How much are tax-payers funding political parties already?
August 28th, 2009
Michael Crick’s programme is a must listen
I’ve just picked up on BBC IPlayer this great Radio 4 investigation by Michael Crick on the funding of political parties and the rise of what he calls “The Political Club”.
The programme blurb goes: “Michael Crick reveals how politicians are increasingly becoming a professionalised and separate class, who use their status to channel taxpayers’ money into the coffers of their parties.
The recent scandal over MPs’ expenses has revealed how politicians are spending taxpayers’ money on themselves, but what has not been revealed - until now - is how much public money is being diverted to political parties, or how that development is intimately related to the rise of a new club of professional politician. Michael reveals the extent - and cost - of this development, and what it means for our democracy.”
Crick looks at how things like the way the massive increase in thing like councillors’ expenses and allowances in the past decade has led to large sums being channelled into the party machines and what EU election victories for UKIP and the BNP mean for their campaigning machines.
Until the late 1980s councillors just got travel and subsistence expenses and could claim for more if could show that they were losing wages because of their council duties - why not return to that? Compensation for loss of earnings rather than an income stream in it itself.
What’s striking is that the amount public funds going to councillors seems to have increased in inverse proportion to their actual powers. Virtually al the big decisions these days are taken elsewhere yet they are voting themselves big piles of cash.
For those not holding council cabinet jobs their roles have been even more marginalised.
This programme raises a lot of issues. There are only two days left to listen.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
Shurely not?
Don’t even get me started on the Trade Unions Modernisation Fund.
Bit of a row where I live (East Herts) about councillors expenses. Some “scrutiny committee” has not met for years, and there’s ructions about expenses, allowances and so forth, so some ex councillors and others are forming their own “shadow scrutiny committee”. All a bit odd, but chimes with the tone of the article. Will be interesting to listen, although Crick is not my favourite commentator.
Phew….we veered onto the ‘forbidden subject’ and just in time this new thread came to save us.
Councillor’s pay went up, just as parties were demanding they give a percentage of their pay to central office. Another of those little scandals that is little talked about and they all do it.
Any council that overspends any budget could be forced to remedy the shortfall by cutting councillors’ expenses. Ditto for the HOC..
That should result in vastly increased budgets and no change of course..
I notice that no one has posted NEW THREAD
4 - I know, It was my post at 420 what did it.
Any chance of somebody recording it to MP3 and storing it somewhere more perminant then posting a link? I’m going to be away for the weekend and will not be able to listen before it gets deleted.
There should be absolutely no public assistance for political parties. None. Party rules that require members in any capacity to make donations from publicly received funds or that confer some benefit on members who make donations from publicly received funds should be outlawed.
Political parties should cut their cloth according to their means. They should not be looking to increase their means at the public’s expense, either directly or indirectly.
The increased number of professional politicians, MPs, MSPs, AMs, Councillors, MEPs, LAMs means that there are far more people whose day job does not conflict with their wish to campaign. There doesn’t need to be a single penny transfered for this to create a big advantage for the parties.
[10] - We’ve seen political parties become increasingly inventive in recent years in devising ways to get around the tighter rules on political donations. There have been things like loans, shadow companies that do campaigning work for the party, etc.
I think that rules restricting doantions/funding alone will not be enough. I think there’s an argument that you shoud restrict the spending of political parties. If they aren’t allowed to spend so much money on billboard adverts, they won’t feel the need to think of dodgy ways to raise the money to pay for them.
They might then need to rely on their members talking to people instead. This could lead to more meaningful political discussion, compared with facile billboard adverts.
10 - a good starting point would be the absurd trade union ‘modernisation fund’…..
4
And I was just going to search for my Wermacht medal ribbons and my Volkssturm Armband…
It’s all part of a whole (read Peter Oborne’s ‘The Triumph of the Political Class’).
They see themselves as entitled to privileges, the root meaning of which is ‘private law’ i.e. not suffering the same constraints as the rest of us.
It’s long past time for a cleansing of the (political) Augean stables
Has anyone got any links to how much the Modernisation fund has paid to the unions, and how much money the Unions have paid to the Labour party in the same period?
12 A bit like the Smith Institute - Gordon’s favourite thunk-tank
16 & 17
It’s funny how after 12 years of the Union Modernisation Fund and things such as the Smith Institute that Crick has just woken up
The Bob manifesto on political reform:
1. ban all councils from employing political officers and political advisors to councillors. The same goes for SPAD’s at Westminster. The taxpayer should not be funding political workers.
2. A cap on individual donations, introduce short jail terms or community service for people flouting the rules. Jail should help discourage some of the creative accounting around donations. The current rules seem quite toothless.
3. Scrap the trade union modernisation fund.
4. Parties must name on their websites any individual who’s donations make up 10% or more of their income with details of the size and nature of the donation. The same for individual constituency parties above 50%.
5. Ban tithing.
6. Journos can pay full price for drinks in the commons. Having subsidised drinks for them at Westminster gives a bad signal, and besides why should I pay for their drinking habits.
7. Make political donations tax deductible as a public good.
8. erm…
If parties are forced to rely on their members for money it leads to two beneficial outcomes. Firstly they will have to listen to what their members say rather than continue serving the interests of the metropolitan elite who cuttrently have a stranglehold on parties.
Secondly if there is less money they will have to cut spending, drastically. Less spin doctors, less intensive campaigns in marginal seats, less forests cut down for pamphlets. As party members gain control of funding they will want to campaign in their own constituencies and not keep funding the marginals, meaning that more seats would be competitive.
19, you missed off the Communications Allowance.
20- yes, stupid of me, that is number 8. When I run the country it is the first thing to go.
Mazel Tov!
Ezio = RULES PB
All others = LOL
How many of the foot-soldiers of all the main Parties at the recent Norwich by-election were MP’s ‘researchers’ paid for entirely by the tax-payer?
HAHAHHA - check out Recess Monkey’s website
http://www.recessmonkey.com/
Yawn.
What a boring subject even for us political Anoraks !
23
Spads, anyone?
19.
“If parties are forced to rely on their members for money it leads to two beneficial outcomes. Firstly they will have to listen to what their members say rather than continue serving the interests of the metropolitan elite who cuttrently have a stranglehold on parties.”
Amen Bob.
(from previous thread 417) ” life is better under a Conservative!”
Amen 2. (at least half an hour a day)
What is your preferred position?
[23] - One doubts that anyone has any halfway reliable data. What would be your guess?
I’m not even sure I could accurately estimate the number of foot-soldiers, volunteers or otherwise, that each party had, let alone the proportion that were taxpayer funded by virtue of being the researchers for MPs.
25.
Wayne you do not count as a political tea cloth. We all know that a tim lurks within you, generating these spoutings cunningly devised to make the official conservatives look daft compared with the current ruling variety.
On the other hand, look at the screaming that goes on in the media when it’s revealed that parties have recieved X millions from one person, group or company.
27- between to beautiful women!
28. I haven’t a clue how many there were in total but the sheer number that there are to draw on is a great unfair advantage over the smaller parties such as Greens or UKIP trying to break through. If any of them were ever caught by inspector plod they would plead that they were ‘on holiday’ for the day in question and there would be no proof to the contrary so they (or rather their bosses) would presumably get away with it.
OT Plato is starting to feel really ropey - anyone else had a summer cold this year…starting with a sore neck/throat?
31- that should be between *two* beautiful women. Or perhaps three.
re 9 Chris you don’t want OGH to cut off by Mandelson’s chooper for illegal file sharing do you.
27. 19. Rubbish. The biggest factor in the decline in political party membership is the constant demand for money.
32- Speaking as a parliamentary researcher who went up to Norwich for the day, it definitely came out of my holiday entitlement; in our office at least there’s an awareness that you have to be careful about these sorts of things.
33; The return of Swine Flu!!!
33 Yup Plato, thats what I’ve got, Cough cold sore throat feeling very weak (cant walk the dogs, no energy) feeling physically drained. Best remedy I think is to Sleep as much as you can.No trouble for me there, I just zonk out almost at will. I’ve just had another hr and a half’s worth… and take some Ibuprofen every 4 hrs.(always read the label) For me at least it takes the edge off it but I feel tired all the time..
35 - Then I recommend to political parties that they try not to be so greedy. And to do what the rest of us do, and learn the difference between want and need.
35- gibberish! I’d say that the decline in party membership is due to two things: the sidelining of party members and a lack of interest in politics. The demands for money are irritating but not that bad. Besides I’m not saying they should raise more money from members, I’m saying they should spend less, they should be able to manage on only the money party members donate.
19 - I’m not too sure I’m a fan of parties being forced to listen to what their members have to say. Sometimes their members are slightly weirder than the general public.
39/40- great minds
Given the Government’s present indebtedness they can’t afford a penny:
Labour’s Legacy of Liabilities.
FPT: by Socrates August 28th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
393. “Scientists” in inverted commas? Tou mean like THE ROYAL ACADEMY?
Well, yes. The “science” of anthropogenic global warming would be about up to the standards of those scientists who are members of THE ROYAL ACADEMY…
…OF ARTS!
Sad, isn’t it, when you try to make an ‘appeal to authority’ as your argument, and you get it totally wrong!!
41- if party members had more say more people might join, besides parties are currently dominated by groups of around a dozen people if you count the leader, their favoured MP’s and avdvisors and the party chairs etc. That is a tiny group of people to control a party.
43 - Labour is to blame for nuclear clean-up and the existence of pension schemes? Harsh!
MTF - how long does it seem to be lasting? Typical BH and a hermit like me gets a bug!
Have just taken some paracetamol and popped out to stock up on Lemsips before it takes hold.
Good news - 6 new kitties arrived this morning
Bad news - meant to have a load of visitors tomorrow
29.
How dare you belittle me …. My “Political Emotional Intelligence” is the best around.
I will give you an example next poll Con 44, Lab 23, Lib 19
Listen … Learn …. Wait and See !!
Please don’t keep on at my friend Tim. I am really really working hard on him I have almost ground him down into submission and WILL HAVE HIM VOTING TORY NEXT TIME !!
19 comments:
1 - Don’t ban - limit both numbers and their autonomy from Civil Service disciplines. Bringing in outside advisors to Cabinet / Departmental Ministers helps counter the “Yes Minister” culture and provides Ministers with alternate views to those put forward by his departmental civil servants. Government is political and having political advice is important. However no SpAd shou;ld ever be given authority over civil servants and there should be a maximum number across Government (say 42, its generally the right answer and works out at about 2 per Cabinet Minister)
2 - Agreed - clear rules, clear penalties. Don’t know how you stop non Party organisations (Countryside Alliance, League Against Cruel Sports, Greenpeace) from campaigning in a way that supports a particular party or party policy.
3 Yup
4 Yup - why not all donations over £500/£1000 ?
5 Yup
6 Doesn’t bother me - more concerned that too few journalists report on Parliament and those in the Lobby are too much insiders, we need more bloggers and journalists there and reporting. Perhaps even cheaper drinks?
7 Yup - would help stop the “hidden” donations if you have to pay tax on those.
8 erm… Sorry but unless membership increases again to significant numbers reliance on and more power to existing associations/parties will drive parties towards core policies and too much loyalty to current MP/Leader (I remember well the upset at Mrs Thatcher from most activists and organisations like Conservative Students that she dared challenge “our Ted”). It needs balance, not too much centre control, not too much constituency power.
As Expenses showed its the safe seats where it becomes all too comfortable. We want activists to go out to the marginals and opposition seats and fight for votes, learn from the doorsteps what drives voters, that’s where politics happens.
Communications Allowance - get rid
48 Do you have a little chart that maps your emotional intelligence onto polling outcomes?
I seem to recall that you’re often pretty close…
47 Dont know for sure, started to feel a bit Groggy Tues night/ Wed am, Thursday was terrible slept 16 hrs+ out of 24 I guess, just popping in here to take a lok when I got up for a drink, had to cancel client visits etc. Today I feel a little better(very marginal) but still sleepy, I reckon it’ll be the best part of a week before I am back to normal.
43 - Labour is to blame for nuclear clean-up and the existence of pension schemes? Harsh!.
Neil, care to comment on any of the other items on that list?
49-
1- agreed, but more complicated to do that
2- I’ll find a way once I’m in Downing Street
4- I’m tempted but I would want a much higher level than that
8- agreed the communications allowance has to go
I agree that there needs to be a balance of power, but all the power is with the executive at the moment. A shift in favour of members would restore this balance without going too far. I agree on the need to have more compeition in safe seats, I believe that if members have more control on campaigning and spending there will be less in the marginals and more in the “safe” seats.
Swedish GE 2010
Latest poll: Synovate/Dagens Nyheter
Red Greens 49.7% (+2.4)
Alliance for Sweden 45.0% (-0.3)
‘De rödgröna drar ifrån alliansen’ = The Red-Greens pull away from the Alliance
- Support for the Pirate Party sinks dramatically (less than 1.5%)
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/valet2010/de-rodgrona-drar-ifran-alliansen-1.940111
Note:
Alliance for Sweden is the current centre-right govt (PM Fredrik reinfeldt): Moderate Party (centrist, “One Nation” conservatives) + Christian Democrats (social conservatives) + Peoples’ Party (lib - leftist) + Centre Party (lib - rightist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Sweden
Red-Greens is the opposition coalition: Social Democrats + Greens + Left Party (ex-communists)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_r%C3%B6dgr%C3%B6na
47 Lemsip? LEMSIP?? What about emergency stocks of God’s cure for everything - chocolate?
Hope it is just a fleeting affliction…
Too much.
