dsr-burnley

I don't think opening legal routes would help unless they were open to all. The reason Joe Soap from foreign parts is willing to part with a small fortune and risk his life crossing the Channel, is because Joe Soap wants to live in the UK. If the legal immigration was raised from 1 million to 2 million or 5 million or 10 million, but Joe Soap wasn't on the enlarged list, then he would still pay his money. The only way to stop him is to let him in by another route, or to make it not worth his while.

Faster processing would be an excellent idea. Unfortunately I don't think the Home Office is capable of it. My brother took in three refugees from Ukraine in 2022, and all their paperwork was completed and agreed in April - but they had to wait two months in Poland because it proved impossible to sign the paperwork until June.

If you're arguing that the number of successful boat people is insignificant, then are you also arguing that the number of people who die in the attempt is insignificant? Whatever our stances about immigration, whether it's zero or unlimited or anything in between, there should surely be a consensus that the small boat crossings are a bad thing?

The point of the Rwanda scheme isn't to send boat people there, it's to stop them crossing the Channel. It would be like the Australian equivalent scheme - the fact that it is there is enough to stop it being used. People are crossing from France because they much prefer claiming asylum in the UK to claiming asylum in France. If the choice was France or Rwanda, they would stop putting their lives at risk. What are the alternatives? There are three options - one, allow things to carry on as they are; two, allow everyone in without restriction; three, deter the boat people while allowing restricted entry for other (perhaps more genuine) refugees. I know the government's approach (option three via Rwanda) is unpopular. What is the popular option?

Are you in favour of the total banning of oil and oil products, or are you in favour of continuing its use where necessary but importing oil rather than producing it domestically?

I understand. Though I'm not sure about any tax advantage of valuing them at fair value before sale. There are lots of fancy things you can do with property valuations in company accounts, for example, but they are all disregarded as far as tax rules go.

You don't realise how fast these shopping trolleys breed. 5-6 generations will fly by in the lay by.

We're definitely at cross purposes here. My conversation with you started in reply to your post seven above this one when you said "If ... sold their houses at fair value rather than market value" so obviously we are talking about selling things. And you went on to say that the tenants would find the houses more affordable, that the seller would still have some money to pass on to his kids, and he would have less tax to pay - so clearly you were saying that fair value is less than market value. I'll have to take your word for it about market value and fair value. I understood that markets operate at market value by definition, because market value is defined as the value set by the market. Any more nuances are a bit beyond my grasp of economics.

An efficient market works at market value by definition. If you are proposing to artificially lower prices, then you are taking away the pure market efficiency so you must be replacing it with something else. How would you enforce house sales at less than market value, other than by goverment control? I'm talking about all taxes. If anyone approaches anyone, regarding income tax or corporation tax or capital gains tax or inheritance tax or value added tax or any sort of tax and proposes a scheme to reduce their taxes, they'd be all ears. Until they found that the scheme was to take an asset worth a gazillion trading beans and selling it for half a gazillion. It is not efficient to save taxes by selling your assets for less than they are worth.

Question b is what the enquiry should be trying to work out. Given a choice of two question, (1) is a former PM incompetent and/or dishonest, and (2) what should we have done and what should we do if it happens again, I would have thought the second question is the more important. Are they making a serious effort to answer the second question? Are they going to come with conclusions on whether with hindsight it was right to close the schools, whether with hindsight it was right to keep the supermarkets open, whether with hindsight we should have locked down longer and harder, whether with hindsight we should have locked down again at Christmas 2021 when "the science" said we should? Those are far more important questions than "who can we blame".

I think fair value would have to mean total government control of the property market. The implications of that would be immense, as would the costs. But as a voluntary scheme, it's not going to happen. It doesn't matter what sort of tax we're talking about. A profit on which tax is paid is better than a loss in all but a few highly artificial cases (eg. the footballers' film losses scheme).

