Well, at last they've given up with the lies...

Argentina had been trying to get the islands for decades and the fact
that the military junta was in the shit at home should have sounded
warning bells.

A quick search helps me to find that Nicholas Ridley allegedly
proposed a deal to share control of the islands 2 years before the
invasion took place so that wouldn't offer any encouragement to the
Argentinians would it?

 

The subs weren't in position in time.

 

It was an effect of it.

I was better off with the poll tax but to expect a minimum wage worker
living with their parents in a two bedroomed home to pay the same as a
multi millionaire living in a 10 bedroomed mansion is just not right.

 

So two teenagers working as apprentices and sharing a bedroom in their
parents small terraced house should each pay the same amount as a
single person living in an expensive detached house? That's what
happened with the poll tax.

I watched apprentices where I worked being taken to court because they
were on crap wages suddenly being hit with an extra 10% tax bill?
That's roughly what the figure was where I lived and what the wages
were for an 18 year old apprentice fitter.

If you owned a cheaper house you paid lower rates, if you owned an
expensive house you paid higher rates. That seems to take into account
a persons 'disposable' income.

 

On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 11:34:34 +0000, Wicked Uncle Nigel

snip>

You wouldn't have paid any more under the old rates system and you
won't be paying any more under the council tax system. Obviously this
ignores benefit payments and doesn't take into account second wage
earners.

Assuming he worked 15 years ago and lives alone (you don't mention a
wife) your household would have paid double the amount his did under
the poll tax.

 

I was referring to the fact that we could have dlobbed a tactical nuke on
the invasion fleet mid Atlantic, or more probably (humanely) let a small one
off 10 miles ahead of them first, or simply have radioed telling them if
they passed a certain point that is what was coming.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Andy Bonwick

But I would under a local income tax system.

He has a wife and two children.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Champ

I didn't say that either. I am saying that the cost should be equally
borne by all.

Very well, how about water? He needs that too, and he pays the same
(assuming we're both metered) as I do.

 

Well - it did in the fact that there were means-tested rebates for
people on lower incomes. The fact that the means testing was an
intrusive effort that required fairly significant resource uaage by the
local council (and therefore pushed up *their* costs) was pretty much
glossed over.

Rates/Council Tax are equally absurd - you can (and do) get the situation
where people live in houses with a rateable value that far exceeds their
ability to pay (I'm thinking elderly people here). The standard answer
seems to be "sell the house and downsize" which is not going to be
something that gains votes or sympathy..

Well quite. I pay the same local taxes as my neighbours but use the
council services a lot less (no kids, a lot less rubbish put out etc
etc). It doesn't bother me - I don't have the costs that they do and
it's a reasonable investment in the infrastructure of society.

Council tax isn't based on the ability to pay - it's based on the size
of the house which may or may not be matched by the availability of
capital..

Phil

 

Rubbish. An example: when Cheryls mum died her house went to Cheryls
sister. She is living on a very low income and is spending as much as
she can afford to make the house livable (central heating et. al). She
didn't buy the house, couldn't have affored to buy the house and yet is
still charged council tax based purely on the current market value of
the house.

Phil.

 

I will (charitably) assume you are joking and not completely off your
trolley.

And if we *had* let one off what do you think the response would be
from people like the USSR? Or Cuba? Or the US? Or the French?

In short - it would be like cracking someones skull with a 100K Newtons
metal press. In public.

Phil

 

Err yes, I think so. But kids numbers made no difference. But they
cetainly have more of a tendency to stay living together longer, and
indeed to share smaller houses/flats between multiple occupants, which
lead to a large increase from them all sharing in paying one set of
'rates' on a small property to them paying roughly the same amount
_each_.

Well yes, that may be so, but the change left many people,
particularly at the poorer end of the spectrum, feeling that they were
paying more, which was indeed the case for many people. Badly
thought-out, at best.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

ITYF it's the value in 1991

 

No, it victimises pensioners who have lived in the same house all of their
lives. Large house does not equal large income.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Champ

Then we can't afford it, can we>?

For basic healthcare, no I am not. But I do believe that those who pay
more have a reasonable expectation that more should be available to them
when needed. Payments above a certain level could guarantee a single
room rather than a ward, for example.

In a similar vein, unemployment pay should (for the first year) be
related to NI payments in the preceding twelve months. Why not? If I pay
more into (for example) a loss-of-earnings insurance policy, I get more
out. That's fair.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, platypus

And, with perfect timing, if anyone had Francis Pym in the dead pool,
they should step up and collect their winnings now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7283708.stm

 

Now that IS rubbish - using an exceptional situation to try and
counter a general point.

 

It seems fair to you. The trouble is that when the basic argument is
one of the extent to which you believe the rich should, in general,
subsidise the poor, fairness is not a useful concept.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Colin Irvine

What an interesting statement. Care to expand on it?

 

Nice idea. Let's nuke the South Atlantic and cause irreparable harm to
the environment for a few centuries to come. I wonder where the
contaminated waters would have ended up a few months later.