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ReV VAdAUL posted:The BBC has a brief article about how to avoid inheritance tax: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29756520 But how can we make sure that people succeed or fail based on their own merits alone if we can't give them tax-free inheritance?  e: 1966: UK boycotts Rhodesia, England wins a football, and Australia comes up with a far more sensible way to decimalize currency than the later British effort. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oTDRjyti1s Guavanaut fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Oct 25, 2014 |
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Oct 25, 2014 15:37
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:True. Every country has its own views, and I am obviously biased by my own. Perhaps I overestimate how widespread it is. But it's still true that the general attitude of the EU has shifted radically from appeasement towards "deal with it". The feeling that the UK is 'anti-EU' is IMO vastly overplayed. The way I see it (from continental Europe) is that a lot of the positions that the UK has taken with regards to the EU have ultimately been vindicated. The UK feared that after reunification, Germany would have the political, economic and demographic conditions to "submit" the EU to its will. Twenty years later Merkel is in such a dominant position with regards to the EU that it's pretty much given that without her support no policy can move forwards. The UK negociated an opt-out from the Euro on a mix of both fearing losing independence and entering a deep economic partnership with untested conditions and partners that had little homogeneity. Twenty years later the Euro has caused massive headaches for millions of people, and the EU itself has just agreed that over the 1995-2013 timeframe the UK has had much more sustained economic growth than the Eurozone average. Now France of all countries is starting to freak out because the EU commission has sent a formal warning that the French Budget isn't acceptable and will need to be changed... Despite the PM claiming this isn't in any way a loss of independence, the mere fact that the EU commission has the right to intervene is a loss of independence. The UK pointed out that a unified customs border meant that the periphery members would have to ramp up massively their ability to control migration flows, and that immigration criteria would have to be harmonized in order to enable such a system to work correctly. Combined with the financial crisis, unrest at the periphery of the Mediterranean and the EU expansions, Spain, Greece and Italy are struggling to manage massive immigration flows to such an extent that Denmark and France have fallen afoul of the Schengen rules by setting up their own border controls in some areas/situations. There are also areas where the UK is a driver of European integration, in particular ones where Germany or France (for various reasons) aren't. In defence and military matters, the UK joined the Typhoon and Tornado projects, whilst France preferred to support projects where only French companies were involved (Mirage & Dassault). The UK also launched cooperation projects with the French and Italian navies to build various ships including Destroyers and Airplane carriers, even though in the end for various reasons the countries went alone on these projects. The UK and France have repeatedly undergone projects to improve interoperability in their systems and militaries, even though there's still a long way to go. Also, the UK is pretty much always on the front lines to provide support in response to military crises at the periphery of the EU. The UK is the largest contributor to the rapid response force based in Poland, was a key player in the Libyan conflict response, and although the UK prefers to work through the NATO Framework there are serious steps towards more integration with other EU countries, which most other member states aren't making. The UK has staunchly defended opening markets and establishing business standards that are unified within the EU. This vision contrasts with the more "social" view that France (for instance) wishes the EU to have, but is supported by many eastern european member states. The Bolkenstein directive was a prime example of this schism. France and Germany haven't taken the lead on economic matters for a while now, despite being in the eye of the storm with the Eurozone crisis. France in particular is guilty of hypocrisy given how often the "national exception" is invoked. The UK has an overall political consensus around non-intervention in economic affairs, which France and Germany don't have. Interventionism in economic matters is pretty much always something that the EU disagrees with, and it is a serious distortion to the EU rule of law and equity between member states when larger states use political means to achieve results at the disadvantage of smaller member states. The view of the UK thoughout the EU is a strange mix of attempting to pin every problem on a convenient scapegoat (the slow implementation of the Financial Transaction Tax? UK!! No Eurobonds? UK!!), envy (?) at a country that didn't make the same decision and avoided some problem (in particular concerning the Euro) and general "us vs them" ("real" europeans are all in favor of a EU that provides a strong social support framework and will enact redistributive policies, but the UK is stopping us by being a neoliberal capitalist heaven and doing all they can to make the richest richer and create misery!). Of course, it's not actually the situation. The UK is just the most visible member state amongst those that believe the foundation of the EU should be strong economic ties. In my view this is an example of the different political cultures in Europe, where the UK prefers a much more incremental integration approach, whilst believing that structures can't be imposed upon reality, but should strive to express reality. Other countries in the EU believe that creating institutions and structures ensures that reality will be shaped by these institutions and in turn "make it work". The UK doesn't want to set up institutions too fast whilst some partners believe that when deficits in an institution are exposed it's necessary to build a new structure to prop up the deficient earlier structure, or to replace it wholly.