The current figure is £20,000 salary needed to get a family visa, I believe. I'm pretty sure that if someone is living off £20k per year, they will be collecting working family credits and their actual tax payments will not be enough to pay for the cost of that tax credit plus the cost of educating the children and the cost of health treatment for all and all the other expenses that the government pays. Also a single person earning £20k may not be living at present in a house big enough for a family. He may be living in a rented room or bedsit or shared house or small flat. Again as per the cost of living thread, most people on £20k per year with no savings and a family to support would need financial help to buy a house.

It's a common assumption that anyone could buy a house if the price dropped a bit, but it isn't true. Some of Sly's tenants may be single parent families, or people with no savings and a poor credit record, or pensioners, for example. They would neither have ready cash nor the ability to get a mortgage. Or they could be people who are not able or not willing to have the responsibility of owning a house, or people who move often and don't want to be tied down. Sly is a poster on this board who is joining in the chat. Read it back, you'll see his (or her) contribution. As for reducing his tax bill, in general, reducing income is not an efficient way of saving tax. Would you go to your employer and tell him that if he cuts your wage by £x,000, you ill save tax?

On the coat of living thread there are complaints about house and rental prices rising, and on this thread there are complaints about restrictions on the million+ immigrants arriving each year. The two are connected. Allowing vast numbers of immigrants, about three quarters of them with no paid employment at least at first, is going to increase the cost of living. Bound to. There has to be compromise between how many people can come in, and how much we are willing for the cost of living to rise.

But if Sly sold his properties, voluntarily or otherwise, it wouldn't give you or anyone else any advantage. It would mean ten more families on the council house waiting list or renting or buying a property, which would exactly match the ten new properties available for the rich to buy. I suppose as a buyer you would get an advantage at the expense of renters who can't buy.

A cynic might ask that, and the answer would be yes. Referees always add on time for the attacking side to take a free kick, and usually for them to take a corner.

They would do. One in the constituency and one in London. (They get generous payments to help them buy the second home, but that's another issue.) Many MPs also have a third home, their original family home, which they rent out. No doubt there are some who rent property on a purely commercial basis too, but it won't be 60% I suspect.

There's room for both. Council housing is certainly stable - if you have a council house, you are stuck there. There is no point trying to move and get a council house in another area, because people from other areas who already have a house will certainly be bottom of the list. So you can't move to a new job, or be be nearer parents or children, or just because you fancy a change, if council housing is the only option. Private renting is more versatile.

Not in the UK, at least not for tax purposes. You can't crystallise a tax loss unless you sell the property.

Nobody chooses to make losses to offset taxes. It would be like paying £100 for a money saving tip worth £50. What landlords often do is to aim for break even on the rents while keeping the house as their store of capital, in the case of non buy-to-let landlords, or of making a capital profit in the case of buy-to-let landlords. Obviously the government is trying to drive individual buy-to-let landlords out of the market (while making their tenants homeless at the same time) by mortgage relief restrictions, which will leave the market open for corporate landlords. Not sure that will help, frankly. Especially as even the corporate landlords are hit by the swingeing heat efficiency regulations that are designed (or might as well be) to take the cheaper properties off the market as well. The idea being, I suppose, that landlords should not be allowed to make profits out of the poor, and that poor people who can't buy a house should be in council houses (or on the streets, of course).

I think half the people in football are former Watford managers, aren't they?

Same shoulder as he dislocated 5 years ago at Burnley. He was out for half the season that time, and then didn't get past Heaton into the first team for the rest of the season.

Perhaps the referees and linesmen should be encouraged to scream and shout at the players when the players miss open goals.

Agreed, plenty of reasons why child mortality has reduced. I suspect that a lot of the reason why 1940's and earlier babies and children died young, was because of the lack of vaccinations and antibiotics and the far few calories that they used to eat, rather than lack of heat. Bedroom heating was still relatively rare into the seventies and child mortality was well down by then. No doubt inside toilets and hot and cold running water were factors in the improvement as well.

Shows how times change. My brother was born prematurely in December 1960 (before central heating for most people) and not only was the bedroom cold enough for frost pictures on the window, but also my parents were told to put him outside for an hour or so each day to strengthen him. 14 degrees at night? I'm surprised he or she can sleep at all. Very warm.