55 Ahem, I think you’ll find the cure for everything is Chicken Soup.
47 - Mr Opik has ruined the joy of Lemsip for me. I can’t have one now without being reminded of the wonky faced oddball.
MTF - fingers crossed you’re not too wiped out for the BH.
I have about 20 kittens in the house and the thought of cleaning litter trays is already making me wince
47. Stir up Lemsips. Simples!
60- racist
50.
I have a very complex method. I am going to ask Mike if he would like me to do a thread on “Political Emotional Intelligence” and “Polling Predictions” I am fascinated by this !
You would all be amazed how I get to my predictions.
During a Ted Kennedy love-in on National Public Radio, Ed Klein (a former Newsweek and New York Times editor as well as a Kennedy biographer) actually stated the following about Kennedy (while giggling):
“I don’t know if you know this or not, but one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself, and he would ask people ‘have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?’”
http://www.freedomslighthouse.com/2009/08/friend-of-ted-kennedy-says.html
What a disgusting individual Ted Kennedy was. A skillful politician, but a revolting human being.
56 If you donated as much to political parties as you have to bookmakers on the next Labour leader they wouldn’t need taxpayers cash.
60. Bob. LOL!
59 Given that you’re a self-cnfessed hermit who spends far to much time on here - it does leave open the possibility that you caught it…
from someone here…
over…
the internet!!! Eeek!!!
Perhaps the posts from yourself and MTF should be quarantined, and only released by OGH once they have been fumigated. Can’t be too careful!
‘Gaddafi: ‘Lockerbie is history. Now it’s time to talk business”
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s son today reveals the inside story of how - and why - the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was released.
Speaking exclusively to The Herald at his home near Tripoli, Saif al Islam al Gaddafi disclosed the original prisoner transfer deal with the UK government was directly linked to talks on trade and oil.
“Most of the families of the victims in Scotland have written to us to say they are pro the decision and more than 20% of the American families say they have no objection. Even some of the families are in favour but different parties - politicians - may be trying to use it to their own advantage.”
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2527906.0.Gaddafi_Lockerbie_is_history_Now_its_time_to_talk_business.php
‘I think the Scottish Justice Secretary is a great man. Why be so angry about an innocent man who is dying?’
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/i-think-the-scottish-justice-secretary-is-a-great-man-why-be-so-angry-about-an-innocent-man-who-is-dying-1.825026#
57 I thought I’d make the most of my downfall into feeling crap to have a medicinal glass or two of rose
Why is it when soup is the most suitable food, my built-in microwave packs up?
MM/SNP/D - many thanks and am now searching for mind bleach - Lemsip Okip - ARGH!!!
62 You work for ICM, YouGov and for light relief ComRes?
‘What’s striking is that the amount public funds going to councillors seems to have increased in inverse proportion to their actual powers’
Clearly out of control like the rest of the public sector and needs an axe taken to it.
67: Stuart….stick a sporran in it…your copy n pasting with no actual points is getting tedious.
67, Stuart, there is the makings of a great PB2 post there. Why not hold back, write it and get Mike to publish it? Don’t waste your material on here.
71 – see 72 for a master class in psychology.
69.
No they are just amateurs and penpushers.?
16
‘and how much money the Unions have paid to the Labour party in the same period?’
From memory over the past few years,the amount the government has given the unions is around the same amount the unions give to New Labour.
Anyone know why the trade unions need modernising every year?
73: I prefer the direct approach
Labourlist’s Alex Smith appears to have lost the use of his eyes and a spell checker.
Here’s the stand-first:
“UPADTE: The Guardian, The Independent, The Baltimore Sun and LabourList all got hooked, lined and sinkered by this, which was a hoax inexplicably deisgned to deceive, arranged by LabourHome’s Alex Hilton. Lesson learned: check twice. Question asked: why, Alex? Hopefully he’ll let us know in due course. In the meantime, apologies.”
It’s raining heavily in the North of Thailand, tonight. So I’m stuck in front of my computer, for a while at least, instead of being surrounded by slender high-heeled women on the dancing floor…
Oh well… it’s only 22h00. And the bars close at 6h00 am, here, in average… Yeah. No restrictive state regulation! Pure capitalism… and police bribes!
—-> Irish Ref.
Downturn has shown why we should support Lisbon — IFA
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/downturn-has-shown-why-we-should-support-lisbon–ifa-1871934.html
Got a lot worse after 1997.
78- some of the language used to justify the Constitution reminds me of an evil druid in the Asterix comics- if you do not obey me, the sky will fall on your heads!
OK, I’ll have to google “Chappaquiddick”…
‘New Coltrane show is only ITV drama to make it to STV’
It has now been confirmed STV will not be showing An Englishman in New York starring John Hurt as the gay cultural icon Quentin Crisp. Also dropped is the five-part serial Collision starring former Doctor Who Paul McGann.
It will be replaced by Greatest Scot, a new locally-produced series allowing viewers to vote for who they believe is the top Scot from a list of 35.
Other top dramas omitted include Agatha Christie’s Marple, Doc Martin and Blue Murder. Crime drama The Fixer, which launches on Tuesday, is being replaced by repeats of Fitz, the 12-year-old American remake of the 90s crime drama Cracker.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/new-coltrane-show-is-only-itv-drama-to-make-it-to-stv-1.824934
82- it seems that you are now posting Scottish tv listings on PB. This really isn’t the place, besides, given that Scotland has been around for a long time, 35 great people really isn’t much to boast about.
[77] - The Guardian have this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2009/aug/28/wire-television
They manage not to answer the part of the how question that relates to why their journos didn’t check the story out properly…
82: In other words Scottish tv=bust.
82 “It will be replaced by Greatest Scot, a new locally-produced series allowing viewers to vote for who they believe is the top Scot from a list of 35.”
Waits with delicious expectation at what SeanT will make of that…!
(Can we English vote-rig it in favour of Jeanette Krankie?)
73 SimonStClare, shhhhhhh, he may yet take the bait and leave us in peace.
Briefly glanced at the last thread - an stuck in the middle of plotting hell, my second act isn’t working, who betrays my heroes in the eerie Namibian desert now that the antiNazi German journalist Julius Denk has been written out of the sinister French monastery scenes? etc etc etbloodycetera - er, yeah, where was I -
uhm. Fertility.
It makes sense to me that child tax credits have possibly increased fertility, as - and I speak from personal experience - these tax credits can be astonishingly generous. Why not have kids if you basically get paid thousands to do it?
However, these same child tax credits - and again I speak from personal experience - are also an inducement to divorce and seperation, as you get much more money if you are a single parent.
I see tim didn’t mention that bit.
Hello hello hello, what have we here then,
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5293856/browns-hypocrisy-over-lockerbie.thtml
I wonder how many more such statements he has made in the past?
Stuart,
Why not do your own blog, eh? Every bloody thread, no matter what, you start off about Scotland and the SNP.
86: Mel Gibson!!
81 - Surely you must know about Chappaquiddick? 1969, Kennedy drives off bridge, young woman drowns, Kennedy escapes vehicle but only calls it in the next day, convicted of leaving the scene but broader suspicions (drink, perhaps drugs), Presidential ambitions essentially over.
82.
Thanks Stuart,
If I wanted a TV guide I can buy the “Radio Times”
Do you know the schedule for Chritmas Day yet ? No doub’t you will keep us up to date.
16
2006 £ 3m & 2007 £2.8m paid to the unions by the government under the guise of the modernisation fund;for the 12 month period 2006-07 the Labour party received £3.8m in donations from the Unions.
91 I LIKE it!
Here comes Sean “95%” T right on cue…
93: I hear theres a Doctor Who, and the Great Escape.
88 “who betrays my heroes in the eerie Namibian desert now that the antiNazi German journalist Julius Denk has been written out of the sinister French monastery scenes?”
The Mute Nun?
This is getting really silly now,
Fresh embarrassment for David Cameron over NHS
Chris Tannock, the Conservative spokesman on foreign affairs in the European Parliament, said all working people could pay a £10 fee to visit their General Practitioner, with extra fines for those who failed show up for an appointment.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6105185/Fresh-embarrassment-for-David-Cameron-over-NHS.html
Somebody floats an idea, quick panic, Tory split, all NHS haters. I believe this idea of a fee and / or “fine” for non-attendance has been floated by lots of different people in the past.
97 And some posh old bird witters on, mid-afternoon…
Coffee House
Peter Hoskin: ‘Brown’s hypocrisy over Lockerbie?’
… there’s been nothing on whether he actually agrees or disagrees with the Scottish government’s actions.
The official excuse has been that Brown has to respect the devolution settlement and can’t comment on devolved matters. But - what’s this? - it seems he hasn’t had a problem with commenting on another devolved matter before now: the level of health spending set by the Scottish Government.
I put in a call with No.10 earlier to see what kind of explanation they could give, but haven’t heard back yet. In the meantime, I’ll throw it open to CoffeeHousers: why can Gordon Brown attack the SNP government over health spending but then say he can’t comment about their al-Megrahi decision?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5293856/browns-hypocrisy-over-lockerbie.thtml
Stuart, give us a break. We Rilly, rilly, rilly don’t care about your spat with SeanT.
101 - Is there an echo in here?
99: The fine for non-attendence of appointments has been floated for years and years.
It seems to be the tactics of labour and poor journos….trawl tory interviews/comments for anything which might deviate from the party line. I doubt this will get any traction along with the numerous other times they’ve tried it.
63 - Chappaquidick was the single event that sank Kennedy’s presidential ambition, due to the questions it raised of his character and judgment, and the whiff of privilege which meant he avoided any major legal issues when there clearly should have been.
When he finally ran in 1980, once he lost it liberated him - he had done what the family, the mystique and everyone demanded, and now instead of having to carry the Kennedy legacy on shoulders which were not broad enough to do so, he was free to live his life and make his own mark, and it’s at this point that he really became the senator that we have known for almost 30 years.
Afternoon all and I assume we got no polls last night?
no I did not know! I thought it was the name of some devastated Indian chief!
106 Not that anyone has found.
How went the search for another wee dog?
“Chris Tannock, the Conservative spokesman on foreign affairs in the European Parliament, said all working people could pay a £10 fee to visit their General Practitioner, with extra fines for those who failed show up for an appointment.”
Is an idea worthy of consideration. Works well in he Scandi countries.
No idea why the DT is saying it’s an embarassment; it chimes in perfectly with their views on the NHS, and smacks of a paper that’s rather lost any semblance of editorial control and consistency.
I wonder, without the expenses scandal, whether 2009 would have been a year where the ST went off into the sunset.
105: It wasnt just his ambition which sank…
103 - It’s a very strange echo in that, somewhere along the way, it picks up a Scottish accent.
Then again, McEcho Canyon would probably make a great tourist attraction.
This is rather funny, Dale has linked to my post about the Baltimore magazine quiz question and the BBC have now changed it - without mentioning it’s changed…
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/08/hilton-makes-money-out-of-media.html
Oh and Fraser is now Ed of the Speccy I see…
109: I don’t really see how its different from paying for prescriptions.
104 - What is annoying me, is that regardless of party support, the likes of the NHS needs change. Mr Labourite Gerry Robinson in two separate series on the BBC was highly critical of the many practices within it and the need for some serious change.
There are serious issues to be addressed, but anybody, anybody in the Tory party, I mean his guy is a complete unknown, floats any sort of idea, and the whole emphasis is not on is the idea any good, but rather splits / embarrassment etc etc etc.
99. Oracle - all working people could pay a £10 fee to visit their General Practitioner, with extra fines for those who failed show up for an appointment.”
This ia exactly what happens in Sweden. In fact £10 is cheap. Most swedish doctors charge at least double that much, and a hospital doctor appointment would be nearly 3 times that much.
In Sweden, if you stay overnight in a hospital, you pay a nightly fee for food, cleaning, electricity, heating etc.
Now, who is Call Me Dave’s bestest bestest pal within European Conservatism? Oh yeah, that’s right, Fredrik Reinfeldt.
If English Tories want to see the Cameronian future, look East over the North Sea.
What Dr Tannock actually said:
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2009/08/dr-charles-tannock-mep-backs-10-charge-for-gp-visits.html
113
I wish someone in the media would point out that the govermnet that introduced charging to the NHS and the only one which reduced funding were both Labour.
It puts paid to their “only we can keep the NHS true to its roots” spiel.
52 - No, I was just pointing out that it was a bit silly to call all those things “Labour’s legacy”.
114: As I said, it’s easy, cheap journalism (or lazy cheap political attacks, depending on who’s doing it).
Theres a serious point. Politicans should be able to debate things without fear (as long as its not really out there stuff like legalising child porn for example). Is this really a split? Or just one guy saying…..’hmm maybe this is a good idea and we should think about it?’
In a healthy democracy, shouldn’t we be allowing this?
118, S’okay, I thought not.
