In the news

Galloway was right about the Iraq war...

So sunak has basically said, no more protests about Gaza/Israel. Next time there is any violence or disorder protesting will be stopped.

What a world we live in.

Galloway was right about the Iraq war...

Millions of people were right about the Iraq war. Galloway supported the Brexit party during the referendum, and is a self serving populist chancer.

And he was an excellent cat.

Didn't say anything other than the Iraq thing. Agree with you on self serving chancer...but so are many many others in politics.

No. Just no.

Trigger: racism.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/colorado-judge-sentence-paramedic-elijah-mcclain-killing-2024-03-01/

5 years for US paramedic who injected an obviously fatal amount of ketamine into a 23 y/o Black man who had just been assaulted and detained by police for the crime of walking in public wearing a ski mask while black. Sentence was 5 years on one charge, and 1 year for criminally negligent homicide, served concurrently, so 5 actual. If he’s imprisoned he’ll be out in a couple of years on probation.

Many years ago he seemed alright but ...

I grew up on the far left in the same way people say they 'grew up Catholic'. I feel I have met quite a few George Galloway types over the years. They suck.

Disgraced former Tory minister,
now a Lord think tanker,
suggests £10k for every 30-year old, just in time for a Labour government to foot the bill:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/02/tory-peer-calls-for-10000-citizens-inheritance-for-all-30-year-olds

I think it's a good idea and will add value as people can use it for education / investment / housing, but it should come out if wealth and inheritance taxes.

I mean if I inheritance drives this inequality maybe tax that more?

His proposal was to decrease current threshold but also rate at which taxed. Not sure how much more that will save, but will capture a larger bracket who would pay as most high net worth individuals prob put it into IHT avoidance vehicles already.

Yeah, I don't fancy being a poc in the US.

Medical mistakes are a lot more common in the US than here. So I would hope for a mistake, tho I can be naive. Don't understand why they would use ketamine when there are other meds that have the same effect and overdose is more difficult.

Prices will increase and the Tory hoarders will get the wealth. There's likely no real value in it.

I grew up on the far left in the same way people say they 'grew up Catholic'. I feel I have met quite a few George Galloway types over the years. They suck.

Cunts of every flavour.

Galloway is a clown. And one of his minions was on the radio the other morning equivocating about Nick Griffin endorsing the WPoGB in Rochdale. How hard is it to say "we don't want support from fascists" ? All of Galloway's support for various causes seems to be solely based on one tenet of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" so anyone who opposes the US, no matter how authoritarian or dictatorial or religiously conservative they are, gets a round of applause from him. He's an awful human being and seeing his ego being reinflated after the bye election is a depressing reality. I imagine he'll be on GB news soon as they make claim to being balanced, but I don't see a galaxy of difference between Galloway and the other idiots already on there

Also Chris Williamson is an utter creep.

Idk. I'm in favour of the concept, but I thought the generally proposed number was much higher

Thomas Piketty has argued that all citizens in France should be given a once-off payment at 25 of €120,000, as a type of universal inheritance.

But yes, it needs to be funded by IHT to effectively give an equitable "inheritance" to younger people at a point when they can use it to develop themselves, rather than enabling 50yos to build a nice kitchen extension.

If we gave everyone £120k it would be spent on housing, tie ing more of our national wealth up in an unproductive area.
We need to start taxing “profits” made from housing at a rate that encourages “investors” to put their money into areas that will increase national productivity not one that cripples the young.
Any increase in property value over the interest rate (with an allowance for maintenance and refurbishment) should be taxed. At a modest rate if it’s your main residence and at a punitive rate if it’s not.
“Investing” in property should not be seen as a good thing, investing in people and businesses should.

This is the true failure of Thatcherism.

IHT is a red herring

I think that the policies to discourage 'investment' in the property market and the higher interest rates are working. Especially as the tax breaks on investing in a pension are attractive. I agree with you that the £120k would simply inflate housing prices across the board.

What we desperately need are more properties for people to live in, prices would come down and it could create employment and skills which we need. There's no incentive when people can invest in property knowing that someone will have to rent it.

Of course most of the pension funds are interested in riding the AI wave of profits so we're more likely to end up in ghettos wearing VR headsets matrix style.

Or we could pay more than lip service to levelling up so that more of the housing stock in areas that aren't the South East could be used

Not sure what the percentages of unused housing stock outside the South East are but yes, of course the loss of industry and employment outside the South East is regrettable.

Would you force people seeking council houses in London to take them in other areas for example?

Not really, to be blunt it needs rich people to move to those areas to drive improvements in infrastructure and opportunities. Not more people that the government can just ignore.

I agree the concept has merit but the risk is that eg small (first time buyer) houses increase in value so house builders or institutional property investors end up with the money anyway.

Edit: I don't necessarily have an issue with property investing but would like to see it married with rent controls so you can't have some poor ass 21yo paying the full mortgage and an amount of profit for a delinquent with the ability to take on debt.

The fall of Andrew Bridgen down the conspiracy rabbit hole
https://archive.md/bZCTk