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Oct 25, 2014 15:58
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The fact that the UK doesn't want anything impacting its financial sector or impeding capital flow but does want the EU as a military force (of course we can't have anything but a totally independant nuclear weapons platform) while threatening to leave the EU over immigration and paying costs makes the imperialist capitalist nature of our politics pretty obvious.
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Oct 25, 2014 16:14
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Johann Lamont was prevented from speaking out against the bedroom tax for a year while Miliband and Labour @ Westminster decided whether they supported it or not. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/25/johann-lamont-quits-scottish-labour Labour Party 2014: not even loving surprised any more.
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Oct 25, 2014 16:34
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LemonDrizzle posted:So in your world, it's better to contribute £100 to the communal pot and then withdraw £10,000 than it is to contribute £90 and then withdraw £10?
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Oct 25, 2014 16:40
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Shazback posted:The feeling that the UK is 'anti-EU' is IMO vastly overplayed. The way I see it (from continental Europe) is that a lot of the positions that the UK has taken with regards to the EU have ultimately been vindicated. You make some good points. I admit to another issue with what I said: it's very easy, and somewhat natural, to conflate the feelings of the public, how the media presents the feelings of the public, the media narrative in general, as well as the views of different departments of government. Those views are not all necessarily the same. However, you cannot deny that the UK has steadily built an anti-EU narrative throughout the years. The Tories love to use it for easy political points, and in doing so continue to strengthen it. This, and the more visible actions of the UK - and the most visible of those are Cameron making a fool of himself - breed a lot of resentment internationally. That said, the view does depend on the particular group of people. It's quite likely the majority of people are more resentful of Germany than the UK. My remarks are based on what I observe of people in my environment, which means studying a political subject at uni. I'm sure that skews the view a lot. Germany is viewed with grudging respect - the "it's not fair, but they achieved it by shrewd politics and you have to respect that" kind of approach - while the UK is seen as more of a child throwing tantrums because it doesn't like the flavour of the candy it got. A little while ago there was a big scandal in Poland where recordings of confidential government meetings got leaked. Even though Poland is still an ally of the UK on the European scene, the words in private were not pleasant to say the least.
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Oct 25, 2014 18:27
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twoot posted:Johann Lamont was prevented from speaking out against the bedroom tax for a year while Miliband and Labour @ Westminster decided whether they supported it or not. Labour are just utterly useless. Zero principle dorks who'll win the election based on the Tories being openly evil.
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Oct 25, 2014 18:32
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The system works.
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Oct 25, 2014 19:17
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CSM posted:No, I'm just considering contributions and returns as two different concepts that shouldn't be dependent on each other. The only relevant measure in this context is the net contribution. LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Oct 26, 2014 |
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Oct 25, 2014 23:49
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The Sunday Herald is really throwing around the cash these days although yesterday's Sun wins a different prize  
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Oct 26, 2014 00:23
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I'm no medical professional, nor any sort of therapist, so this treatment plan might sound extreme - Would it help this woman if we used a catapult to launch Simon Cowell into the Atlantic ocean? Full disclosure, I have suggested this plan in the past as a solution to many non-psychiatric problems as well.
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Oct 26, 2014 00:39
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twoot posted:The Sunday Herald is really throwing around the cash these days I wonder if Yes supporters opting out of the political levy might kick the larger unions into more resistance to Labour neoliber-ahahahahahaha nope  .Although, seriously, I wouldn't mind the Co-operative Party looking into backing candidates that weren't Labour, at the least.
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Oct 26, 2014 01:33
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Not Operator posted:I'm no medical professional, nor any sort of therapist, so this treatment plan might sound extreme - Would it help this woman if we used a catapult to launch Simon Cowell into the Atlantic ocean? I don't know if it'd work or not, all I'll say is we'll never know until we try.