“This ia exactly what happens in Sweden. In fact £10 is cheap. Most swedish doctors charge at least double that much, and a hospital doctor appointment would be nearly 3 times that much.
In Sweden, if you stay overnight in a hospital, you pay a nightly fee for food, cleaning, electricity, heating etc.”
Don’t tell Polly. Sweden is a socialist utopia, where the state runs everything and no one pays except through taxation.
110 - No indeed it wasn’t, but if you know the word “Chappaquidick” odds are that you associate “Mary Jo Kopechne” with it.
Ted Kennedy visited the grave last Thanksgiving, when he knew he was dying. It was his fist visit since the funeral.
A picture being worth a thousand words -
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=4569
115 - I am fully aware of the Swedish system, and particularly the “fine” for failure to attend, I have no problem with. Beyond being rude and wastes time / money for the NHS etc, there is no excuse (unless struck by a bus etc) as it takes 2 secs to phone up to say you don’t need that appointment anymore (in some surgeries you can do it online if you prefer).
112. You did get the screen shot. Nothing on why there was a change, and nothing about when there was a change. Sometimes the actions seem too Orwellian to be true.
123 Oracle - I suspect a reasonably sizeable proportion of ‘missed appointments’ are actually caused by incompetence in the NHS itself - confusion over changed appointments, sending letters out late, or to the wrong address, or sending a letter saying ‘you have been booked an appointment’ when the person is on holiday, etc etc.
121. David - “Sweden is a socialist utopia, where the state runs everything and no one pays except through taxation.”
I used to think that too. However, the truth is very different.
In some ways, Sweden is a socialist dream/nightmare (delete as appropriate). However, in other ways, it is a capitalist dream/nightmare (delete as appropriate).
Reality is always a bit more complicated than the stereotype.
125 - Maybe I should have been clearer, I thought I was, I was talking specifically about GP appointments.
125: In which case ways in which that can be improved should be invetigated..(oh wait..labour ‘loves’ the NHS, so can’t do anything to change it now, can it).
120 - Labour can justify its own legacy, I’m damned if I’m going to do it for them!
108 Mark we went to the refuge on Monday and acquired Rascal as we are calling him. He is a young adult Jack Russell who had been found wandering around Inverness a fortnight ago. He and Oscar are getting on really well so far!!
Regards to Mrs MM. It was a pleasure to welcome you both to North Cadboll last week and by the way the cakes were delicious.
130 Good news all round then. Hope Oscar has a good while yet of turning many a visitor’s jumper into finest tweed!
Stuart, I did say I shared your pain that independence looks more distant than ever. That doesn’t excuse you being a TOTAL CLOACA.
Has it occurred to you that you are boring the nipples off everyone? It’s just bad manners. Really. DESIST.
More interestingly, has anyone wondered what will happen to blogs like this when most online news becomes pay-per-view?
With Murdoch’s announcement that he is gonna charge to read The Times, etc, online, I reckon it is only a matter of time before all the other newspapers leap at the chance (hypocritically, in the case of yer Guardians and yer Independents, who love to loathe Murdoch) and do the same.
Newspaper simply can’t afford to give away news, for free, for much longer.
So what happens to places like this in that event? So much of our debate is related to online news articles. We cite them, we link them, we quote them. Without them, pb would be a shadow of its former self.
Something for Mister Smithson to chew over, with his Kendal mintcake.
Rascal, eh? That’s your sofa’s half-life shortened then :lol:,
88 - Sean.
Given the small extra payment for loan parents under the CTC scheme, why would anyone wish to lose an etire income going into the household by getting divorced and gaining thirty quid?
On the fertility subject, the fascinating thing to come out of the discussion was the fact that women of an Indian background have less kids than whit British.
Blows a lot of the idiots steretpes away and shows how quickly certain economically and educationally successful groups change practices.
13 Says a woman with a sofa which has a half-life of about 45 minutes!
134 - lone parents.
Not loan.
@132: Will the quoting stop? Won’t those ultra-dedicated folks pay, and then quote the odd half-interesting, semi-illiterate sentence from inside the walled garden on blogs like this? Won’t the pro-blogs still be free? Won’t the Beeb still be free?
I fear that the final nail in the coffin for the printed media will be charging for online subscriptions…
132 SeanT - Murdoch’s going to try to charge for on-line access. Whether that will be successful or not remains to be seen; I suspect not, or at least that it will work only for more specialised content, of interest to business.
OT I can’t remember who here corrected posters’ grammar - but this did make me laugh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8fbrUjjivw
Hi Easterross, have you got a copy of the latest Ross-shire Journal?
‘More support for MacAskill’
Mr Kennedy told his local newspaper - the Ross-shire Journal - that;
“Mr Al-Megrahi is dying, and the Justice Secretary was required to find a balance between justice and compassion in these circumstances. It was his judgement as Minister that compassion was appropriate. It is not surprising that some disagree very strongly given the scale of the atrocity committed, but I think the decision was probably the right one even if it was not necessarily taken in the right way.
“This is not a party political matter, and it should not really be an international political matter either. It is a question of justice, rightly taken by the Scottish Justice Secretary, and for which he has rightly been held to account by MSPs with a full range of opinions in the Scottish Parliament.”
Charlie Kennedy is the latest senior Liberal Democrat to support the decision after Lord Steel and Lord Owen backed the move, as have several Lib Dem MSPs and a majority of Lib Dem voters also indicated their support for the decision.
Sir Menzies Campbell has also criticised the politicisation of the issue stating that “Labour is clearly facing two ways on this issue: wanting to enhance relations with Libya but at the same time determined to criticise the SNP for an American audience.”
http://www.snp.org/node/15610
Gov Crist has appointed his former Chief of Staff George Lemieux to the vacant Florida Senate seat.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/08/28/gov-crist-taps-former-aide-to-fill-martinezs-senate-seat/
Don’t know anything about him, but if he’s anything like Crist himself then the Limbaughs and Becks won’t like him at all.
maybe paying suscribers will quote articles. S&s will cite the nyPost, u will quote Maxim, etc
137: With regards to this country, as long as the BBC remains free (which it has to) then paying for news simply won’t work.
140.
Charles Kennedy was probably s4itfaced as usual when he commented. Hardly a worthy commentator is he ?
140 Liberals sticking up for terrorists=non suprise.
ukpaul will feed us wt the Socialist Worker…
I’m sure that five years ago much of The Times content was only available on subscription. At some point they moved to free website access. How far the charge policy will help or save them is a moot point.
132, if they charge people to read newspapers online, most will look elsewhere, leading to a drop in advertising revenue. If just one decent newspaper stays free online, it gets most of its rivals’ customers, and a leap in ad revenue.
Charging people to read online isn’t going to work, unless you’ve got no competitors - and some of the best blogs have a higher standard of journalism than much of the UK press. They don’t just link to newspaper stories.
146 - Heres a Ramadan headline for you Philippe
Fasting could extend female fertility
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17701-fasting-could-extend-female-fertility.html
140. Probably bad news for the Scottish Tories in SNP/Con or Lib Dem/Con contests.
132 - I’d pay for a Mobile phone, personalised version of Newspapers downloaded to my phone.
Surely thats the way to go.
Ovo je ludnica!
In a way I’m glad Stuart has taken up this Sean “95%” Thomas thing, because it just so happens that’s exactly what I put on the envelope containing Sean’s winnings from our bet. I was slightly concerned with these memory lapses he’s been having that by the time he got back from the UK and saw it he’d have forgotten what I was referring to, and instead interpret it as his approval rating from Thai prostitutes or something.
Vidimo se.
OT
Michael Martin’s peerage was quietly announced today
Picture 10 I am not a regular reader of the London Gazette, so am grateful to the Twitter feed of Nigel Fletcher, who alerted me to the news in today’s edition that the man who was the first Speaker to be ousted from that job for three hundred hears has nonetheless been rewarded with a peerage.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2009/08/michael-martins-peerage-was-quietly-announced-today-.html
132.
Oh dear. SeanT accusing someone else of being bad-mannered?
Ooooh… the irony.
152 - I’d agree with that. I’d be willing to pay a reasonable fee for such a service.
Betting implications?
Gordon Brown, the Japanese and Johnson
I posted last week about the ominous warnings coming out of Japan for Gordon Brown.
Today, just ahead of Sunday’s Japanese election, we get the dire news that the country’s unemployment rate has soared to a post-war high of 5.7 per cent.
So despite its economy coming technically out of recession, the jobless lag factor looks like sealing the fate of sitting PM Taro Aso.
But just as ominous for Gordon are the gathering storm clouds over his leadership. This story will obviously gather pace as conference approaches, but it’s clear that we are already seeing the first hints of the attacks to come.
The Indy’s John Rentoul today renews his call for Brown to step aside in October. Rentoul delivers a withering verdict on Brown’s handling of the Lockerbie affair, claiming it proves once again why he is too leaden-footed to be an election-winning PM. He is completely open about his own preference for leader, Alan Johnson, and we will see whether the AJ bandwagon picks up in Brighton.
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2009/08/gordon-brown-the-japanese-and-johnson.html
tim, let’s take a hypothetical example.
Imagine a Welsh sex memoirist, who has just had a baby with his girlfriend. He’s doing OK with his books, such as Hundreds of Taffies are Dying to Thump You, she does alright in publishing. Together their income equals £70k or so.
They are not entitled to much child tax/working tax credit at all, they are over the threshold.
But then they separate, and she loses her job. At this point the Welsh memoirist - who is now earning £150k+, thanks to his unexpected success with a cyberpunk novel called the Pembrokeshire Codex, realises that his ex and his babymother can now claim full child tax credit, and working tax credit, with all the trimming for childcare, which works out at £15-18k a year. Cash. Tax free.
When his ex rings the tax credit people to say “er, by the way, my rich nice exboyfriend is also generously giving me xxxx amounts of money” WHICH HE IS, the tax credit people say “oh we don’t care about maintenance and alimony, just tell us how much YOU are making and we’ll base it on that”.
As she is making almost zero, cause she is freelancing now (having had a baby) she gets the full whack. Plus the cash her ex gives her.
So she is actually better off for having lost her fulltime job, and she is better off for being separated.
Admittedly this is an unusual example. Perhaps it could never happen. But I guarantee that tax credits are worked out on the income of the “primary carer”, and if you are a lone “primary carer” that can constitute lots of money - equivalent to £25k before tax.
All you have to do is have some kind of self employed low paid “job” - so you get full child and working tax credits - and this “job” could frankly be anything. The tax credit people NEVER CHECK. THEY TAKE IT ON TRUST.
The system is a gold-embossed invitation to fraud, delivered on a silver platter of bureaucratic stupidity.
It seems likely that the poll just completed by YouGov has been undertaken for The Sunday Telegraph for publication this Sunday. The timetable, including the fieldwork, is exactly four weeks after their previous poll for this client and a number of the supplementary questions follow the same style as that survey.
All the major parties will be anxious to learn of their current standing having effectively now reached the end of the holiday season (except that is in the case of Gordon Brown, whose 6 week break apparently has another week to run).
YouGov’s samples are large - 2,334 last time and carry considerable credibility.
Certainly the Tories will be hoping for an increase in their 14% lead of one month ago, when the figures were:
Con 41%
Lab 27%
LD 18%
Other 15%
I ask again what’s happened to Populus’ poll for The Times, which was due out over one week ago?
153. Red Meteor
Actually, the reason that I’d never have a wager with Sean is that, if he won, I strongly dislike the thought of him spending the winnings on prostitutes.
If he just had a beer on me, then fine. But his other habits just give me the heebie jeebies.
Another poll on Megrahi’s release from the BBC…
“Only a third of Scots believe the Lockerbie bomber should have been released from prison last week, a poll commissioned by BBC News has suggested.
The survey carried out by ICM Research showed 60% of those questioned thought the Scottish government was wrong to release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.
Some 32% of respondents believed it was the right decision.
The vast majority of Scots believe the country’s reputation has been damaged by the affair, according to the poll.
But only 36% of those questioned felt Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill should resign over his decision to return Megrahi to Libya on compassionate grounds, compared with the 56% who want him to continue in his job.
Opposition to the particular decision taken by Kenny MacAskill is nearly two to one. Even offered options, a majority say that the Libyan should never have been released from jail.
Intriguingly, glancing at the figures in more detail, opinion against release appears particularly strong among younger people, with the elderly more inclined towards compassionate release.
But, in all age groups, more oppose the decision than support it.
A random sample of 1,005 adults from across Scotland were questioned by telephone on Wednesday and Thursday.
Of those polled, 57% believed Megrahi, who has been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, should have remained in prison until he died, while 37% thought he should have been released at some point prior to his death.
Despite Mr MacAskill’s insistence to the contrary, more than two thirds of those questioned - 68% - thought the decision was influenced by factors other than Megrahi’s health, while only 20% believed it was made purely on compassionate grounds.
Mr MacAskill’s controversial meeting with Megrahi in Greenock Prison on 4 August was also unpopular, according to the poll, with 52% believing the visit should not have taken place, and 36% saying it should.
The justice secretary has claimed the visit was required under the terms of the Libyan government’s prisoner transfer request, but this has been disputed by opposition politicians.
