# Money laundering and tax avoidance



## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

It appears that, whilst talking big about tax avoidance and tax evasion, not only does George Osborne's dad avoid paying tax on his business, but so did "Call me Dave"'s dad. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...ax-haven-used-by-politicians-and-celebrities/ 
We certainly are "all in this together"......
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/04/panama-papers-david-cameron-father-tax-bahamas
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...aven-father-named-huge-leak-Panama-files.html


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

All quite interesting disclosures, but not entirely surprising. I'm not necessarily lauding the practice, but most people who can, seek to reduce their tax bill. 
This doesn't affect my estimation of David Cameron; it is his attitude over Europe that I find insupportable, not the fact that his father had concealed wealth. If I was wealthy, I don't doubt I would conceal my wealth too.


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## Odradek (Sep 1, 2011)

Langham said:


> All quite interesting disclosures, but not entirely surprising. I'm not necessarily lauding the practice, but most people who can, seek to reduce their tax bill.
> This doesn't affect my estimation of David Cameron; it is his attitude over Europe that I find insupportable, not the fact that his father had concealed wealth. If I was wealthy, I don't doubt I would conceal my wealth too.


Exactly.



> 'No man in the country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel in his stores. The Inland Revenue is not slow, and quite rightly, to take every advantage which is open to it under the Taxing Statutes for the purposes of depleting the taxpayer's pocket. And the taxpayer is in like manner entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Inland Revenue.'
> -James Avon Clyde, Lord Clyde.


The media, (BBC/Guardian) are at pains to try and confuse tax evasion and tax avoidance, and The Guardian is on very dodgy ground pointing out the exotic tax locations of others, when they have so much tied up in the Cayman Islands themselves.
I have nothing but contempt for Cameron, but there's so much more one could attack him for than his father's tax affairs.
I'm much more bemused that his father's company was called Blairmore holdings.
Then I read this evening that the family home in Scotland is called Blairmore House.
Dave truly is the heir to Blairmore.

Rumour has it that the evil emperor himself, George Soros, is behind the recent file dump.

Are Corporate Gatekeepers Protecting Western Elites from the Leaked Panama Papers?


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

^ I can't claim to know the intricacies of the U.K. tax code, but the same distinction is often lost here as well. 

Tax Avoidance is completely legal. Every deduction one takes for mortgage interest, charitable given, etc. is a method of tax avoidance. One's 401k for that matter qualifies. 

Of course, to that segment of the population that feels it has the moral and legal right, by virtue of simply breathing, to stick their hand in my pocket, this is an outrage.


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## Balfour (Mar 23, 2012)




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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Balfour said:


> View attachment 15964


^ not far from the truth actually.

By the way, that same document dump also points a finger at Kojo Annan, son of Kofi, which tells you just how despotic and rotten to the core international institutions are.


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

Odradek said:


> The Guardian is on very dodgy ground pointing out the exotic tax locations of others, when they have so much tied up in the Cayman Islands


You could lay similar charges at many media companies. Telegraph's Barclay brothers avoid tax as does Rothermere at the Daily Mail.


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

SG_67 said:


> ^ I can't claim to know the intricacies of the U.K. tax code, but the same distinction is often lost here as well.
> 
> Tax Avoidance is completely legal. Every deduction one takes for mortgage interest, charitable given, etc. is a method of tax avoidance. One's 401k for that matter qualifies.
> 
> Of course, to that segment of the population that feels it has the moral and legal right, by virtue of simply breathing, to stick their hand in my pocket, this is an outrage.


I think the outrage from many ordinary citizens in the UK is that those on modest incomes, who are taxed at source, do not have the chance to avoid tax, whereas the UK taxman seems to ask multinationals, like Vodafone etc, how much tax they would like to pay.

Inheritance tax is a new racket. The average citizen was not affected but -as the tax is pitched at below the value of an average London house - many more will be clobbered in future. The very rich avoid such taxes via trusts and other legal loopholes that are beyond the scope of the average person.


