Welsh couples cannot raise children, says Gay Minister

Spotted by Bob E in The Guardian:

The Minister for Homosexual Affairs, Tarquin Fielding-Jones, has come under fire after claiming in a TV interview that Welsh couples "clearly" could not provide a "warm, dry and safe environment" to raise children.

The Tory MP, who voted in the Commons last week in favour of the government's plans to introduce gay marriage, made his remarks to ITV's Face To Face programme. The shadow Welsh minister, Chris Smith, attacked the comments as evidence that the "nasty party is alive and well under David Cameron".

Fielding-Jones said: "I regard marriage as an institution that has developed over many centuries, essentially for the provision of a warm, dry and safe environment for the upbringing of children, which is clearly something that you can't do if it's always raining. Which is not to say that I'm in any sense opposed to stable and committed partnerships in the principality."

Fielding-Jones said he did not believe he was a Little Englander, insisting he had "people in my life who are important to me who once worked for the BBC in Cardiff. And there was that hairdresser from Swansea... oooh... but I digress." The gay minister said he took the chance of a free vote in favour of gay marriage, which he said he believed his constituents were heartily indifferent about.

But Smith said:

"These comments reveal that the nasty party is alive and well under David Cameron. That such views exist in the heart of the Tory cabinet provides yet more evidence of how out of touch the Tories are with modern Britain, and how David Cameron's claim to have changed his party is, like so many of his promises, nothing more than empty words.

"Tarquin's comments are profoundly offensive and he should apologise to every Welshman and woman immediately."

Short List

Len Fairclough

Kevin Webster

Car Lorry Attack

Continuing the occasional series, a lorry attack.

From The Daily Mirror:

This was the shocking scene of devastation left after a coal lorry crashed into a house today leaving a woman dead. The 55-year-old, who lived in a ground-floor flat in the two-up, two-down property, died at the scene this afternoon.

A 60-year-old man who also lived in the flat and the driver of the truck, who is 54, both sustained minor injuries and were taken to Inverclyde Royal Hospital. One other man who was in the building at the time of the crash, in Main Street, Fairlie, North Ayrshire, shortly before 2pm, was taken out unhurt.

Eyewitness Steve Graham, chairman of Fairlie Community Council, said: "I walked up and had a look. There was a lorry deeply embedded into the corner of an old Victorian sandstone building. It is a coal lorry which for whatever reason has lost control and has ploughed into the house across the road."

He added: "This was an accident waiting to happen. There have been a number of near misses but nothing on this scale."

I dunno. On my mental checklist of "things to look out for when thinking about buying or renting a house" is "how likely is it that a car will crash into it?" Is it just me who thinks/worries about these things?

Idiots who know nothing about basic maths and logic

Apparently the whole "ten pence starting rate of tax" debate has resurfaced again, Tory back benchers are in favour; Labour front benchers are in favour, enough to make you suspicious.

Notwithstanding that even by their own standards, income tax isn't the biggest issue. The biggest issue is income-based withdrawal of benefits and Tax Credits, but they pretend somehow that benefits (and hence benefits withdrawal) are nothing to with the tax system. Well duh, that's like arguing that going out for a meal is nothing do with working out how to split the bill afterwards. And the next biggest issue is National Insurance, which kicks in at a lower level than income tax and takes a bigger chunk of wages than income tax.

But let's pretend that income tax (at these low levels) is important, in which case the Lib Dems and UKIP are bang on the money - the most important thing from the point of view of the lower earner is the personal allowance itself. Let's assume there is a straight choice between:

a) Having a 10% rate of income tax on the first £2,000 of taxable income (above the personal allowance) with 20% income tax on everything above that, or

b) Increasing the personal allowance by £1,000 with 20% income tax on everything above that.