Almost three quarters of those polled said the affair had damaged the standing of the Scottish government in the eyes of voters, with the same proportion believing the release of Megrahi had damaged Scotland’s reputation.
Only 11% said it had enhanced the reputation of the country, while 10% said it had made no difference one way or the other.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also apparently been damaged by the controversy over the release of Megrahi, despite his insistence that it was purely a matter for the Scottish government.
The poll suggested that 34% believed Mr Brown’s reputation had been damaged “a lot”, with a further 33% saying it had been damaged “a little”.
But only 29% of those surveyed said the prime minister had not been damaged.
A minority of people - 39% - said they thought the UK government should have tried to influence the decision by the Scottish government, while 52% said it was right not to get involved.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8226585.stm
New BBC poll?
Majority ‘oppose’ Megrahi release
Only a third of Scots believe the Lockerbie bomber should have been released from prison last week, a poll commissioned by BBC News has suggested.
The survey carried out by ICM Research showed 60% of those questioned thought the Scottish government was wrong to release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.
Some 32% of respondents believed it was the right decision.
The vast majority of Scots believe the country’s reputation has been damaged by the affair, according to the poll.
But only 36% of those questioned felt Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill should resign over his decision to return Megrahi to Libya on compassionate grounds, compared with the 56% who want him to continue in his job.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8226585.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8226585.stm
“Majority ‘oppose’ Megrahi release
Only a third of Scots believe the Lockerbie bomber should have been released from prison last week, a poll commissioned by BBC News has suggested.”
SNAP!
Hi - just arrived in Glasgow and checked in at the hotel. What a great city this is and my Vodafone mobile broadband works a treat at speeds of 1mb plus.
Just checking on today’s threads - is there anything I should know?
Tomorrow, along with Anthony Wells and some guy called Iain Dale I am speaking at a conference of politics dons. Sounds interesting.
Here’s the direct link to the Ross-shire Journal article about Charlie Kennedy:
‘Megrahi release backed by MP’
http://www.ross-shirejournal.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/6683/Megrahi_release_backed_by_MP.html
163. simon9999
Consume with care: BBC polls are not weighted by past vote!
I like the LibCon blog, visit most days and stick a comment on from time to time. But they’re getting a right arseon about being duped by alex hilton:
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/08/28/hypocritical-accusations-of-churnalism/
161. Remarkable how the sh*t is really sticking to Brown these days.
He appears to be the polar opposite of Teflon Tony, a veritable magnet for any and all political detritus…
165 - Glasgow - a great city indeed, and home to glorious examples of the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the greatest architect the British Isles have produced.
It was Goethe who called architecture ‘frozen music’… never truer than in the case of the work of Toshie.
158 - So by booting the Sex Memoirist her income falls from £150k to £15k.
She must have some pretty specific reasons for booting the memoirist.
In the case of two people on average wages who split up when they have a child I think the extra benefits accrued as the single parent element are about £40 per week compared to an income loss of £400 per week going into the house previously.
And from people I know in that situation, the £40 goes pretty quickly on extra help with childcare.
167 - and so it begins… I think SNP supporters here are the least able of any party to just accept poor polling results that may crop up from time to time.
167
78 - “lender high-heeled women” — make sure you have your glasses on.
114 - oracle; at first I thought you had got your Robinsons mixed up but he has indeed been a labour donor. His high profile business career fooled me.
But he has recanted, at least until Brown goes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7479840.stm
64 - That reminds me of a Bernard Manning quip to a Las Vegas audience during Watergate. “Never mind impeaching Nixon, just give him a lift with Ted Kennedy!”
161, 162, 163, Nooooooooooooooo, oh my god what have you done!!!!
158 - if you are a lone “primary carer” that can constitute lots of money - equivalent to £25k before tax
Really?
172. Agreed - though some of the wilder Lib Dems come close.
176 I think we may be in for an onslaught of Tim Ireland proportions
175 - until this week the choice would be a more difficult one: go driving with Ted or go hunting with Dick Cheney…
179 - Sweet Baby J*sus I’ve told you before… Do not mention his name, for he shall appear!!!
Quick, everyone into the shelter.
174 - Clearly he used his highly developed business senses to spot a loser from over a 100 yards away!
179. Who is Tim Ireland?
181
183 - Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Nobody mention it a third time!
We might still get away with it!
172. “I think SNP supporters here are the least able of any party to just accept poor polling results that may crop up from time to time.”
I’m struggling with that observation, Neil, because I can vividly remember the way I was pounced on when I dared to suggest in passing that a particular UK-wide poll represented anything other than unalloyed wonderfulness for David Cameron. It’s perfectly natural of course, a Tory-dominated forum will be ultra-sensitive to all political biases - except pro-Tory ones.
In most respects this is not a great poll for the SNP, but a) Stuart’s concern about past weighting is valid and presumably would be supported to some extent by Mike given his past thoughts, and b) the most important finding in the context of the immediate future is that there is clear majority support for Kenny MacAskill remaining Justice Secretary. That backs up the finding of the YouGov survey.
185. Am I missing something?
Stuart Dickson is absolutely correct on this one.
BBC polls aren’t weighted by past vote, which makes them a bit silly.
That said, the results aren’t useless by any means.
A sensible approach is to assign people to parties according to the latest other opinion polls, then weight by their past vote and turnout filters. This is of course a very crude approximation.
However, with this particular poll the numbers are so disparate that I wouldn’t bother doing any calculations to simply proclaim the true electoral picture: a majority, and a fairly hefty majority, of voting Scots disapprove.
100. Oracle
“Chris Tannock, the Conservative spokesman on foreign affairs in the European Parliament, said all working people could pay a £10 fee to visit their General Practitioner, with extra fines for those who failed show up for an appointment.”
An excellent idea but needs one proviso for it to be fairly applied:
‘For every minute an employed person is kept waiting beyond their appointment time they are paid £1 by the doctor.’
Why should anyone have to lose extra money from being away from work because the doctor isn’t efficient or wastes too much of his time on layabouts?
No, she booted the sex memoirist BEFORE his income went apesh1t. Or so I’m guessing.
Nonetheless he provides her with a big chunk of money, cause he is nice. Yet she still gets full working and child tax credit, maybe £18k IN CASH, and she also gets what her ex gives her (and the tax credit people don’t want to to know how much that is!!) nor do the tax credit people ever check if she really does have a freelance job, or how much she really earns, or how many hours she really works.
Hypothetically. And this is all perfectly legal.
But imagine if - and this really IS HYPOTHETICAL!!! - imagine if the couple weren’t reasonably honest. The tax credit people take all the evidence on trust and the cash is paid straight into the primary carer’s bank account. Weekly. There is no system AT ALL of checking real income, actual working hours or true employment status.
Now, if you think that’s a rigorous, sensible and fraud-proof way of handing money to people, then fair enough. We know you are a lefty so we know you are a little dim.
“Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the greatest architect the British Isles have produced. ” ??
I like Mackintosh - but the greatest British Architect. ???
Wren?
Edwin Lutyens ?
183 Erm… do a Google is the safest option me thinks…
Let’s just say that he is a passionate interweb fighter for his beliefs and isn’t very keen on Iain Dale or Guido…
189 - I wasn’t the person plugging this idea, I was highlighting the issue of media outcry / doom mongering if anybody dare suggest an idea.
The bit I did agree with was the “fine” part of it for non-attendance of appointments.
188. Even if the poll doesn’t ask a voting intention question?
Timbot’s favourite, Fraser Nelson, is the new editor of the Speccy apparently,
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2009/08/fraser-nelson-is-new-editor-of-the-spectator.html
191 - Wren / Lutyens. Both great, but I think Mackintosh shades it. That said, I am a little biased for reasons I won’t go into.
190 - “Weekly. There is no system AT ALL of checking real income”
Isnt there? They dont check this against the person’s actual tax records? Surely that’s the whole point of administering the system through the tax authorities rather than the benefit departments?
OT, where’s NPMP?
ID cards snubbed
Matthew Davis
August 27, 2009
ONLY 8,000 people have enquired about getting the government’s controversial ID cards, which will be launched in Manchester.
During a live webchat at the M.E.N offices, Lord Bill Brett, the minister responsible for the introduction of the ID card scheme, admitted only a small percentage of the population had asked about the voluntary scheme.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1134100_id_cards_snubbed__
195. Oh no, the Spectator will henceforth be a glorified astroturf operation for the “James Purnell 4 PM” campaign.
I can spot a groundswell when there isn’t one.
188 Why do you need to know someone’s past voting intention to ask the question about whether the decision MacAskill made had done the UK, Scotland or Gordon harm?
At some point, a personal opinion is just that - based on what I thought about specific event. Yes I may vote one way or another but to suggest that a poll is imperfect for not asking seems a bit overly picking for me.
198 - I’m surprised it is that many to be honest!
194 Scott P
That’s why what I suggested is a very crude approximation, but still useful (not sure if the experts here will agree though).
Say 1000 people were polled. You ASSUME they split according to the (unweighted) samples - averaged, if you like, of other recent opinion polls. You then weight by any “likelihood to vote” formulae you feel appropriate, also taking the likelihood numbers from other recent polls.
That should give a decent idea of the “true” picture assuming the sampling for all polls in question is random - though I’m not claiming this is rigorous in any way.
200. Plato - I think Mike has addressed those questions directly and came to a very different conclusion, but it would probably take me several millennia to track down the article in question.
202 - “You then weight by any “likelihood to vote” formulae you feel appropriate”
Why?
190 - The single parent element of the tax credit is £1800 per year.
188. wibbler - “That said, the results aren’t useless by any means.”
Agreed.
Please note Neil (and I presume others): I did not say that this ICM/BBC Scotland poll was wrong and/or useless. I merely advised caution.
tim - I do believe so. How much is £25k after tax? £16-17k? (I’m very roughly guessing here, I genunely don’t know)
If you get full working tax credit, full child tax credit, and the full childcare element of child tax credit (this stuff is complex) it adds up to - I think - about £16k, maybe a little less, but not much. I’m not an expert, but I do have some close experience.
The biggest element is full childcare element of tax credit, which is £175 a week, for one kid, I believe and £300 a week for two kids (= £15,000 a year). That’s practically £16k to start with. Add in all other benefits for lone parents and you’re making a very healthy dollop of cash.
But my bigger point is that NONE OF THIS IS CHECKED, AS IT IS WITH BENEFITS. It is just handed over, no questions asked. Tsk.
198 - that’s odd, because I distinctly remember Alan Johnson suggesting that we’d all have a couple of them, because we love them so much.
195 - Apparently Nelson plans to turn the Speccie into a campaigning magazine.
“Dodgy Graphs and Vaccine Scares R Us”
207 - http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/
200 Plato
Someone’s opinion is useless if they aren’t going to vote, so you definitely need to have an idea of likelihood to vote.
Also, there are factors like ’shy Tory syndrome’:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/faq-dont-knows
And an ‘enquiry’ could be anything. How many are actually prepared to go and get one, let alone pay for the privilige of becoming a number.
209 If only Labour had one - the NS is terminally dull these days.
207 - “NONE OF THIS IS CHECKED”
Isnt it checked against tax returns?
213 - What you don’t enjoy Muckguire and endless Druggie Dave references?
Stuart Dickson is right to note that this poll is not weighted by past vote. However, when only 29% of respondents say that they think that Megrahi should have been released to Libya, 74% say that this has damaged Scotland’s reputation and that 68% thought that other factors than just the legal ground influenced the decision, I think we can judge where the preponderance of Scottish opinion lies.
192. Charles Holden?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arnos_Grove_stn_building.JPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Southgate_station_building2.JPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gants_Hill_stn_interior_concourse.JPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sudbury_Town_stn_main_entrance.JPG
199. They should do James Purnell layouts! Like in magazines aimed towards teen girls, only with James Purnell. His giant, be-sideburned head could be Photoshopped into a little pink heart-shaped frame. Vote 4 James!
197. Most of the people who might be tempted to defraud the system would say they are freelancing and earning pitiful sums, but still employed 30 hours a week or whatever.
In that situation the tax authorities do not check their real income cause it is so low, maybe even below the threshold. They certainly don’t check how many hours you really work or whether you have a real job at all.
Their desire is to get you off the unemployment stats and registered as “self employed”. Good for the government, and it shows that tax credits “appear” to be working.
Of course all this works if you are a single parent, but not if you are a couple. You see?
OK DVD time.
204 Neil
Well, as I say above, rationally, politicians don’t really care about the opinions of people who don’t vote - morally, of course, they might.
That means if someone says they are 100% likely to vote then you should definitely include them. If someone says they are 0% likely to vote then you should definitely exclude them.
The different pollsters use different methods when it comes to those in the middle. IPSOS-Mori ignore everyone except those who are 100% likely to turn out. Others use weightings.
I don’t think there is a consensus on which way is best.
I’m not a polling expert though, and I know there are plenty of people here who are - so please direct expert questions elsewhere!!
216
antifrank
“I think we can judge where the preponderance of Scottish opinion lies.”
Yes: 95% of Scots think the sun shines out of MacAskill’s rear passage and 110% want independence.. and the SNP will wallop Labour…
202 & 211. wibbler
“Someone’s opinion is useless if they aren’t going to vote,”
Eh?