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## Odradek (Sep 1, 2011)

Kingstonian said:


> The very rich avoid such taxes via trusts and other legal loopholes that are beyond the scope of the average person.


People like Ralph Miliband and Tony Benn for example.



> A stalwart of the left, Tony Benn was a critic of tax avoidance measures. As an owner of expensive properties in London and the south of England, it seemed inevitable after his death in March that his family would face a hefty inheritance tax bill.
> But now publication of the details of his will - coupled with records held by the Land Registry - suggests he took practical steps more than a decade ago to reduce the impact of this tax on his heirs.


*How Ed and David Miliband exploited a tax loophole described by Gordon Brown as "tax abuse"*



> Before the death of life long Marxist Ralph Miliband, the family arranged a deed of variation, legally exploiting a tax loophole, whereby 40% of Ralph's valuable Primrose Hill property was transferred to his sons, who each received a 20% share. This great reduced inheritance tax when dad Ralph finally passed away.
> Property developers would applaud them, but eyebrows were raised sky high in the Labour party, because this was seen as betraying the family's deeply entrenched socialist background.


Of course everyone would like to avail of such things, but it's the hypocrisy here that stinks.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Balfour said:


> View attachment 15964


Oh look, a puerile cartoon. Are you trying to make a point in posting this? Does it bring the discussion on in any way? Perhaps, for balance, I should post an equally puerile cartoon about capitalism that won't develop the conversation either?


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Odradek said:


> People like Ralph Miliband and Tony Benn for example.
> 
> *How Ed and David Miliband exploited a tax loophole described by Gordon Brown as "tax abuse"*
> 
> Of course everyone would like to avail of such things, but it's the hypocrisy here that stinks.


The British Labour Party has been stuffed full of such 'do as I say' hypocrites and creeps for decades - of course there are plenty of MPs on both sides who have lost their integrity in some way or other.


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## Odradek (Sep 1, 2011)

This whole "Panama Papers" leak appears to be nothing more than a Soros orchestrated hit against any opposition to the globalist agenda.
The prime minister of Iceland has just resigned, no doubt to be replaced by a more pro-EU candidate, and the other main target seems to be Vladimir Putin, who has stepped in to stop their games in Syria.

https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2016/04/bang-first-george-soros-panama-papers.html?m=1



> The Panama Papers appear to be extremely selective leaks from an 11 million document cache that was leaked to a German newspaper.
> 
> The investigation of the documents was taken over from the paper by the George Soros-funded International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
> 
> To date, disclosures have only been made against enemies of either Soros, the United States or the global financial elite, e.g. against Putin, FIFA and Gunnlaugsson, who played hardball in dealing with the global banksters.


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## Gurdon (Feb 7, 2005)

*Not quite*



Balfour said:


> View attachment 15964


Correct with respect to Marxist/communist socialism, but inaccurate as far as democratic socialism is concerned.

Regards,
Gurdon


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## jd202 (Feb 16, 2016)

SG_67 said:


> ^ I can't claim to know the intricacies of the U.K. tax code, but the same distinction is often lost here as well.
> 
> Tax Avoidance is completely legal. Every deduction one takes for mortgage interest, charitable given, etc. is a method of tax avoidance. One's 401k for that matter qualifies.
> 
> Of course, to that segment of the population that feels it has the moral and legal right, by virtue of simply breathing, to stick their hand in my pocket, this is an outrage.


While I agree that there are many types of legal tax avoidance (and that the term is often used to mean the forms of such avoidance that are legal), there's a difference between policy-driven tax avoidance items and those that are loophole/complexity-driven. Deductions for mortgage insurance, charitable giving, and retirement savings are clear examples of policy-driven allowable tax avoidance: for better or for worse, Congress decided to grant favorable tax treatment to these types of activities.