Then clearly, some people will better off under option (b) and nobody will be worse off. So if the Tory back-benchers and Labour front-benchers want to go along with the charade that income tax (which only raises about one-quarter of all UK government revenues) is that terrible, then they should be giving all their support to the Lib Dems, who have long been saying that the personal allowance should be increased to a totemic £10,000.
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More twattishness from Centre Forum, repeating the tired old lie:

The report says the measures will help remove the current bias towards debt finance, which is treated more favourably by the taxman than equity finance.

I've been railing against this lie for twenty years to no avail. Simple fact is, the tax advantages of debt finance rather than equity finance are not that large. Interest is paid out of pre-tax profits, and there is a withholding tax of 20% on interest paid out, so a basic rate bond holder receives 80% of the post-tax profits. Dividends are paid out after paying 20% - 24% corporation tax, so a basic rate shareholder receives 80% - 76% of the pre-tax profits. The effective rates for a higher rate taxpayer are 40% for interest and 40% - 43% for dividends.

Sure, there are some other subtle tax disadvantages of shares compared to bonds (Stamp Duty, pension funds cannot reclaim a tax credit on dividends), and some subtle advantages of shares compared to bonds (EIS and VCT reliefs, loss reliefs, Inheritance Tax reliefs) but let's assume they cancel out. By and large, the decision whether to raise money by issuing shares or bonds is largely a commercial one, i.e. depends on the investor's risk-reward preferences. Companies issue shares to bold investors and they issue bonds to cautious investors.

But cash from investors is only one input - the most important input is labour. And labour is taxed far more highly than interest or dividends, because there is income tax AND National Insurance; so the overall effective marginal tax rate for a basic rate employee is 40.2% and for a higher rate employee it is 49%.

Can nobody else see the yawning chasm here? Yes, 24%/43% is a bit more than 20%/40% but not hugely so, not sufficient to turn a cautious investor into a bold one. The big difference is between the tax rate on employment income and the tax rate on investment income.

Worse than that, the most important source of funding for productive businesses is perfectly ordinary cash income from customers. And for most productive businesses, one-sixth of that is taken by the government as Value Added Tax.
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Twat points for the first person to leave a comment saying "Ah yes, but I pay less than one-sixth of my turnover to the taxman because I can reduce my bill by the input VAT I have paid to my suppliers." Well duh, you've still paid over that input VAT to somebody, the cash has left your business, and your supplier just has to hand it over to the taxman anyway. It all adds up to one-sixth of your turnover.

Horsemeat scandal: Eight horses found on Bute

From the BBC:

Eight horses, killed in the UK, have entered the food chain on the Isle of Bute, the Food Standards Agency said.

Some 206 carcasses were tested north of the border, with eight found to be on the island in the Firth of Clyde. Scotland's chief medical officer said the highest level detected was over 100kg of horsemeat per carcass, which posed "very little risk to human health as the meat is very lean."

Earlier, food minister David Heath said tests for traces of Findus products in the National Scenic Area were negative. The horse carcasses were tested between 30 January and 7 February. Of the eight which tested positive for being on the popular summer tourist desination, six were exported on the Rothesay Ferry to France for human consumption, and two were destroyed at the abattoir.

The Prime Minister's spokesman told reporters that the UK was working very closely with Argyll & Bute Council in tracking the carcasses, which were identified on Thursday morning.

"Customers on O2 warned not to talk on mobile as strangers can listen in"

From The Daily Mail:

Mobile phone customers are being warned not to discuss dull and interesting matters during a call in public after it was realised that strangers can hear them.

Dozens of 02 customers are boring entire train compartments with the minutiae about their journeys, raising concerns about commuters' stress levels. The phone giant’s users can be heard by people around them who are forced to listen to a conversation.

Customers began reporting the 'cross passengers,' which also affects people on buses and in restaurants, listening to half a conversation to other networks by O2 users, several years ago.

Users have also reported boring not just the person they are on the phone to but also unknown persons with their conversation. The network provider said the glitch has been hitting people ever since the telephone was invented, reported The Sun.

Disgruntled users took to the internet voicing their annoyance on Twitter and forums.

Jeni Cantle tweeted: "I was on the phone to my partner on Monday while eavesdropping a completely different conversation."