Their opinion of who they might vote for, perhaps, but their opinion on cat food, popular music, global warming and Scotland’s reputation is entirely valid surely?
Of course I am excluding the orthodoxy that you can only have a valid opinion if you vote SNP…
211 But I’m not talking about whether someone will vote - if I were asked about toothpaste preferences it would be immaterial as well.
A straight question of ‘do you think MacAskill’s decision was right/its impact on the reputation of X’ is a straight opinion based on recent news coverage.
Other questions may be more pertinent to past voting but surely one can ask for an opinion on a very specific and highly unusual subject as a stand-alone?
219 - What is the point of HMRC running the system (rather than DWP) if it is not checked against tax returns? I really cant believe that it is not.
“Someone’s opinion is useless if they aren’t going to vote, so you definitely need to have an idea of likelihood to vote.”
Only if the opinion you seek is who they would vote for.
If you ask what their favourite colour is, their liklihood to vote and past vote is neither here nor there…….
222 Scott P
Sorry. I should have been more careful with my words.
If someone is 0% likely to vote, then their opinion is useless when it comes to electoral consequences, which is what we on PB.com are of course concerned about.
That isn’t strictly true of course, they can still influence other people who are more likely to vote - but basically, the point is valid.
SeanT
Remember your daughter will be paying that money back for her entire adult life.
I hope you’ve told her mother to save some of it.
There are serious issues to be addressed, but anybody, anybody in the Tory party, I mean his guy is a complete unknown, floats any sort of idea, and the whole emphasis is not on is the idea any good, but rather splits / embarrassment etc etc etc.
by Oracle August 28th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Oracle, that is because the so-called journalists are so lazy they take a brief from a Labour spinner who tells them Tory split is a key story.
It tells you how out of date both parties to that transaction are, how flyblown and curled round the edges, on the shelf for too long, stale and mouldy.
On a day when Frank Field lambasts the prime minister for extravagance, when the government have decided to bash the poor again, they think this is a story.
They play into the hands of the Labour authoritarians, to whom any debate or discussion is illegitimate unless it follows the party line. But in the real world people talk about these things and float ideas and work things out that way.
If the Labour party had done more of that these last twelve years they would not be in the mess they are today.
220 - I think you are over-complicating the matter. Past vote weighting, likelihood to vote etc.. all important if you want to give a good voting intention figure. Not particularly required for polling on a topic such as this.
PS Neil - one of the most common ways of defrauding the absurdly easy-to-defraud tax credit system is for a single mother to register as an official child carer along with her singe mother friends who do the same.
They then take it in turns to look after each other’s kids. They get paid as child carers by each other, (i.e. by the government) and they also get full child care tax credit (and child tax credit and working tax credit) from the government directly - for their own children, who are looked after by their friends who are also getting child tax credit etc etc.
That way they can multiply their income quite dramatically, and make tens of thousands of pounds when they are basically just looking after each other’s kids while watching the telly.
Of course lots of them are very good child carers, but still. Makes you think.
222. I think that is one of the points Mike raised, Scott - of course from an idealistic point of view everyone’s views matter equally whether they’re likely voters or not, but if you’re predominantly trying to work out the political implications of something the picture looks somewhat different.
200. Plato - “Why do you need to know someone’s past voting intention to ask the question about whether the decision MacAskill made had done the UK, Scotland or Gordon harm?”
Because if you don’t weight by past vote you tend to pick up too many Labour voters.
Strange, but true. Ask Mike. It is one of his hobby-horses.
So Micheal Martin has been made a Baron…………
GORDON! YOU IDIOT! SPEAKERS ARE SUPPOSED TO BECOME VISCOUNTS NOT BARONS!
MORE MOCKERY OF OUR HONOURS SYSTEM!
I can’t wait until this pillock gets thrown out of a job. He can’t even award the correct peerage to someone!
Afternoon folks - my apologies for posting from the Scotsman LOL..but this article is interesting as it seems the German courts are not so endeared to articles within the Lisbon treaty. Ooops!
“A RECENT landmark legal ruling in Germany has sent the EU integration project into complete disarray. The German Constitutional Court examined the Lisbon Treaty – the successor to the infamous EU Constitution – and ruled the sovereignty of a member state (in this case Germany), must always take precedence over diktats from Brussels.
The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe effectively declared itself the highest supervisory body in conflicts between Germany and the EU, thus explicitly placing itself above the authority of the European Court of Justice. As Der Spiegel reported: “This borders on a declaration of war on the European Court, which sees itself as the only authority capable of ruling on the validity and applicability of EU law.”
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/German-court-ruling-calls-into.5592028.jp
I remain troubled by the YouGov Scottish poll results on the Megrahi release. The BBC poll reinforces my concern. This was posted in the wee hours on an earlier thread but remains relevant given Stuart Dickson’s continued posting on the subject.
42% right decision
51% wrong decision
6% don’t know
[YouGov Scotland]
contrasts with
61% disagreed
27% agreed
[Populus UK].
More suprising is the damage assessment made by the Scottish respondents. To the question:
“Thinking about the decision to release al-Megrahi do
you think Scotland’s reputation has…?”
The results were:
5% Improved a lot
5% Improved a little
17% Stayed about the same
29% Diminished a little
40% Diminished a lot
5% Don’t know
So we have 42% of Scots agreeing with a decision that 69% believe has damaged the reputation of their country!
I think this can only be explained as a defensive reaction to being criticised by the rest of the UK and America. It kind of says: “I know my son did wrong but I will defend him because he is a member of my family”.
This is dangerous for the SNP as shock denial reaction to an event tends not to persist. When the emotional temperature returns to normal, a more rational assessment will apply. “Well I knew all along he did wrong but I wasn’t going to tell THEM”.
It is when the Press, the rest of the UK and America are no longer looking, that it will be able to assess the real damage to the SNP.
229 Neil
Well, I am happy to defer to OGH on this. All I know he was repeatedly very unhappy about the way the BBC present their poll findings, precisely because they don’t weight appropriately.
As I said above, I’m not an expert, so am quite likely to be talking nonsense.
230 - You’re still sure that tax credit awards are not checked against the claimant’s income?
The Megrahi incident has been very interesting, like a crash test. We have found out that the SNP has poor crumple zones and that its handling on slippery terrain is shaky. In the longer term, this will matter when the going gets tougher for it.
224
They backcheck a % of claimants, then realise they’ve made a whoopsie and demand the money back. Just pray you’re not the one getting a spot check (about 1 in 6 I believe) and you’ll be quids in. Although I should say, that as a good citizen, if you notice HMRC have made a mistake (likely), you should notify them. Unless it is in your favour, in which case stick it in a savings account. If they spot it (possible), plead ignorance, blame them and refuse to pay any fees or interest (they’ll accept, the staff know how rubbish the system is).
31/34.
Bob, UR Silvio Berlusconi/Andrew Neil and I claim my UKP5 (15 billion pre-war lire)
224. The system is in total chaos. I know someone who was being prosecuted for non repayment of overpaid tax credit even as he was being offered MORE tax credit by a different branch of the same government agency.
It just doesn’t work. It’s a nice idea. But it doesn’t work.
I suspect most people in the tax credit agency have just given up, and hand over the money, and think f*ck it.
Do they really want to prosecute poor people to get overpaid tax credits repaid?
227. I am now paying very large amounts of tax to a corrupt and disgusting government, full of liars and thieves, so I feel it’s pretty much fair do’s. And, I emphasise, my situation is entirely legal.
It’s the widespread fraud which is so astonishing and alarming.
Analysis of the poll
Rumblings of discontent
Brian Taylor | 17:05 UK time, Friday, 28 August 2009
It may not last. It may fade. But, right now, people in Scotland seem decidedly hostile to the decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Opposition to the particular decision taken by Kenny MacAskill is nearly two to one. Even offered options, a majority say that the Libyan should never have been released from jail.
Intriguingly, glancing at the figures in more detail, opinion against release appears particularly strong among younger people with the elderly more inclined towards compassionate release.
But, in all age groups, more oppose the decision than support it. Plus folk feel Scotland’s reputation and that of the Scottish Government has been damaged.
They also feel that the Prime Minister has taken a hit while believing that he should not have intervened. He is adamant that he did not.
Overall, a range of factors could be combining here. In street interviews, some mentioned their disgust at the sight of Saltires in the crowd greeting al-Megrahi in Libya.
Like Gordon Brown, it seems they were repulsed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/briantaylor/2009/08/rumblings_of_discontent.html
233.
“SPEAKERS ARE SUPPOSED TO BECOME VISCOUNTS”
Surely that’s only half-decent ex-speakers?
239 - They backcheck a %? Really? What %age? The others just get away with it if they, say, had gotten a much higher paying job shortly after the initial assessment and award? Are you sure?
That 68% think that other factors than the legal grounds influenced Kenny MacAskill’s decision is bad news for Labour. It appears that the conspiracy theorists are in the majority and are untroubled by the separation of powers.
215.
“endless Druggie Dave references?”
Who is this endless druggie called Dave to whom you draw our collective attention?
241 - “I suspect most people in the tax credit agency have just given up, and hand over the money, and think f*ck it.”
But a little while earlier you were saying there is no check against income at all. Which is correct? Are you sure you havent got this wrong?
235. I think we’ve slipped into a timewarp from last night, Seth! There’s actually no automatic contradiction in that YouGov poll - the ‘reputation’ question is all about how people perceive the government is seen in the eyes of others. It’s perfectly possible to honestly (not as a knee-jerk reaction, that’s an unwarranted assumption) believe that the government took the right decision in releasing Megrahi, but at the same time recognise the obvious reality that most in the US have taken a different view, which almost by definition means that the government’s ‘reputation’ in the US has taken a hit.
238 What something like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSsM134jSCI
Harry Reid has finally grown a tiny bit of spine and come out in favour of a public health insurance option
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/08/harry_reid_supports_the_public.html
238. Much is often made on here about the Lib Dems being seen as part of the establishment and not a protest vote etc. I’d suggest that the same is true (probably even more so) of the SNP. Especially with the Megrahi case.
110.
““Chris Tannock, the Conservative spokesman on foreign affairs in the European Parliament, said all working people could pay a £10 fee to visit their General Practitioner,”
Why can this man not constrain his public utterances to the Luxemburg legovers which are his brief?
“Timbot’s favourite, Fraser Nelson, is the new editor of the Speccy apparently,”
A favourite of Tim and popular with ConHome, who’d have thought such a thing was possible.
247. Well I can say from close personal experience of a very close friend that if a single mother says “but my ex is giving me such and such an amount” the tax credit people say “we don’t care about that, just tell us how much you are earning”.
!!
So in that case, no, there is no checking.
All these tax credits only apply to people on generally lower incomes anyway, and in the situation I’m talking about - a lone parent with kids - the income is likely to be really quite low. Probably the mother is freelancing or whatever.
If she has two kids she gets £15,000 a year childcare tax credit - cash. Add in another £5k for other credits. Plus other benefits for lone parents.
She has a freelance job which she says brings in £5k-£10k a year, she says she works 25 hours a week.
In that situation no, I do not believe anyone at the IR or anywhere would check her income, hours worked, true employment status, whatever.
Of course she might suddenly get a job earning £200k then yes I am sure they would check., But could they be arsed to go back and collect the overpaid tax credit?
“The amount outstanding in tax credit overpayments at April 2008, according to the latest available statistics, was estimated to be around £1 billion. At the same date, more than one million tax credit awards were overpaid. Some overpayments arise because of the normal operation of the system but a large proportion happen because of errors. Some of those errors are made by the claimant, but many can be made by HMRC who administer the tax credits system.
It is sometimes not obvious to a claimant that an overpayment has arisen; it is even more common for HMRC not to be able to explain accurately and clearly why the overpayment arose.”
http://www.taxationweb.co.uk/tax-articles/income-tax/tax-credits-overpayments-guide.html
“
141 Stuart, I have just looked at today’s Ross-shire Journal. On page 7 there is a big article by Charles Kennedy stating he fully supported the release of Megrahi on compassionate grounds and further he hopes that the true story will come out.
Update from TaxPayersAlliance
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/campaign/2009/08/god-is-on-our-side.html
241. SeanT
“It’s the widespread fraud which is so astonishing and alarming.”
By allowing people to be better off through state incompetance and inefficiency you create a client class who will oppose change.
247
“The amount outstanding in tax credit overpayments at April 2008, according to the latest available statistics, was estimated to be around £1 billion. At the same date, more than one million tax credit awards were overpaid. Some overpayments arise because of the normal operation of the system but a large proportion happen because of errors. Some of those errors are made by the claimant, but many can be made by HMRC who administer the tax credits system.
It is sometimes not obvious to a claimant that an overpayment has arisen; it is even more common for HMRC not to be able to explain accurately and clearly why the overpayment arose”
http://www.taxationweb.co.uk/tax-articles/income-tax/tax-credits-overpayments-guide.html
247 - Bear in mind, Neil, that HMRC have failed their audits for the past couple of years, now, mainly because the tax credit system is too complex for them to administer.
Are there supposed to be checks? Sure. Are there actually checks? More questionable. I’d guess that the scenario SeanT paints is pretty credible.