A lot of what's going on with offshoring is of another type of tax avoidance: legal, for sure, but rooted in clever navigation of interlocking national/international rules to avoid taxes on funds that would otherwise be taxed at the same rate as other funds. There isn't as much of a "good" reason for "Here's why this is allowed." And to the extent that it shrinks the tax base, it effectively increases the rate the government needs to charge on funds that it can actually tax to achieve any given revenue level. So, that's bad, whether you think the overall effective tax rate should be 75% or 0.0001%.

Even if the Panama Papers thing doesn't expose any actual illegal activity in the U.S., it may shine a spotlight on activity that generally doesn't exist for any good policy reason and which harms all other tax payers by effectively increasing their rates (or increasing the debt, or etc.). I think that's probably a good thing, and I would expect most on the right or left in America would agree... but I'm open to being convinced otherwise.


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## Balfour (Mar 23, 2012)

Gurdon said:


> Correct with respect to Marxist/communist socialism, but inaccurate as far as democratic socialism is concerned.
> 
> Regards,
> Gurdon


Debatable. But on democratic socialism I will rest with Churchill:

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

and Thatcher:

"Eventually, socialists run out of other people's money."


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## Mike Petrik (Jul 5, 2005)

Balfour said:


> Debatable. But on democratic socialism I will rest with Churchill:
> 
> "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
> 
> ...


Agreed on all counts.
Although I concede Gurdon's technical distinction, the cartoon does reveal a metaphorical truth re the tax fetish of democratic socialism, since taxes are the extraction of money via the threat of force.


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

Balfour said:


> Debatable. But on democratic socialism I will rest with Churchill:
> 
> "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."
> 
> ...


Thatcher was a disaster and even right wingers are beginning to realise that:-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...n-Free-trade-Shares-great-ruined-Britain.html

It depends what you mean by socialism. The co-operative movement and early trade unionism transformed the life of the average person. A lot of the benefits we take for granted today grew out of those movements.


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## Balfour (Mar 23, 2012)

^ I disagree with you about Thatcher, Kingstonian, but value your postings. As mention of Thatcher seems to have an equivalent effect to Godwinning a thread, I'll leave my comments about her legacy with a simple expression of my disagreement. 

I'm not sure I would pray HItchens in aid of anything, though!


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

Hitchens is a bit of a curmudgeon but he is not spouting a party line.

Reaganomics and Thatcherism led to outsourcing of decent jobs, unemployment and (certainly in the UK) boring, but sound financial institutions were transformed into casinos for unscrupulous chancers. They ruined many in the name of 'light touch financial regulation'. There were also more wars for regime change.

Now the chickens have come home to roost.


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## Balfour (Mar 23, 2012)

There's lots to debate there, although all rather off topic. 

Another view is that the supply-side reforms of the 1980s transformed the sick man of Europe into a modern and competitive economy. Neo-ludditeism would not have preserved the 'decent jobs' that were outsourced.

Light touch financial regulation continued for ten years, and wars for regime change were fought, under Labour, not Thatcher.


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## Balfour (Mar 23, 2012)

jd202 said:


> While I agree that there are many types of legal tax avoidance (and that the term is often used to mean the forms of such avoidance that are legal), there's a difference between policy-driven tax avoidance items and those that are loophole/complexity-driven. Deductions for mortgage insurance, charitable giving, and retirement savings are clear examples of policy-driven allowable tax avoidance: for better or for worse, Congress decided to grant favorable tax treatment to these types of activities.
> 
> A lot of what's going on with offshoring is of another type of tax avoidance: legal, for sure, but rooted in clever navigation of interlocking national/international rules to avoid taxes on funds that would otherwise be taxed at the same rate as other funds. There isn't as much of a "good" reason for "Here's why this is allowed." And to the extent that it shrinks the tax base, it effectively increases the rate the government needs to charge on funds that it can actually tax to achieve any given revenue level. *So, that's bad, whether you think the overall effective tax rate should be 75% or 0.0001%.*
> 
> ...


I appreciate you were drawing out a distinction in response to another post. I also agree that the distinction has some merit to it, although I would see it more as a spectrum than a binary distinction.

However, the fact remains that it is perfectly lawful for people to organise their tax affairs in a manner which minimises their tax liability.

