Governments League Table

[xane]

Actually I'm pretty sure indirect taxes have gone up, I'll have to think to remember exactly what. Plus things like MIRAS and Married Couple's Allowance have been scrapped.

I think you'll find MIRAS was on its way out at the end of the last Conservative administration anyway, they gradually phased it out by 5% per year, and Married Couples allowance has not been completely scrapped, in most cases it is better for individuals to claim independent tax allowances and it has virtually been replaced by "dependents" (children) allowance anyway.

I lived through the eighties, I remember the "power software salesmen" quaffing Champers down the wine bar every night whilst us programmers who actually DID the coding and after-sales support got naff all, I remember not being able to buy a house for three years because house prices were going up faster than my wages were.

I remember Mrs Thatcher coming to power and promising to remove all the administration bollocks from the NHS and 10 years later ending up with three times the original administrative staff.

Big Hair - where has it all gone ? I blame Sinhead O Connor.

 

[throdgrain]

no doubt the liberals are more left wing than labour.
i expect its me age but i like the labour party much better now they have leant more to the right .the tories appear to have leant so far they fell off

 

[xane]

If anyone remembers the shambles the Labour Party was during the eighties I recommend reading Things Can Only Get Better by John O Farrell, hes a bit of a lefty Guardian-writer type person, but its a really ace book.

 

[throdgrain]

do you remember neil kinnock falling in the sea at brighton in front of the cameras? that was a nail in the coffin of their election hopes that year

 

[Wij]

Has to be said Labour were a bit shit under Neil Kinnock (who's now renounced his anti EU views to get a nice job in the EU ) and who the fuck would ever elect Micheal Foot ? Nice chap probably but he wore a fucking duffle coat :/

 

[throdgrain]

neil kinnocks faults;
1. he was bald
2. what hair he did have was ginger
3. he was welsh.
was he ever goning to get elected.not on your life m8

 

[Wij]

Holding a victory party before voting has finished was pretty dumb too

 

[Will]

Aye, that victory party was what really swung it - all the voters looked at him being all smug, got scared by the thought of not having a Tory government for the first time in a long time, and all went to the ballot box and voted Tory again.

Silly Mr Kinnock.

 

[Wij]

On the bright side for him, he got him and his missus some cushy jobs on the EU gravy train

 

[Daffeh]

ran by Fat Cats....

for the benefit of Fat Cats

oh no scandal, head guy has to quit...but gets £xx million ...

FUCK OFF AND DIE

 

[Wij]

you've lost me :/

 

[Will]

There goes the intelligent political debate...

 

[Wij]

I wouldn't mind a bit of ranting if I could work out what he was ranting about :/

 

[Daffeh]

EGG-SPAMMED RICE!

 

[Embattle]

My main moan with the NHS is the massive amount wasted.

 

[bids]

I've work in Healthcare IT for nearly ten years now, and in my experience the NHS is certainly not short of funding. The wastage, as Embattle says, is unbelievable. An example in one of the Trust's I used to work with

The Government is has given us £1 million to 'modernise' our three hospitals - how shall we use it ?

Result - 500k on new project managers, admin support, offices, etc. 100k on kit, 400k to got to the Trust's year on year debt.

There's a lot of good work underway in the NHS, but they need to seriously sort out the management and divert the funding where it is needed (i.e. clinical personnel) and not spend it on pointless projects that have no operational or long term value

(another one that made me laugh -
Phoney Blair - 'here's a wad of cash to reduce waiting lists'
Trust CE - 'ta very much'

CE to clinical people - 'right we need to reduce waiting lists - concentrate on minor ops, and sod the poor bastards with expensive illnesses - soz ,no extra dosh for this, as it's gone to pay for our year on year debt.')

/*Rant Over*/

 

[Dimebag]

Throdgrain put -

we all moan about the national health service but we're all too tight to do anything about it.thats why you get governments being replaced via promises of improved health service but no addition to taxes.duh it dont take a genius to work out if you want something you generally got to pay for it right?

-

I don't think this is true. People pay their taxes and the government are going to throw another 10 billion at it, or want to. If its getting this much money and not going anywhere something is wrong with the system. I saw something on newsnight saying how many managers etc there were and the lack of nurses. Sack the manager's manager's manager and hire more ground staff. Thats what I think anyway. Too many positions of management and administration! If im totally honest I dont really know anymore about it than that, so I wont say anymore

Oh yeah, and when I get out of university, im going private just like my parents.

Dimebag

 

[bodhi]

Originally posted by ItchyTrigaFinga
, though duty should remain on products such as petrol and fags for other reasons.