“The amount outstanding in tax credit overpayments at April 2008, according to the latest available statistics, was estimated to be around £1 billion. At the same date, more than one million tax credit awards were overpaid. Some overpayments arise because of the normal operation of the system but a large proportion happen because of errors. Some of those errors are made by the claimant, but many can be made by HMRC who administer the tax credits system.
It is sometimes not obvious to a claimant that an overpayment has arisen; it is even more common for HMRC not to be able to explain accurately and clearly why the overpayment arose.”
http://tinyurl.com/mrqgpn
252 - Errh, well maybe because he is a trained medical professional who worked in the NHS before he became an MEP might be starter, and was asked by Channel 4 for his views.
170 I have to agree there since I was born in Glasgow and Charles Rennie Mackintosh was an Old Boy of my alma mater
230 & Other posts.
Sean, are you writing fiction?
You’ve clearly looked up the childcare element on a website and read it as £175 and claim that is what your ex is getting.A figure you’ve quoted numerous times.
It is nonsense of course, as that is the total childcare element (outgoing childcare costs) that can be taken into account on a claim.
The maximum payable is 80% of that figure ie £140.
Secondly it has to be paid to a school, a nursery or a registered OFSTED Childminder.
Of course its a nice fantasy that you have come up with regarding everyone looking after each others children and getting paid to do it.
But it is a fantasy.
I think you are either confused,drunk, or making things up.
Nowt wrong with that in your profession.
258 - How can we ever know there is an overpayment unless the award is then checked against actual income though? It seems to me that there must be a check against income along the way (indeed why else have HMRC administer it in the place). Are you still sure your claim is correct?
259.
He couldn’t by any conceivable chance be is one of the five per cent of people who pass medical degrees who would make the country far better off if they never saw a patient again and found employment more in keeping with their inclinations - such as climbing on the Euro-gravy train?? Has that Tory ex-MEP Densmore Dover chappie paid back the 1/4 million yet??
229. Neil - “I think you are over-complicating the matter. Past vote weighting, likelihood to vote etc.. all important if you want to give a good voting intention figure. Not particularly required for polling on a topic such as this.”
Please ask Mike Smithson about this. Mike has a long track record of dissing the “additional questions” in polls, as unlike the v.i. question, they are not properly weighted.
Eg. Mike usually looks down his nose at all BBC polls for this reason.
260 What does Glasgow have to compete with Princes Street in Edinburgh?
257. Yes, I reckon that’s basically it. They are MEANT to check every claim, but with a million tax credits OVERPAID (see the citation at 258) they just don’t have the manpower.
As long as your claim isn’t too outrageous you will get it no questions asked. e.g. I have two kids, I’m a single mum. I work 25 hours a week as a freelance shirt ironer, earning £8k a year. Please also give me my £15,000 childcare tax credit, plus the £5k (or whatever) working tax credit and child tax credits (~18-20k CASH).
Thanks.
254 So of past leaders of the Lib Dems/Liberals we have heard outright support to MacAskill from David Steel & Charles Kennedy, mixed but overall supportive words from Menzies Campbell. Paddy Ashdown declined to give a view “as he was out of the country at the time the decision was made”.
Shirley Williams “applauded” the decision.
Nick Clegg thought the decision to release Mr al-Megrahi was wrong given the gravity of the offence.
and the press tries to stir Tory split stories…..
263 - I have no idea, but you asked if he was entitled to comment. I think he is perfectly entitled to his opinions, which are likely to be far more informed than you or I, given he worked as a consultant in the NHS.
266 - Made up figures.
Again.
266 - “but with a million tax credits OVERPAID”
How do they know that a million were overpaid unless they checked against actual income?
265 Buchanan St for a start which has every kind of designer shop and no dug up pavements for trams. There is also Buchanan Galleries streets ahead of the St James Centre, Princes Sq and the Italian Centre.
Glasgow also has more acres of parks than any other city in the UK.
261.
Tim, I think Sean’s expression may be muddled but the truth is there behind it. People who find out how the system works and pretend to work the designated number of hours for a ridiculously low level of declared income get massive payments of Working Tax Credit to which they then add their Child Tax Credits. It beats the Income Support system by a long measure. You are right that the largest amount of Child Tax Credit payments should be only reserved for payments to registered childminders. Pity the auditing of it is presently so atrocious.
271 Hm so Edinburgh planners are doing their best to level down but really for History, Art, Architecture etc are you putting Glasgow above Edinburgh?
On tax and sprog credits and the like. What is Tory policy on it?
Surely better to increase thresholds with a further tax allowance per sprog.
It’s probably too “progressive” taxation for my liking, and less so for others but it would certainly make it easier for everyone to understand.
265 - Sauchiehall St?
272 - I dont think anyone is claiming that there arent problems with the administration of tax credits. It’s SeanT’s claim that there isnt even a basic check against income or that other frauds he mentions are so easy to commit that is difficult to believe.
I was in Glasgow 2 weeks ago and I can certainly recommend it! Our hotel was in Bath Street and there’s great shopping in Sauchiehall Street and in the Buchanan Galleries! Very pleasant city and I hope to go back and spend some more time there!
248 Red Meteor
I agree with your point that the reputation question deals with third party perceptions.
However it is not just America. US critics have made the most public noise, but there is still a differential with the rest of the UK (YouGov & BBC polls) that needs explaining. You and I have volunteered explanations which differ but are both plausible.
I understand from an earlier post today that YouGov are polling on attitudes to the specific options available to MacAskill, in particular the compassionate release to a secure facility in Scotland vs compassionate release to Libya. So attitudes to this issue will become clearer in the next few days.
I still that the best outcome for the SNP would have been for MacAskill to resign once the “international” criticism was voiced. He and his part would have received considerable public sympathy and the press guns would have turned on Westminster.
264 Where attitudes show a political bias, so Labour/Tory/LD voters differ significantly from the mean then weighting to correct a sample bias is needed. With the figures shown it’s unlikely there would be a very different result but where results are closer it does matter.
The Ipsos Mori finding that public sector workers over-representation was affecting their polls significantly pointed towards a bias in apparently random sampling.
272 - I don’t disagree with having a look at the tax credits system.
Unfortunately Sean just randomly generates numbers.
And hi initial point was related to how much better off someone would be after a divorce, which was a nonsense too.
274 - Tory policy will be to reduce support for middle class families with children, the long term effect being to reduce indigenous fertility and encourage immigration in the long term.
They will however introduce a tax break for marriage which will also apply to civil partnerships and thus encourage people to turn gay.
Hope that helps you.
Could somebody explain why the need for tax credits and / or need for them earning way above minimum wage and widespread nature, rather than being able to achieve similar simply through the tax system.
Last night on C4, they ran a documentary on benefit claimants being helped back into work, overall a poor documentary, however what stuck me was a guy got a job, and went to the jobcentre to see if it was worth taking or to stay on benefits (a different argument in itself). However, the print out read earned £280, take home £250, with tax credit £275. What a load of paper shuffling for nothing!
On Tax Credit Checks
Obv HMRC don’t tell you how many they check (I’ve been told less than a fifth), but let me clarify.
When I say checked, I mean someone actually getting all the docs and going through them. Just think about the millions of tax credit claims and how many people you would need to go through them. So how do we know overpayments occur?
Well first, we don’t know if there are millions of overpayments, as loads of people appeal (wouldn’t you). These ‘overpayments’ are ‘discovered’ by computer programmes that run virtual audits, then send out the letters. Most complaints are about the nature of the info held on the databases (bloody government and it’s databases).
It is the most atrocious system ever designed.
261.
Twat:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7921123.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/may/22/politics.money
How are these people making billions in fraud from the tax credit system? Do tell.
And here is the breakdown in child tax credits. Tell me where I’m wrong:
£ per year (unless stated)
Working Tax Credit
Basic element £1,890
Couple and lone parent element £1,860
Childcare Element (Maximum eligible for two children) £300 per week (payable at 80%)
http://www.dsdni.gov.uk/index/ssa/benefit_information/a-z_of_benefits/working_tax_credit.htm
I believe the 20% shortfall of childcare is then made up for in working and child tax credit, in a complex arrangement also taking into account your income.
But let’s say it’s just 80%.
£1890
+
£1860
+
52 x £240 = £12480
= £16,230 cash
Add in all the other bits and bobs of benefit you get as a single parent, and I wonder how close that is to an equivalent of £25k a year before tax.
I confess my ex is not getting this much. Taxpayers will be happy to know, she has just one daughter, mine. That bit I got wrong. But she still gets five figures. Plus what I give her, which is hefty.
And now, the blessed lunacy of Battlestar Galactica.
281-Dear oh dear!
What’s the point in voting Tory then if they want to have compulsory homоsеxuality in school and make us all an ethnic minority.
But, surely it’s too late? Didn’t Labour do that, or am I looking through the looking glass?
Ouch.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8226525.stm
“In 1993, Canada’s ruling party went from government to having just two MPs, after scoring just 16% in the general election. After Labour’s electoral drubbing in June, could it face a similar fate?
Kim Campbell, the first - and so far only - woman to become prime minister of Canada served for just four months in 1993, before leading the Progressive Conservative Party into a rout from which it never recovered.
Miss Campbell was chosen after Brian Mulroney, who had been prime minister since 1984, decided not to fight a general election which had to be held by the end of 1993.
She has some words of advice for those who tout David Miliband and Alan Johnson as potential Labour leadership challengers.
“I think the young whippersnappers who have the potential to lead the party successfully should bide their time,” she told me.
“Don’t take on a party when you don’t have time to show who you are and why you’re different. Because you’re then just Gordon Brown, thinner and younger.”
If we had a more redistributive tax system with the rich paying more/the poor less, surely not so many benefits would need to be paid out in the 1st place. Why not just raise the minimum tax threshold and ask the wealthy to pay a bit more. You cut out all the bureaucracy and trouble with fraud.
The tax credit system is indeed an atrocious, inefficient and wasteful mess. It is of course also the centrepiece of Labour’s welfare ‘reform’ efforts of the last decade. ‘Nuff said.
I work in a parallel Glasgow completely different from the one described above.
250 - in his own inimitable way and with his usual level of judgment, he decides to support the most contentious issue of health reform when the rest of the country is moving away from it. If it doesn’t pass, none of the liberal democrats who support it will lose their seats. If it does pass some number of the blue dogs will.
On another health related topic, I found out today that the GP I used when in I was back in England was struck off for having kiddie porn on his computer.
Just been over to the direct gov website to try and get some understanding of the tax credit, working tax credit, child benefit, etc argument raging above. I gave up. Good luck if you want a go yourself.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/TaxCreditsandChildBenefit/index.htm
284 - Another child has appeared.
The £12,480 is payable to a school, a nursery or and OFSTED registered childcarer.
So you are talking about £3740 per year.
281 & 285
In the schools I attended homosexuality was compulsory but extra-curricular. Fiscal intervention was rejected as a solution in favour of the disproportionate representation of girls. A partial success was achieved.
287-Sod that! Being fortunate enough to make somewhat over the average salary, why should I pay for more to be p!shed up against the wall? Luckily you will “ask” me, so I guess I can politely decline.
286-Hahaha. At least Kim was a saucepot. One is an anthropid (thought a mollusc),and the other has the personality of one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millipede
292. But the child care elements is paid straight to the primary carer, not to the registered child carer.
They don’t check who the primary carer is, they don’t check that you and your chums haven’t simply registered as OFSTED child carers so you look after each other’s kids.
They don’t check if you are getting money from your ex. They don’t check how many hours you are working. They don’t check if you really do have a job. They don’t check how many hours you work. They don’t check if you actually make £50k a year cash as a cabbie. They don’t check where your child really lives. They don’t check…
Oh what’s the use. I said a lone parent can get from the government the equivalent of £25k a a year before tax (that was off the top of my head). I also said the system was hideously open to fraud.
Turns out I was pretty accurate on both fronts.
Enough. You are back in timbot mode 7. Dull.
286 Plato - Also from that article:
“One former cabinet minister told me this week that if they [Labour's poll ratings] fall to 23%, then MPs will move against him [Brown]. “
LoL! We really ought to start a collection of ‘If XXX happens, MPs will move against Brown’ statements, going back to early 2008.
How do they know that a million were overpaid unless they checked against actual income?
by Neil August 28th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Neil, my wife volunteers with CAB. A large proportion of their work revolves around people being overpaid from the many and varied benefits that are available. The majority end up being overpaid due to not informing the authorities about changes in circumstances. These then come to light when they attempt to claim an other benefit which is mutually exclusive of the other benefits, student loan or some such. This triggers the change in circumstances and also triggers the investigation into overpayments. Most of the cases do not arise from checking incomes.
I don’t think Sean’s claim is that outrageous. I’ve known friends who have been on the dole in the past. They were supposed to be applying to jobs every two weeks to receive it, but if they applied for more some fortnights than others, they just made some up for the fortnights where they didn’t have anything. It was never checked.
296 - Since Labour’s opinion poll ratings have been below 23% in the recent past, I don’t believe a word of it.
286 If Gordon Brown had won two landslide election victories like Mulroney the comparison would be fair but how could anyone not manage to do better than Brown?
286. Bit of lazy journalism in that article;
“The differences, however, are important.
