the electoral dog see the Government rabbit.
The state pension counts as income so if you have an occupational pension or two most already pay tax on pensions when then are all added together. Any increase I get on the state pension wil mean I pay 20p in the pound back to the Government. These people you describe as being invaluable notdistant are in what they do. However so is a bin man and so is a grave digger etc etc etc. I don't know your age but you may remember the late 1970s and the Winter of Discontent. That showed what happens in the streets and in the Country when these people don't do what they are generally paid quite poorly for. We as a Country are now being penalised severely by the very people who have gone a long way to causing the problems the population are expected to resolve by vastly reduced standards. Stupid budgetry ideas at the wrong time and things like Brexit which was pushed on us. It is interesting that polls now show many have changed their mind on that subject and would vote to stay in Europe if they could vote again. We won't get another vote though because that would be the Tories admitting they cocked up dramatically the first time around. Because they are egotistical and can't admit a cock up we will have to pay for years.
But that's the point Sensible: the low paid and those in prime "industrial" jobs are being pushed into higher tax rates as well as top earners. Tanker drivers, (dare I say it) train drivers, plumbers etc etc start to pay 40% tax at £50k. The state pension will be c. £9,700 next year and a further year of 10% inflation would take it to £10,700 in 2024. At £12,500, tax will be payable and neither the £50k nor the £12.5k thresholds are going to increase until 2028 at best. It's taxation by stealth - put the damn rates up and increase the thresholds to keep people in the bands they belong in. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61996117 - and that doesn't even the mention those going over the £12,500 20% tax threshold.
The Council tax energy bill rebate of £150 for properties in bands...A, B, C, D, is a help....but around here there are not too many properties falling into those bands. A three bedroom bungalow around here is in band E.....so there will be many people who will be property rich but cash poor....who will no get any help.....that is a problem in the south east with sky high property values.
Well Labour think that makes you rich and able to pay a Wealth Tax, even though as you say it's not actually cash. Infuriates me: assets have been bought from income already income already subjected to Income Tax and the purchases themselves are subject to VAT, Stamp Duty etc. Property value is taxed annually as Council Tax and when assets are sold or you die, they get caught for Capital Gains Tax or Inheritance Tax (or potentially both eventually for the descendants). Older people have provided for their pensions from taxed income and since Gordon Brown's raid on pension funds, gains on the sums invested are taxed before you get the pension itself. If the value of your fund goes over £1m, you get uncontrollable and penal taxes on your income even though you haven't had the cash yet. Pension payments themselves are subject to Income Tax. How many more taxes do we need?
Interesting. Biden has said he will talk to Putin if Putin is serious about a solution in Ukraine. That would take into account Ukraine’s wishes and “be in conjunction with its ally France”. What happened to the UK being the US’ No 1 ally in Europe? I’ll give you a clue - it begins with a “B”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-rejoin-poll-b2212730.html https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/freedom-of-movement-leavers-remainers/
Letters to the Editor.....Daily Telegraph...07/12/2022. Sir......Regarding Lady Susan Hussey's resignation after accusations of racism. I am a turbaned Sikh....and often people have approached me to ask from where I have come. It never crosses my mind that they are racist or mean offence. It is a nice way of breaking the ice and starting a dialogue.....When I say I was born in India...grew up in Kenya...and came to Britain when middle aged a conversation ensues. Charles Moore (Comment...Dec 3rd)....is right that Ngozi Fulani's African costume made it reasonable to think she was African......and for Lady Susan to ask which part of Africa she came from...hoping perhaps to talk about her visit there. Sohan Singh....Washington, Co Durham. It takes a none white to make the comment that many others fear to say......this was a large get together and finding things to say to break the ice at a function like this can be difficult. Personally I thought at the time Ngozi Fulani knew exactly what she was being asked....and made it as difficult as possible for Lady Hussey.....I wonder who might of been the racist on this occasion.....this lady is known to be an anti-royalist......and I think there was an over reaction by Ngozi Fulani......Lady Hussey did apologise if she had caused any offence....and I think the Palace over-reacted in allowing Lady Hussey to resign her position.....she had given many years of service to Queen Elizabeth and to step down from royal duties in such a way was not necessary.
Surprisingly, I tend to agree with you that this is a mountain made out of a molehill. Certainly racism is rife and I abhor it but we all ask people we know full well to be white & British "where are you from?". It's a standard if unimaginative conversation starter. I'm aware it can be misconstrued but I am genuinely more interested in where people who do appear to have something more interesting to say than "Birmingham" or "Bridgewater". I wouldn't be suggesting they shouldn't be here, far from it, but I'm not daft enough to ask as I know it can offend and so don't go there. They'll tell you if they want to. This daft old bat Hussey obviously doesn't know not to dig a herself a hole in the first place and if she does, to stop digging.
Daft old bat and stop digging is spot on with this story. "Where are you from" says daft old bat. "Birmingham" is the reply. "No where are you originally from" presses daft old bat. "I was born in Birmingham and grew up there" is the next reply. Should then be end of that conversation because it's factual even if not what the person asking wants to hear. However to continue to ask the same question over and over is not OK simply because somebody looks black and therefore cannot be from this Country in their eyes. That is racist stereotyping. I think that sort of thing goes with the Class system and is something the Duke of Eninburgh would have said along with slanty eye comments we all surely remember.
Listening to my radio today all I bloody heard was about netflixs and Harry and Mrs telling all. Why that should be world news god knows. Then turned on news on TV this evening and all they talked about for the first 10 minutes or so was.........roll on drums........Harry and his Mrs telling all. Does anyone really care what he thinks? Poor little lamb that he is must be suffering all ends up. Never mind he can always bank another few million on the back of his birth into that horrible family he so readily exploits for his own profit.
How can Harry and Megan claim to want a quiet life.....when they live were they do in California and tell the world through Netflix's $millions how bad the world is treating them through a program that only tells one side of a story....I think they protest to loud....can't they just go away and leave us all in peace.....I think this marriage will come crashing down one day and Harry will have burnt all his bridges.
I find it incredible that despite what Harry went through with his mother and that Megan is a savvy US celebrity who's surely experienced the twisted world of PR and media relations, and indeed racism if it's relevant, which I doubt, neither of them seemed to have grasped the need to give the viperous UK tabloid press the widest possible berth. All they had to do was follow the example of Charles, Anne, William and the Tindalls by saying little, doing their Royal duties and revealing their opinions by doing good works via charities in the sectors they felt most relevant to them. It didn't help of course that she fell out with a succession of UK PR and press advisers and tried to bring her own in from Hollywood....
As I've been sitting here doing the prediction scores, I can see the cars outside slowly thawing the ice that's formed on them overnight. I can also see my neighbour's flag pole. Yes, I know, I've always thought people with flagpoles in their gardens must be a bit odd too, but they are very nice people, really. He has 2 flags at present: the Union Flag as usual and a St George's Cross, which I suspect will be removed shortly following England's defeat. Both are hanging completely limp as they have been through this cold spell. Good job we don't rely entirely on wind power as some would like us to, isn't it? One winter, when we lived north of London, an anti-cyclone settled on us. You don't much of a weather system to cover a big area. A 100 mile wide feature covers 31,500 sq. miles and a 200 mile one 126,000 sq. miles. We had solid overcast skies (bad for solar), and absolutely no wind (bad for wind farms) for a whole month. The temperature did not rise above freezing during all that time, day or night. How glad I was for the gas boiler. I don't dispute the need for zero-carbon energy but we need to make sure the lights stay on when we need them most.