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Oct 26, 2014 03:06
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WMain00 posted:Depends on whether or not Labour are stupid enough to try appoint Jim Murphy as Lamonts replacement. Actually, they did. The "Refounding Labour" events where they went out to the regions and asked "what can we do to sort out why we lost to the SNP at Holyrood so badly?" came back with huge numbers of party members saying "We need to be a clearly distinct entity from British Labour, not just having to toe the Westminster line when we know fine well it won't be popular in Scotland, and not having Westminster do idiotic things that shoot us in the foot". So all they did was started calling it "Scottish Labour" and supposedly making the Scottish leader more important than just being in charge of the Holyrood MSPs. Considered to be laughable even within the party. I wonder actually if that's the reason that Labour never had a vote on whether or not to support independence. So many Labourites I knew were Yessers because they thought they could get a real, effective, independent Labour party back  .
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Oct 26, 2014 11:20
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Acaila posted:Actually, they did. The "Refounding Labour" events where they went out to the regions and asked "what can we do to sort out why we lost to the SNP at Holyrood so badly?" came back with huge numbers of party members saying "We need to be a clearly distinct entity from British Labour, not just having to toe the Westminster line when we know fine well it won't be popular in Scotland, and not having Westminster do idiotic things that shoot us in the foot". When was the last time Labour had a floor vote at their conference? Since Iraq they've definitely scaled them back. Labour leadership doesn't like the idea of the membership embarrassing them by letting them actually decide policy; I can't see independence support getting through a policy forum, for instance. In turn it breeds distrust in the rank and file towards the leadership. And not of the good kind.
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Oct 26, 2014 11:30
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Honestly don't know, I've never been to conference and haven't followed them very closely the last couple of years. From the bottom, it seems a terribly hierarchical structure, and the people at the bottom can vote on people who're the next level up who can vote on what happens at the next level and so forth, but very little outside of leadership contests (and even then!) come down to ordinary members getting to vote on it. Branches send someone to conference to represent them and report back, but even that seems terribly passive and there's never any talk of votes, just sitting through speeches and workshops. Had a nice time attending the SSP conference as a guest yesterday, they are very democratic and have tons of votes - seemed like speaking about motions and amendments, and then voting on them took up most of the day!
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Oct 26, 2014 12:22
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Acaila posted:Actually, they did. The "Refounding Labour" events where they went out to the regions and asked "what can we do to sort out why we lost to the SNP at Holyrood so badly?" came back with huge numbers of party members saying "We need to be a clearly distinct entity from British Labour, not just having to toe the Westminster line when we know fine well it won't be popular in Scotland, and not having Westminster do idiotic things that shoot us in the foot". Maybe the left should stop being such *politically correct word for 'pussies'* and trying to win by using geography as some kind of magic win button. The Bolsheviks didn't murder all those young royals by campaigning only in some weird backward village full of idiotic locals who are already on side (resemblance to any large geographic areas of Great Britain are purely coincidental). Step up your loving game you useless cowards. Oh boohoo England is forever lost to the left. How about you fix the labour party? How do you do that? Well the same way the yess-sturmgeschütz-abteilung 69 were going to turn Scotland into a Scandinavian paradise within a year of independence. loving MAGIC.
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Oct 26, 2014 13:07
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Regarde Aduck posted:Well the same way the yess-sturmgeschütz-abteilung 69 were going to turn Scotland into a Scandinavian paradise within a year of independence. loving MAGIC. You're a loving moron.
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Oct 26, 2014 13:20
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Seaside Loafer posted:It really is just silly that's its illegal isn't it? Could be making some sweet tax money off of some homegrown here and it technically criminalises 50% of the population.
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Oct 26, 2014 13:24
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Regarde Aduck posted:some weird backward village full of idiotic locals who are already on side (resemblance to any large geographic areas of Great Britain are purely coincidental)  Fact is that Labour's over-centralised structure is symptomatic of their wider problems - they're still operating under the premise that the United Kingdom can be governed as a single entity, and not a number of smaller entities each with their own needs and aspirations. Even the Tories allow their Scottish wing a higher degree of autonomy than Labour, and one of the Lib Dems' few saving graces is that their nominal commitment to federalism means that they have separate parties for each of the nations. Furthermore if Labour don't want to lose the 10-15 Scottish seats that the SNP are predicted to win from them then they need to articulate a more radical and independent policy platform. I'm not saying that decentralisation will solve the party's problems overnight, but it'd be a start.
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Oct 26, 2014 13:29
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What is the internal structure of the SNP like?