The Progressive Conservatives were facing three major rivals, each of whom ate into their support. ”
And so are Labour, arguably they’re facing 4, the Tories, LD’s and the SNP and Plaid, all of whom stand to take seats off Labour next year. The SNP is a very serious long term threat to Labour because they can break their hold over Central Scotland then Labour may find it difficult to win a workable majority again.
297 - You also dont think that tax cretid claims are ever checked against tax records? Interesting. Why do you think HMRC were chosen to administer the system then?
neil, just re-read my comment and it does not say what you say it does. Try not to put words into other peoples mouths to support your argument. I am providing you with facts from someone who physically deals with the fallout from overpayment of benefits. If you have knowledge of how HMRC check every claim against tax records feel free to share it.
301 Will Tim Collins stand for the UUP in your view?
299 antifrank - Quite. In any case there have been many such ‘Ifs’ reported over the past year, every one of which has been breached.
Too late now, anyway. But I’m sure we’ll see a steady stream of stories about the Labour leadership right till the end. I think the lesson is: Sell Labour.
300 Punter
Anyone and anything which makes Labour think Gordon Brown should stay on is great news.
Bad in the short term, but time is so short that the Lords can block anything they want to.
And an election fronted by Gordon Brown will mean nothing but gain, gain, gain for the Conservatives - and hopefully, if Clegg can sort himself out, for the Lib Dems too.
I can’t believe Labour haven’t gotten rid of him yet despite all the opportunities they’ve had.
This bloke works in a Benefits Office.
His blog is… enlightening.
try this:
http://theyrejokingarentthey.blogspot.com/search/label/tax%20credits
303 - I’m not claiming anything, I’m questioning the claim that tax credit awards are not checked against tax records is all. It doesnt make sense. That’s why I’m questioning it.
295 - Sean.
A registered childcarer cannot claim childcare tax credits for their own child if they are doing the caring.
So even if a circle of friends all become OFSTED registered there’s a hitch to your fantasy.
302 - Politics / presentation. GB was keen to present this as a tax credit rather than a part of the welfare system (and wanted to avoid the payments scoring as govt spending). Inland Revenue who were initially tasked (pre HMRC) were particularly unsuited to administering the system, as they virtually never prosecute and had very limited investigative capacity too, whereas DWP had plenty.
306 - There will never be a better opportunity than the one that James Purnell created. He was badly let down by Alan Johnson and David Miliband. He deserved better for his bravery and they deserve their party’s derision for failing to take the tide at the flood.
308 neil, “….. It doesnt make sense. That’s why I’m questioning it…”
Now you are starting to get it.
310. The investigative capacity the revenue do have is usually tied up persecuting small businessmen.
304. No idea! It’s certainly a possibility and he is very popular in the Unionist community for his Iraq War speech. He’s often been spoken of as a candidate for North Down to go up against Lady Hermon, whether he would want to be an MP is another issue and I genuinely don’t know if he would.
309. The whole point is that they were claiming it for looking after each other’s children, tim.
The public option looks, from polling, to be one of the most popular elements of the proposed changes, Democrats are only now coming to realise this (which is a bit late, but better late than never). Frankly, without it, then there’s no point, it makes insurance companies stronger and consumers weaker.
538 are very certain on its support being at around 60%, as and when the questions put are accurately worded. It is also being seen in polls which provide crosstabs that one of the main reasons that Obama has lost strong support is from those who want him to be more radical not less. The anti-reform noise created has obscured this (and that was their intention). It’s been great tactics from them but, sooner or later, pollsters were going to pick this up.
The anti-refomers only hpoe now is that the blue dogs believe that their fate lies in stopping a public option, I presume there is going to be polling in their areas at some time and it will be interesting to see what their voters think.
I think the AARP poll went too far in suggesting 70%+ support nationaly but I can see no situation where a bill passes that does not have the public option. It will either pass with it or it will disappear.
313. I have known of several small businessmen who have not been adequatly investigated for not paying taxes too..
295 - But the child care elements is paid straight to the primary carer, not to the registered child carer.
They don’t check who the primary carer is, they don’t check that you and your chums haven’t simply registered as OFSTED child carers so you look after each other’s kids.
They do indeed check.
Which is why there has been a widely reported reduction in Childminders who do not wish to register with OFSTED.
318 - The first two paragraphs were Seans.
317 Can you let me know the inspectors names
?
314 Are there any signs the tie up with the Tories has improved the UUP machine eg more resources expertise etc.
Neil, further to this comment,
“….303 - I’m not claiming anything, I’m questioning the claim that tax credit awards are not checked against tax records is all. It doesnt make sense. That’s why I’m questioning it.
by Neil August 28th, 2009 at 6:59 pm…..”
a couple of sentences.
1. Joined up Government
2. Government IT.
that’s probably all you need to hear to work out what’s going on with benefit checking.
283 - The idea of tax credits is ridiculous, it’s the most bone headed piece of bureaucracy imaginable. Running things efficiently should be the watchword of any government and Brown looks to have been more interested in his legacy.
309, 315. Quite. tim still doesn’t quite understand.
This particular child-care fraud is well known within the system. I believe Frank Field has spoken against it. But I’m buggered if I can be arsed to get a link for the tim-o-matic mark III.
Talking of sinister, human-like machines, I MUST go now and watch the Cylons in Battlestar. Good night from the Mango.
City of Baltimore threatening to sue Alex Hilton over the “wire” hoax according to Sky
He’s The Man With The Andrex Touch
325, is this a serious threat?
What a naughty boy.
315 / 324
Well, the system is illogical, isn’t it - the government is willing to subsidise the care of children, but not by the people [usually] best placed to do so.
327. Good job nobody here fell for it.
Oops…
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/27/can-brown-take-hope-from-major-in-1992/#comment-1193288
PB’s own Irfan gets a mention on Mr Dale - not sure it was the kinda traffic he was after though…
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/08/obama-must-meet-nick-clegg-demands.html
329
:lol: 
:lol: 
:lol: 
:lol: 
:lol: 
I feel much better now
273 Punter, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is the most visited attraction in Scotland after Edinburgh Castle. Over 3 million since it reopened.
Edinburgh has the castle, Holyrood (Palace not the monstrosity called the Parliament though the debating chamber is excellent), the Royal Mile, Princes St and the New Town. It also has several museum and art galleries like the National Galleries of Scotland and the Portrait Gallery plus the zoo
Glasgow has George Sq and the City Chambers with one of the most impressive marble staircases in Western Europe, The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Hunterian Museum, the Charles Rennie Mackintosh house and museum, the Transport Museum of Scotland, Scottish Ballet, Scottish Opera, the Theatre Royal, the Citizens Theatre, the Botanic Gardens, Kebble Palace (glass house), the 12th century Cathedral, Provands Lordship, Glasgow University, Park Circus, plus 6 centuries of architecture, more parks than any other city in the UK, numerous castles and stately homes all within the city. It also has in Byres Rd the most cosmopolitan restaurant and bar area in any town or city in Scotland.
315 - I realise that, but taken in conjunction with the other rules applying to tax credit, let alone the rules on becoming an OFSTED childcarer, if it becomes a successful arrangement then the people setting up as childcarers earnings rise (payments for looking after their friends children) and all the mothers tax credits go down.
316 - The main reason the public option has not been voted on is quite simple: because the democrats don’t have the votes to carry it in the house or the senate.
Another reason is that nobody knows what it is, because there is no bill.
Another reason is that it is being sold by the dems as a money saving measure, and will reduce the costs of health care. Absolutely nobody - from the Congressional Budget Office downwards - agrees with this, and it carries a trillion dollar price tag, according to the non-partisan CBO.
Also Obama’s plan is to CUT $500 million a year from Medicare to help pay for it. So now all the elderly are up in arms, and they vote in large numbers.
As to your main point, yes without the public option the current health care package would be somewhat hollow.
Very few here are against health care reform. We all know what the problems are.
To reform health care it is not difficult:
1. have a single national market instead of 50 smaller ones (price health insurance in New York state against most of the country)
2. Abolish the ‘pre-existing condition’ nonsense
3. Make health care like car insurance - compulsory. (That alone will bring about 20 million young people into the frame, who at present choose not to pay for it.)
4. stop companies cancelling policies when folks get ill
5. Tort reform. Obamacare does not even mention this
323 Spot on, its administatively ridiculous, wide open to fraud, and as to checking LOL… They even moved the goalposts to avoid overpaid tax credits being forcibly recovered. Its typical stuff the civil service love….. thousands of jobs where people push lots of bits of paper around their desks that “produce” nothing .
Anthony Wells opines on past vote weighting in the BBC poll
(A side note about methodology - I’ve already seen some criticism of this poll on the basis that it probably wasn’t past vote weighted. I’m a supporter of past vote weighting, but it really doesn’t make a huge difference in questions like this. In a poll about voting intention it really matters if Conservatives are on 38% or 40% and how a pollster weights it politically is critical. If a question is strongly correlated to voting intention, like which party is best on the economy then it makes a difference and it matters, since the Conservatives being 2 points ahead gives a different story to Labour being 2 points head.
In the context of this poll however, answers aren’t that strongly correlated to voting intention, so past vote weighting would probably only have shifted answers by a couple of points at most…and whether 31% or 35% of people supported the decision doesn’t really matter a huge amount in terms of what it tells us about public reaction. Either way around about a third of Scots supported the decision. In a perfect world I’d still say it’s always better to have a politically weighted sample for any political questions, but it would be wrong to obsess about it on questions where it wouldn’t really change the conclusions we draw from it.)
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2231
He and Mike can engage in fisticuffs on the platform tomorrow…
318.
“They do indeed check.”
I can assure you that these checks have yet to reach certain parts of Britain. Perhaps the pack donkeys with the imperial decree from Podgy Peedee have yet to be despatched?
335 And my brand of toothpaste is Colgate
“ukpaul will feed us wt the Socialist Worker…”
Bonsoir M. Magnan. I’m just glancing so through but why would I want to be so cruel to do this? Shoving the labour manifesto in would be bad enough but that is Cheney-esque like torture!
332. “It also has in Byres Rd the most cosmopolitan restaurant and bar area in any town or city in Scotland.”
Ah, the delights of the Ubiquitous Chip…
336 - Childcare Tax Credit forms have to be signed by the OFSTED registered childminder,school or nursery before they are processed.
I see another oddball previously of this parish has come up with the most ludicrous blogpost of this year
http://www.irfanahmed.org/2009/08/is-it-time-obama-met-nick-clegg.html
At least Iain Dale will send him some traffic.
Mr Murdoch Jnr has another serious pop at the BBC
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/28/james-murdoch-bbc-mactaggart-edinburgh-tv-festival
341, that’s surely defamation. LabourList can beat that with its eyes closed.
340. Yeah, and claimants for Disability payments have a medical assessment.
Works every time.
Join the real world, why don’t you?
344, timbo lives in la-la land, you know
F1: Hamilton topped second practice, first one was a bit soggy.
Brawns looking distinctly rubbish so far. But later circuits should suit them more. The big question is whether Vettel can go a race without losing an engine. He’s dangerously near the limit and a 10 grid penalty would be an enormous barrier to his already shaky title hopes.
316 - forgot one of the reform points:
6. make health insurance premiums tax deductible, and have Uncle Sam pay premiums for the poor, much like they do in some of the Medicare plans today.
340.
Tim, your naivety is sometimes refreshing. Deals are done. (Hint: the tax credit people do not check that a single childminder may claim to be receiving cash for substantially more children than they ever could care for). In fact HMRC Tax Credits largely work out of black plastic sacks of out-of-date mail and their computer system is not of a quality where you could trust it to play basic 1980s space invaders.
344 - Its the same with Nursery Vouchers, which save Income Tax, but are not paid without the Nursery or OFSTED childminders reference number.
308 Neil.
With Paye and NI the amounts are aggregated and must be calculated and paid monthly by the employer. Details of PAYE and NI paid on behalf of each employee are only submitted annually at the close of the tax year - therefore HMRC simply does not know how much any one person is earning except historically from the previous tax year. HMRC has no way of knowing or matching declared income with actual income because of this time delay.
345.
” claimants for Disability payments have a medical assessment.”
like this, you mean?
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2612360/No-cash-as-leg-may-grow-back.html
OT: just read a rather unorthodox view of the next GE prospects. Some interesting insights into potential successors for Brown in too: http://tinyurl.com/dknbsk
So let me get this right Timbot is arguing fraud can’t happen because because you need a signature and a reference number. Isn’t that how most old school fraud happens, people forging signatures and using other people reference numbers etc.
A comment from Mr Dale’s blog about Irfan
*wince*
“The Lib Dem blogger in question is barking - he was soliciting for clients for his consultancy a few months ago, saying that he was best placed to advise propective Lib Dem candidates. Honestly, in all seriousness, he was. Oh, by the way,he’s 17 years old, according to his website. :o)”
349 URL of the Year
Evening all. Nice to see Labour getting advice from Kim Campbell, seems appropriate somehow.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8226525.stm
347 - There have been prosecutions for that very fraud.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/lifestyle/personal_finance/s/74/74541_judges_anger_over_childcare_tax_scam_.html
Look, compared to Income Tax fraud I’m sure child tax credit fraud is tiny, but does not mean it doesn’t exist.