What I think your thoughtful post fails to address (in particular in the emboldened bit) is that when Governments impose punitive rates of taxation on specific groups of persons then it seems to my mind perfectly reasonable to avoid tax as aggressively as is lawful. (To choose an uncontroversial example, the highest rate of income tax in the UK in the mid-1970s was, for earned income, 83 per cent and, for investment income, 98 per cent. Taxation at such rates is in my view morally repugnant, as well as economically injurious.)


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

Balfour said:


> There's lots to debate there, although all rather off topic.
> 
> Another view is that the supply-side reforms of the 1980s transformed the sick man of Europe into a modern and competitive economy. Neo-ludditeism would not have preserved the 'decent jobs' that were outsourced.
> 
> Light touch financial regulation continued for ten years, and wars for regime change were fought, under Labour, not Thatcher.


Another view is that the windfall of North Sea oil was squandered on a doctrinaire policy to destroy the unions and allow businesses to go to the wall. Unfortunately nothing of substance replaced the lost industries.

New Labour continued neo liberal policies but dressed them up with a message that they were a less harsh government than the Conservatives.

Yes, regime change was Bliar and Labour rather than Thatcher. Though she made war attractive to some politicians (because of the Falklands).


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## Balfour (Mar 23, 2012)

Kingstonian said:


> Another view is that the windfall of North Sea oil was squandered on a doctrinaire policy to destroy the unions and allow businesses to go to the wall. Unfortunately nothing of substance replaced the lost industries.
> 
> New Labour continued neo liberal policies but dressed them up with a message that they were a less harsh government than the Conservatives.
> 
> Yes, regime change was Bliar and Labour rather than Thatcher. Though she made war attractive to some politicians (because of the Falklands).


Without accepting your premiss about North Sea oil, the unions had become over-mighty and damaging to the UK economy and UK society. Their power was rightly corrected in the 1980s.

I don't know if you are an unreconstructed corporatist, but it is Canute-like to assume that State intervention was the right way to deal with failing businesses in in the 1980s.

New Labour tried to fake genuine conservative policies for a bit without understanding them and then spent money as if they had abolished the economic cycle.

The Falklands campaign was a defensive campaign (I'll leave the merits of the Iraq war out of this).

But we could easily rehash 20 years of British political history here. As we're unlikely to see eye to eye and as the subject matter is vast and off-topic, I'm content to leave it there (or leave it after a further substantive response from you) as I suggested upthread.


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

Destroying the unions was like removing Saddam Hussein. There were no plans for what happened next.

Mass unemployment led to unhealthy habits with several generations unused to getting up for work and a dependency culture that is very difficult to change.

Other European countries look after their industries. Foreign takeovers are discouraged and outsourcing was a hard sell in countries like France. Had to go with 'near sourcing' in the end to take some of the curse off it.

New Labour seemed happy enough with neo liberal policies provided it kept the Murdoch press on side. Peter Mandelson was very happy with the 'filthy rich'.

However, going back to the original theme of this thread. Leaks about tax avoidance make Cameron's claim that :-

'We are all in this together.' seem very hollow.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Kingstonian said:


> Destroying the unions was like removing Saddam Hussein. There were no plans for what happened next.
> 
> Mass unemployment led to unhealthy habits with several generations unused to getting up for work and a dependency culture that is very difficult to change.
> 
> ...


Any regret over the downfall of the unions is misplaced. By the 1970s they had caused great harm to British industry by their incessant strike action - harm that was compounded by mismanagement of the economy under the Heath and then the Callaghan governments. In my view, what followed under Thatcher was inevitable, and deeply necessary. I have to say, I rejoiced when she took on the miners.

Matters have taken a slightly different course in countries such as France, where even this morning there are news reports of Spanish wine tankers being stopped and having their contents emptied into the drains by militant farmers, as gendarmes look on impassively. However, their economy is now unable to provide anything like full employment. Young French people with ambition emigrated to London some time ago.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Kingstonian said:


> Destroying the unions was like removing Saddam Hussein. There were no plans for what happened next.
> 
> Mass unemployment led to unhealthy habits with several generations unused to getting up for work and a dependency culture that is very difficult to change.
> 
> ...