Nikki Hollis retweeted, adding: "Yes I know you are on a f-ing train. I am sitting next to you."

Tom Logan responded: "Shush you lot! The blonde girl has started talking about her pregnancy test and I don't want to miss a word."

Presumably with a twelve-boar shotgun

From The Metro:

Switzerland: An injured boar attacked his father and his two sons as they played in their garden. The 90kg (200lb) animal bit Markus Lainer in the leg before fleeing. The 37-year old said: "I tried to fight it off, hitting it until it let go. It ran off and I noticed it didn't have its back feet."

Police in the northern village of Adlikon later shot the boar and said it had been injured in a collision with a train.

Makes a change from "the prisoner fell down the stairs", I suppose.

Short List

Sid Vicious

OJ Simpson

Phil Spector

Oscar Pistorius

"The good times will last for three more years": Bank of England issues cheery forecast for living standards

From The Evening Standard:

The Governor of the Bank of England today issued a cheery forecast for bankers' families that the unprecedented decade of rising living standards will last for at least three more years.

Sir Mervyn King said there was little danger of them falling before 2016 as interest rates stay “stubbornly” low — fuelling rising food, transport and utility bills — while wages in the rest of the economy stagnate. His promise came as new official figures showed that the impact of the Funding for Lending Scheme has already sent bankers' living standards higher than those of the week before. A few isolated weeks in 2009 were the only time on record that bankers wages have dropped.

The Governor also admitted that efforts to kick-start economic growth through the Funding for Lending Scheme were almost certainly “doomed to defeat”. But he offered a glimmer of hope that an increase in bonuses for the current year was “in sight”. In a new forecast the Bank said that inflation was now expected to rise to three per cent this year as a series of “own goals”, such as above inflation train fare increases, eat into household budgets. The renewed weakness of sterling is also expected to feed through into higher bank earnings.

The Governor said it was not possible to give a “definitive prediction” on when the annual increase in bankers' remuneration, which began in 1999, would come to an end.

"The Local Support Service Framework"

Emailed in by Bob E:

Ministerial Foreword

Universal Credit will make work pay – so that people are better off in work than claiming benefits. It will improve and modernise the benefit system and bring the experience of claiming and receiving benefit into line with the world of work.

And as Annex B illustrates, it really is going to be "so simple" ...

In making a claim to UC, the claimant will experience a series of key steps:
• Learn about UC;
• Create a UC account;
• Provide details for the claim;
• See likely payment amount;
• Submit claim;
• Prepare for an interview;
• Attend an initial interview;
• Prove ID
• Sign a Claimant Commitment; and
• Receive award notification and payment.

and once you have "got it":

In maintaining a claim to UC, a claimant will need to:
• Budget monthly and pay rent;
• Demonstrate “actively seeking work” (where appropriate);
• Take up work;
• Seek to increase their earnings from work; and
• Update their details.

and nor is the role that LSS's are expected to play "that big" either, and better yet, that is expressed in a totally "jargon and wonk speak free" way:

Local support services have to be focussed on delivering appropriate outcomes for claimants, communities and wider society. Although individuals will present specific challenges, and so require a tailored pathway to bring them closer to the labour market, the broad criteria for success are:
• Constructing a service that claimants, agents and intermediaries view as easy to use, easy to understand and easy to access - giving them confidence in the system;
• Helping individuals, especially those who need extra support, to make and manage a claim to UC;
• Providing a joined up and holistic support service to claimants ensuring minimum hand-offs between different agencies;
• Substantially improving work incentives and the recognition that work pays; and
• Increasing the number of people in employment when compared to the equivalent point of the previous economic cycle.

The ultimate aim of those providing services under the framework will be the creation of a “single claimant journey” from dependency to self sufficiency and work readiness, as far as is possible, behind which all service providers should be aligned. To this end DWP and delivery partners will identify specific outcomes required by individual claimants to help move them closer to the labour market and financial independence.

Can't fail, can it ?