That's shite. I'm fucking sick of paying 74.9p a litre for proper petrol and £4:20 for a pack of cigs.

 

[xane]

I'm not a regular smoker or drinker, but I do believe tax should be removed from these products, simply because people use the inflated prices as an excuse to inflate other non-taxed products, a typical example is a pub charging almost the same price for a pint of cola as it would be lager, last time I was at Sainsburys a can of Red Bull was about £1, so how come it costs £2.50 in a pub ???

Eventually, like what happened to betting, the internet will force the government to remove the tax on these products simply because you can order them tax-free (or reduced tax) from abroad with a simple mouse-click. Just like with the betting industry, they should tax the companies directly. Check out the Customs and Excise website for their rather stupid rules on internet tobacco purchases.

The reverse is true on petrol, however, if you look at petrol prices across europe you'll see that although the UK pays the highest price overall, the petrol company is in fact getting less. If petrol tax were to be removed the petrol company will simply raise the price by an equivilent amount, there will be no change at all to you.

Petrol companies are not stupid, they know people here will (reluctantly) pay 80p/litre and they'll work their way towards it, tax or no tax. Its a difference of paying the government or the fat cats at BP and Esso thats all. If you really think that reducing petrol tax by 20p/litre will actually reduce the price you pay by 20p/litre as well then you are very naive.

Prior to the demonstrations last year, oil costs had been steadily falling for years, yet we never saw any price drops on petrol, simply because the petrol companies know how to screw you better than the government does.

 

[*Exor*]

Tobacco should be taxed even high imo because:

1) It's a filthy fucking habbit and makes pubs/clubs unbearable to be in sometimes.
2) Other people can catch diseases from passive smoking
3) Smoking related illnesses cost the NHS an absolute fuckload of money.
4) Too many cigarette butts in the street!!!! Filthy smoker cunts.

I guess roughly the same could be said about alcohol, but to a much lesser extent though.

I don't think £2:50 for a pint is too bad though tbh, get's me drunk on £20!

 

[Embattle]

Dimebag is right, it was referred to as top-heavy years a go.

Stop moaning about on on Petrol/Cigs......it will only go up.

 

[xane]

*Exor* please understand that taxing something does not make people use it less, in fact, you actually set out to tax things that people dont use less for precisely that reason

 

[Embattle]

True and..........?

 

[*Exor*]

Originally posted by camazotz
*Exor* please understand that taxing something does not make people use it less, in fact, you actually set out to tax things that people dont use less for precisely that reason

Please understand I'm not attempting to suggest that it will make people use anything less. If that's the jist you got from my post, you're an idiot. What I am saying is that we should charge people more for the privilege, so that us non-smokers can benefit more from their extra tax payments, instead of just catching cancer from their death sticks.

 

[xane]

Chill out Exor, you're not exactly the world's greatest writer and you shouldn't assume people are idiots for misinterpreting your posts.

My point is still made. You can tax smokers as much as you like but the number of buttends on the street and the amount of medical care need will remain the same. What you need is less people smoking or some way of forcing them to be more considerate (fat chance).

In any case, you need to target the companies not the people, most of the tobacco manufacturers get away with obscenely low rates of industry tax in this country, it's about time they started paying like everyone else, and you'd net a hell of a lot more money from it.

 

[Wij]

Cigs are great and the amount of tax we pay in our lives should easily cover the cost of any cancer treatment. If we stopped smoking the NHS would probably go bust

 

[Will]

Originally posted by Wij
Cigs are great and the amount of tax we pay in our lives should easily cover the cost of any cancer treatment. If we stopped smoking the NHS would probably go bust

You are quite right - the amount raised by tobacco duty is far higher than the cost of cancer treatment and other smoking related diseases.

 

[Wij]

woohoo !!!¬

you owe us all big-time you non fag-smoking fags

 

[Will]

I pay some fag duty, I just don't smoke it virgin-style.

 

[bodhi]

Originally posted by *Exor*
Tobacco should be taxed even high imo because:

1) It's a filthy fucking habbit and makes pubs/clubs unbearable to be in sometimes.

Seeing as most pubs have non-smoking areas, kindly fuck off to one of them so we can kill ourselves in peace thx.

2) Other people can catch diseases from passive smoking

This is as yet unproven, no matter what Roy Castle may tell you.

3) Smoking related illnesses cost the NHS an absolute fuckload of money.

Who do you think subsidises the NHS?

4) Too many cigarette butts in the street!!!! Filthy smoker cunts.

Oh no! Let me get the violins out for poor exor and his fag butt ridden streets.