Agreed, absolutely. Thatcher's destruction of British heavy industry through an ideologically driven desire to break the unions, who may or may not have been over mighty, was a disaster for British society and culture. The biggest disadvantaged group in Britain are the white working class, whose place at the bottom of the social pile was mandated by the destruction and removal of their traditional roles. Vast swathes of the country were devastated by the deliberate destruction of the coal and steel industries for ideological reasons. The rest of Europe protected theirs, and don't have anything like the social problems that we have, especially amongst the indigenous population. 
New Labour was, of course, merely Tory-Lite, and not so very lite at that.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Chouan said:


> Agreed, absolutely. Thatcher's destruction of British heavy industry through an ideologically driven desire to break the unions, who may or may not have been over mighty, was a disaster for British society and culture. The biggest disadvantaged group in Britain are the white working class, whose place at the bottom of the social pile was mandated by the destruction and removal of their traditional roles. Vast swathes of the country were devastated by the deliberate destruction of the coal and steel industries for ideological reasons. The rest of Europe protected theirs, and don't have anything like the social problems that we have, especially amongst the indigenous population.
> New Labour was, of course, merely Tory-Lite, and not so very lite at that.


I don't understand how anyone can reasonably regret the ending of British coal mining. By the 1970s it was completely uncompetitive, besides highly difficult and dangerous, and an environmental blight. There is very little domestic demand for coal nowadays in any case - the remaining coal-fired power stations will soon be closed down and you don't see many steam engines about.

Oddly, the traditional white working class seem to have been let down most badly of all by the Labour Party, with their weird attachment to unhindered immigration. Admittedly, the present government has done little to put matters right. In any event, they have been released from their 'traditional roles' and have had to sink or swim.


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

If you live in a mining village you would regret the missing employment opportunities.

Coal has a life still for power stations. There is a huge shortfall in capacity and foreigners have to be bribed to complete our nuclear power stations as - allegedly - the expertise is not available in Britain now. That means coal imports for quite some time.

'sink or swim' is another version of Tebbits 'get on your bike' philosophy.

Sometimes people need encouragement, nudging, assistance. You cannot leave everything to the markets unless you are happy to accept blight in many areas.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Langham said:


> I don't understand how anyone can reasonably regret the ending of British coal mining. By the 1970s it was completely uncompetitive, besides highly difficult and dangerous, and an environmental blight. There is very little domestic demand for coal nowadays in any case - the remaining coal-fired power stations will soon be closed down and you don't see many steam engines about.
> 
> Oddly, the traditional white working class seem to have been let down most badly of all by the Labour Party, with their weird attachment to unhindered immigration. Admittedly, the present government has done little to put matters right. In any event, they have been released from their 'traditional roles' and have had to sink or swim.


Yes, of course, those dratted immigrants, the ones who took all of the steel and engineering jobs on Teesside, who took all of the steel jobs at Consett, who took all of the railway building and engineering jobs at Shildon, and York and Doncaster, and who took all of the shipbuilding jobs all over the UK. They also took all of the maritime jobs as well, or was that the owners flagging out? The most important maritime nation in the world with the biggest home flagged fleet in the world, with all of that tradition and skill, wiped out in 5 years, not because costs were too high, or because it wasn't profitable, but because the owners saw that even bigger profits were available by flagging out with third world crews. Argentina made a big mistake in their 1982 invasion of the Falklands, because less than a year later the UK wouldn't have had the merchant ships available that formed the essential troop transports and logistical tail that made the recovery of the Islands possible. Never mind, they just had to "get on their bikes" or "sink or swim". 
Actually, many, if not most of the coal mines were both successful and viable, but, as Thatcher said at the time, the loss of that industry was worth it for the ideological cause.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Kingstonian said:


> If you live in a mining village you would regret the missing employment opportunities.
> 
> Coal has a life still for power stations. There is a huge shortfall in capacity and foreigners have to be bribed to complete our nuclear power stations as - allegedly - the expertise is not available in Britain now. That means coal imports for quite some time.
> 
> ...