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Oct 26, 2014 13:42
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ReV VAdAUL posted:What is the internal structure of the SNP like? Not much time for voting after all the singing of the anthem and saluting photos of the Glorious Successor.
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Oct 26, 2014 13:59
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Obliterati posted:Not much time for voting after all the singing of the anthem and saluting photos of the Glorious Successor. Do you not think the internal structure of the party that will dominate Scottish politics is relevant to this discussion or do you simply want to derail the first worthwhile discussion about Scottish politics in a long time?
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Oct 26, 2014 14:24
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ReV VAdAUL posted:Do you not think the internal structure of the party that will dominate Scottish politics is relevant to this discussion or do you simply want to derail the first worthwhile discussion about Scottish politics in a long time? I'm sure one single parodying comment won't derail the discussion. I don't know much about the internal workings of the SNP, but the attitude towards them from more left-leaning political entities is that it's a bit too weighted towards a perceived "old-guard". One of the candidates for deputy first minister proposed a radical restructuring of the party to facilitate the thousands of new members integrating and having a bigger impact on the future of the party. She's unlikely to win, afaik, but at least it's entering the dialogue. You can accuse the SNP of many things but being resistant to adaptation and change isn't one of them.
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Oct 26, 2014 14:37
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Labour types keep pushing the idea, but Gordon Brown has pretty much ruled out coming back as Scottish Labour leader hasn't he? I think that's the only potential development that would really be a danger to the SNP, since everyone in the Scottish Parliamentary Labour party is a nonentity who wasn't good enough to get to Westminster.
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Oct 26, 2014 14:41
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It's going to be Anas Sarwar or Jim Murphy. Please let it be Murphy. It'll be hilarious.
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Oct 26, 2014 15:17
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marktheando posted:Labour types keep pushing the idea, but Gordon Brown has pretty much ruled out coming back as Scottish Labour leader hasn't he? He ruled it out explicitly in the last few days of the referendum, iirc. The idea that he would return is a masturbatory fantasy for the kind of SLAB folks who think they can parachute someone in/find the magic policy and Scots will flip back and deliver them an neverending majority. At the very least it ignores the reality that Gordon Brown would have to take orders from Ed Miliband  .My prediction is that Labour will select an MP to lead the party to try and stem the bleeding for May, when they fail nobody will give a poo poo. They don't have a long-serving MSP willing to wade through the same tidal wave of shite as Lamont, and the couple of good performers in their tranche of "accidental" MSPs aren't suicidal enough. Putting an empty chair up against Sturgeon will be about as effective as Jackie Baillie, who will almost certainly end up being the Holyrood spokesperson of a MP leader. 2016 is a lost cause unless Sturgeon starts wearing a swastika on her suits. twoot fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Oct 26, 2014 |
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Oct 26, 2014 15:20
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SNP have often been called a "cult of personality" for the way that power within the party is centrally concentrated in the hands of the leader. I was musing recently on whether the huge influx of new members could see a lurch to the left, but even prominent SNP figures have told me "it's not worth joining if you want to try and make them a socialist party because it will never work because of the structure of the party". Apparently a couple of the deputy candidates have made noises about making it more democratic, but we'll see what actually happens there. I've been busy over the last couple of days so haven't really seen much on the Labour leadership thing, but Murphy ruled it out a week ago and is now being talked about as the front runner, so previous denials may have just been "look I'm so loyal me!" and not mean much now. So possibly Murphy and Brown from the Westminster bunch, who might see it as a big bid for redemption. Douglas Alexander was mentioned by I think the Scotsman, but surely he'd never get elected after the mess he made of the No campaign. Surely...? Sarwar has been mentioned but the last time I got together with Labourites and talked about how Lamont would be going soon everyone was convinced Sarwar wouldn't be leader (dodgy family members apparently). Margaret Curran has apparently been fingered as the one pushing Lamont out so that might be a precursor to a bid perhaps or in league with someone else who'd go for it. Of the rest at Holyrood bunch, Jenny Marra has been talked about, as has Kezia Dugdale who I think would probably be the most capable and not New Labour Dirty Power Struggles of the options. I also saw Neil Findlay mentioned, but I don't know much about him or how likely that would be. A pal thought Murphy might throw his support behind Ken McIntosh, but he didn't win it against JoLa, and that Brown might go for Alex....Rowley is it? The guy who won the by-election in Fife? But neither of those two seem like the most secure options.