Perhaps there is an example of Seans cluster of mothers all becoming OFSTED registered somewhere.
I’d like to see it because last I heard Childminders were packing in rather than go through the OFSTED process.
348. You really are a numpty, aren’t you?
What you’re doing is repeating what government policy intends as process and outcome.
That is very different from the crap processes and real outcomes, as many on here have observed.
332 Should Edinburgh still be the capital of Scotland Easteross?
I sometimes get the feeling tim is a genuinely naive, sincerely idealistic, quite well-educated 22 year old halfwit, working for the health departmnent, who is honestly shocked that people might commit fraud against a generous benefits system. Or he’s a nutter.
354 She does have a point - people post on here that Straw, Harman or Johnson would take the job because being PM for 4-6 months is still being PM, but Kim Campbell’s example is that history would remember one of them as the disaster that led Labour to disaster, not Brown.
Perhaps Christina is right and Brown will do a Brian Mulroney, leave the stage unbeaten.
356 To be fair, tim is still running on Excalibur 2.0.
358 - Of course people will commit benefit and tax fraud.
I just find your idea of clusters of mothers all going through the OFSTED process so they can look after each others children rather funny.
352. Poor lad, he’ll learn.
358. I’d vote he’s the latter.
346 - Were there five other points disappearing into the ether somewhere?
359 - Quite, but I’m sure some of the more reasoned posters on here would have said the same on past threads.
361 Erm, it’s called ‘working the system’…
359 Brian Mulroney had however already fought and won two General Elections. Slight difference?
Finally a terror group that makes the Cornwall National Liberation Army look scary.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1209750/Police-hunt-Christmas-resistance-gang-threaten-shop-owners-selling-festive-stock.html
“Foreign criminals are trafficking children as young as three months old into Britain and using them to defraud the benefits system of millions of pounds” saye Sunday Times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6806493.ece
361. IIRC OFSTED registration is only required if the child is under 8.
Notice the loophole?
365 - I’d love to see some evidence, as chioldminders generally cite OFSTED standards as the reason for getting out of the business.
358 - By the way, your made up figures fall down on another level too.
Claiming childcare tax credits means losing the Local Government assisted nursery palces payment and Nursery vouchers.
With your example that reduces the incentive to do the OFSTED fraud or kick out the fiction author by £2500 per child per year in the two years before thay go to school.
367 - Some people really need to get a life don’t they.
370. “I’d love to see some evidence, as chioldminders generally cite OFSTED standards as the reason for getting out of the business.”
Wrong again, Tim. They’re getting out because of a seven-fold rise in registration fees.
It’s all about a caring government helping the disadvantaged. Or so they say.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article3399677.ece
Smearbot keeps repeating that childminders cite OFSTED for getting out of the BUSINESS. Could they maybe just the accounts of honest above board ones, trying to run a legit business that are sick of fully complying with overbearing legisation, rather than those looking to fly under the radar on the make hoping not to get caught up to no good? Just a thought.
371 I can think of several
And on that note *offski to bed with a hot toddy*
373 (cont) Should have made clear there is a big difference between running your business so that complies and being checked / audited to see if it actually does. The last thing ones running a legit business want to do is fail.
366 But Gordon won 2005 didn’t he - that’s what Macbride’s friends in the press wrote, Milburn and Blair were steering towards defeat until Gordon magnanimously “took over” the campaign and led the party to it’s glorious victory. A repeat of his glorious victory in 2001, nearly thrown away again by that Blair guy who didn’t get election campaigning. So there are the two wins (half share claimed for 1997 as well)
It was that election (vote Blair get Brown, as his mates let the message run) that sealed the Great Man’s right to the premiership (well in his & Ed Balls’ view) and boy did he demand it afterwards.
369 - IIRC OFSTED registration is only required if the child is under 8.
Wrong again.
The Childcare Act 2006 introduced a new Ofsted Childcare Register with two parts, a compulsory and a voluntary part.
Childcarers who look after children under 8 years, for more than two hours at a time and for more than six times a year have to register with Ofsted by law.
Other childcarers who do not have to register by law can choose to register under the voluntary part of the register. This allows eligible parents to claim tax credits to help with childcare costs.
Any polls tonight?
Hmm, wonder why people are leaving child care register,
“Childcarers who look after children under 8 years, for more than two hours at a time and for more than six times a year have to register with Ofsted by law.”
2hrs more than 6 times in a year and you have to register, that is f##k all!
374 Plato, I hope it’s this hot Toddy
http://cm1.theinsider.com/media/0/441/46/todd-lasance-2.0.0.0×0.415×600.jpeg
not the other
http://www.nowmagazine.co.uk/imageBank/cache/t/todd.jpg_e_f3a7c2adba52315d6ab61b83a2cd478e.jpg
“Dumping free, state-sponsored news on the market makes it incredibly difficult for journalism to flourish on the internet. Yet it is essential for the future of independent journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it,” he said.
Why would anyone feel it is worth paying for the tripe that the Murdoch press turns out? BBC or no BBC, other than businesses, people aren’t going to pay to receive news.
Tim! FFS. I work in IT, mainly in local and national and government projects. My universal experience has been that every national government system has been, not merely deficicent, but cr^ppier than you could possibly imagine, plus a bit. What you’re describing is how stuff WOULD work, if it DID work. You should make this clear. Instead of saying “This is how the system works” say “This is how the system would work in a proper country with a proper government”.
Don’t tell us this. It’s nonsense.
378 - Extremely rare on a Friday night, tomorrow night is your best bet for polls. Although not sure as it is a bank holiday weekend.
“….“Childcarers who look after children under 8 years, for more than two hours at a time and for more than six times a year have to register with Ofsted by law.”
Does this include Grandparents, next door neighbours doing if for free, Mothers groups taking it in turns to help each other out for no money?
379 - Yep.
You’re getting there.
For obvious reasons childcare is highly regulated.Or as those posters who are claiming hordes of mothers registering with OFSTED to claim tax credits, overregulated and driving people awy.
384 - Simple, straggler don.
Read 377 again
Other childcarers who do not have to register by law can choose to register under the voluntary part of the register. This allows eligible parents to claim tax credits to help with childcare costs.
376 On that basis Mandelson has more claim to the credit for 1997 than Blair. Brown as strategist is one thing but could he have been lead singer of the band as well as Blair doubt it.
357…isn’t Tripoli the new capital?
377. No, you’re the one that’s got it wrong - again.
If they choose not to register they are still legal child-minders and OFSTED can do nothing about it.
385 - No you are missing the point, Majority Man. It may be high regulated if you are going to conform fully etc, but if you are on a flyer you have to be caught. If you are looking to commit fraud, you probably chance it that you won’t be inspected etc.
My partner has vast experience dealing with vulnerable adults, again supposedly “highly regulated”. Now businesses / individuals that are above board / going a good job fill in masses and masses and masses of paperwork etc just in case they are inspected and can’t afford to fail. However, she has witnessed / experienced plenty of other companies and individuals who don’t follow this, but many know chances of inspection are very low, she tells me about a particular case where they have never been inspected the whole time the present system has been running.
tim, you really are a mindless, paranoid prick aren’t you. It was a simple question that required a simple, courteous answer. But tim, being tim was unable to do that. You really are a sad, sad small minded little t4wt.
If you want any indication of the quality of OFSTED inspections, just look at their results of teaching standards in schools in the UK. In the past x years, they have basically found bugger all sub-standard teachers and even less have lost their jobs. Does anybody believe that there aren’t a reasonable amount of teachers not up to the job amongst the many very good ones that aren’t up to scratch?
389 - But people sending kids to them cannot claim Childcare tax credits for their fees.
I was addressing your point re the “loophole” in payments.
301. Oncoming Storm
“And so are Labour, arguably they’re facing 4, the Tories, LD’s and the SNP and Plaid, all of whom stand to take seats off Labour next year.”
Plus BNP, Greens and Respect.
This is Labour’s strategic problem, their electoral coalition of Guardianistas, ethnics and white working class is inherantly unstable. These groups not only have different interests they openly despise the others.
If Labour tries to shore up support in one area it loses support in another.
391 - You’d read post 377.
Its not my fault you are a simpleton at the back of the herd.
tim, I literally don’t know what the f*ck you are talking about now, and nor, I suspect, do you.
My babymother gets full childcare tax credits and all the rest of it, she is also getting all the vouchers for nursery etc etc. What are you on about? Maybe there is some arcane voucher scheme she could have had but isn’t? Or what? Does anyone really know?
Isn’t this the whole problem with the present system under New Labour? It’s so complex and messy and daft no one really understands it. Making it easier to game.
BTW here is the simplified version of the childcare scam as I understand it used to work. The law may have tightened since Frank Field highlighted it, but this was the case.
Single Mother X has two kids. She registers as a child minder with OFSTED. She also claims the full child, working, childcare tax credits as outlined above, equivalent to maybe £25k a year before tax.
Single mother Y, her friend, is in exactly the same position. She also registers as a child minder with OFSTED.
Now, it is important to remember they may be perfectly good childminders. In my experience OFSTED are quite careful in their monitoring.
X and Y agree to swap kids. So X gets £240 a week, from the government, to give to Y. Y does the same in reverse. They both sign off on each other’s kids.
Of course, in effect, this is basically just two single mothers agreeing to share the hassles of childcare, the difference being the state is paying them each £25,000 a year before tax to do it (childcare tax credit plus the rest).
I’m not even sure this is illegal. Is it even a scam? But you can imagine how it works. THEY SHARE THE CHILDCARE. X does two days a week looking after the four kids, Y does three days a week. Maybe X goes on the piss on her three days off. Maybe Y is a cash only decorator to the stars in her state-subsidised spare time.
Either way they are doing really rather nicely for being single mums. Maybe that’s no bad thing. But it probably doesn’t encourage them to get married.
And remember this is just the simplified version, as was. The law may have tightened. Moreover, in most of these scams that have been uncovered I believe there were SEVERAL mothers involved…
And that’s just one type of easily committed, hard to prevent tax credit fraud.
Here’s another. A friend of mine (this is a genuine story so I’ll change the facts) lives in Glasgow. He and his wife split, they had a baby son. He was earning half her salary.
The baby lived with the high earning mum. But they realised that if he claimed he was the “primary carer” he got tax credits.
This was not true. He wasn’t the primary carer. She was. But in three years the tax credits people never checked once. He got all the money. A nice ~£4k a year cash, plus £9k to pay for their baby’s childcare.
I used to argue with him about it (having become a taxpayer myself!). He said the government were all bastards etc, its what they deserved.
!!
And that’s it in a nutshell. Tax credit fraud is just absurdly easy, cause no one really checks.
It was a nice idea. It failed, badly. And that is the epitaph for your government.
394. Nick Palmer seems to think Labour can win just on the Guardianista vote.
“The Ofsted inspector will telephone the childminder a few days before the inspection to check whether there are any days on which the childminder is unavailable.”
“We inspect those childminders on the Early Years Register within seven months of starting to care for children and then at least once in every three or four years.”
So, I’m looking to commit fraud. I get several days notice of any inspection, and if I can blag the first one they won’t be back for 3-4 years.
391 Is that Tim bot ( dawn shift) Timbot (dayshift) or Timbot night shift? The unpleasantness does vary but nighttimbot is most unpleasant.
399 - The night shift one is also normally the most stupid of the bunch.
393. If the parents tell the truth. They often don’t. And the chances of being found out are close to zero.
Who has got the time to compare Benefit Office claims with the OFSTED register and then check that the named Child-carer is actually looking after the child of the Benefit claimant? Nobody.
All you do is park Shazza on Tacey next door, claim she’s at that proper place down the road and pocket the money.
Get real.
This is evolution in action - cunning claimants vs the dinosaur of government.
Guess who wins 99 times out of 100.
And if you do get caught, what happens?
Bugger all.
387 Punter, I’ve no doubt that it was Blair that won it, and Mandelson & Gould that delivered the strategy for 1997. There were a number of talented Labour MPs who could have been Shadow Chancellor and the outcome in 1997 would have been little different.
I really do think though that Brown believes he did the work that won it, while Pretty Boy Tony fronted the band, lead singer with little talent but his voice and looks, while the seriously talented and gifted one toiled away unrecognised.
BTW, New Thread.
new thread
New thread
402 Indeed but that’s the point. Brown however clever he maybe on strategy is just not cut out to be fronting the band. Keith Wood was good backing Jagger but would you have promoted him to lead the band? Probably not.
Humour me, how does this
“..The Childcare Act 2006 introduced a new Ofsted Childcare Register with two parts, a compulsory and a voluntary part.
Childcarers who look after children under 8 years, for more than two hours at a time and for more than six times a year have to register with Ofsted by law.
Other childcarers who do not have to register by law can choose to register under the voluntary part of the register. This allows eligible parents to claim tax credits to help with childcare costs…..” Answer this question.
“..Does this include Grandparents, next door neighbours doing if for free, Mothers groups taking it in turns to help each other out for no money?…” Your quote does not appear to address the issue of family ties, or friends carrying out the childcare for free. It specifically states childcarers of children under 8 are required to register. So I repeat, are Granparents etc required to register?