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Oct 26, 2014 15:25
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twoot posted:He ruled it out explicitly in the last few days of the referendum, iirc. The idea that he would return is a masturbatory fantasy for the kind of SLAB folks who think they can parachute someone in/find the magic policy and Scots will flip back and deliver them an neverending majority. At the very least it ignores the reality that Gordon Brown would have to take orders from Ed Miliband I've no idea how they could make the money work but from a political standpoint wouldn't it be massively advantageous for Scottish Labour to break off from the main party and (potentially) force Milliband to come to them cap in hand for votes?
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Oct 26, 2014 15:46
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In Scotland you have supposedly socialist, pro-EU nationalists agitating for events to occur that will harm the EU, the UK and ordinary people that live in it. A Tory majority, a referendum on the UK leaving the EU that results in a Yes vote and a Labour party in disarray would all be welcomed on the off chance that they can create and exploit a divide between the people of Scotland and the rest of the UK and agitate for UDI or whatever other barmpot scheme they're cooking up, just weeks after the people of Scotland voted resoundingly to stay in the UK. It's pretty disgusting tbh.
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Oct 26, 2014 16:00
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It's more of a "we warned you this would happen" than anything else. Certainly no one's agitating.
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Oct 26, 2014 16:02
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Coohoolin posted:It's more of a "we warned you this would happen" than anything else. No it's not. Nationalists want a Tory majority and a UK voting to leave the EU. The latter is extremely unlikely and the former only a possibility.
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Oct 26, 2014 16:04
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Acaila posted:Jenny Marra... Kezia Dugdale They oops'ed their way into Holyrood about 5 years before they'd have been picked for a constituency seat, or been flown down south. They are generally competent but the next two years look to be career-ending for any MSP Labour leader. goddamnedtwisto posted:I've no idea how they could make the money work but from a political standpoint wouldn't it be massively advantageous for Scottish Labour to break off from the main party and (potentially) force Milliband to come to them cap in hand for votes? Yes. To go the route that CDU/CSU do in Germany would be so advantageous to Labour that it just underlines the dearth of forward planning and groupthink in the party. All they need to do is allow functional autonomy and then some choice issues where the Scottish part of the "Labour coalition" gets to pretend to disagree for appearances. For Labour to carry on in the current configuration really requires a revival in the UK party in which case unity behind a strong UK leadership and Westminster policies could punt the regional issue away until the SNP eventually declined. This seems even more unlikely.
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Oct 26, 2014 16:07
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Pissflaps posted:No it's not. Nationalists want a Tory majority and a UK voting to leave the EU. The latter is extremely unlikely and the former only a possibility. Which Nationalists are these? Because I voted yes and I don't want either of these things. The yes supporting parties are far more pro EU and anti-tory than Labour are.
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Oct 26, 2014 16:09
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marktheando posted:Which Nationalists are these? Because I voted yes and I don't want either of these things. Nationalists other than you?
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Oct 26, 2014 16:09
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Pissflaps posted:Nationalists other than you? And now read the other part of my post that you omitted in your quote.
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Oct 26, 2014 16:10
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marktheando posted:And now read the other part of my post that you omitted in your quote. I already have.
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Oct 26, 2014 16:13
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goddamnedtwisto posted:I've no idea how they could make the money work but from a political standpoint wouldn't it be massively advantageous for Scottish Labour to break off from the main party and (potentially) force Milliband to come to them cap in hand for votes? The same could be said for practically all other labour seats though, it would improve the "Left" no end, no-one north of the M25 should be confident that labour represents whats good for them.
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Oct 26, 2014 16:14
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Pissflaps posted:I already have. So you are just ignoring it? Ok. I think you are wrong about all nationalists other than me wanting these things, as I have not seen any say they want these things, whether they are politicians or ordinary people. Do you think that anyone who doesn't vote labour wants a tory majority and for Britain to leave the EU?
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Oct 26, 2014 16:24
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marktheando posted:Do you think that anyone who doesn't vote labour wants a tory majority and for Britain to leave the EU? I think this is a strawman argument. If you've not seen people saying the things I'm saying they're saying then you're not paying attention, but it doesn't require you to have heard it for it to have been said at all.
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Oct 26, 2014 16:28
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