I grew up in County Durham in the 1960s/70s so perhaps have a different appreciation of the 'employment opportunities' you mention - i.e. very hard, dangerous and unpleasant work. Much of the blight you mention - pit heaps everywhere - has gone.

The coal-fired power stations are all scheduled for replacement (eventually) by gas, nuclear or renewable sources, coal has no future.

Encouragement, nudging and assistance? That was what Margaret Thatcher did, but not everyone realised it at the time.



Chouan said:


> Yes, of course, those dratted immigrants, the ones who took all of the steel and engineering jobs on Teesside, who took all of the steel jobs at Consett, who took all of the railway building and engineering jobs at Shildon, and York and Doncaster, and who took all of the shipbuilding jobs all over the UK. They also took all of the maritime jobs as well, or was that the owners flagging out? The most important maritime nation in the world with the biggest home flagged fleet in the world, with all of that tradition and skill, wiped out in 5 years, not because costs were too high, or because it wasn't profitable, but because the owners saw that even bigger profits were available by flagging out with third world crews. Argentina made a big mistake in their 1982 invasion of the Falklands, because less than a year later the UK wouldn't have had the merchant ships available that formed the essential troop transports and logistical tail that made the recovery of the Islands possible. Never mind, they just had to "get on their bikes" or "sink or swim".
> Actually, many, if not most of the coal mines were both successful and viable, but, as Thatcher said at the time, the loss of that industry was worth it for the ideological cause.


It would be easier to close my eyes and ignore your ill-informed arguments, but the reason the industries you mention have mostly gone is that they could no longer compete with more efficient - or simply cheaper - producers elsewhere in the world. Countries then have to make a choice whether they should support loss-making industries, perhaps for strategic reasons or merely to preserve the jobs of those who are employed in those industries, while recognising that that comes at a price to everyone else in the country. The alternative is to move on and find other industries which are self-sufficient and profitable. In many ways that is what has happened, but those who have been unable or unwilling to move on - like the former Welsh miners still living in their mining villages who refuse to move elsewhere for work - have to take the consequences.

If you think the sudden influx of 3/4/5 million immigrants over the last decade has not had a downward effect on blue-collar pay, not to mention an upward effect on rents, pressure on school places, hospitals etc, then you're badly out of touch with the real world I'm afraid.


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## jd202 (Feb 16, 2016)

Balfour said:


> I appreciate you were drawing out a distinction in response to another post. I also agree that the distinction has some merit to it, although I would see it more as a spectrum than a binary distinction.
> 
> However, the fact remains that it is perfectly lawful for people to organise their tax affairs in a manner which minimises their tax liability.
> 
> What I think your thoughtful post fails to address (in particular in the emboldened bit) is that when Governments impose punitive rates of taxation on specific groups of persons then it seems to my mind perfectly reasonable to avoid tax as aggressively as is lawful. (To choose an uncontroversial example, the highest rate of income tax in the UK in the mid-1970s was, for earned income, 83 per cent and, for investment income, 98 per cent. Taxation at such rates is in my view morally repugnant, as well as economically injurious.)


Just to be clear, I agree with you: of course people and corporations will seek to minimize their tax liability and, to the extent that it's legal, it's absurd to get angry at them for doing so. When i say "this is bad", I mean it is bad policy to allow this, not bad behavior on the part of those folks. When there are legal pathways that allow significant tax avoidance without some plausible policy reason (e.g., deductions for charitable giving, retirement savings), it causes bad economic distortions, including increased tax rates. That's on the policymakers to fix.

And yes, higher rates create greater incentives for avoidance, which is partially why everyone should be able to agree on keeping the tax base as broad and the rates as low as possible given whatever level of spending is established (and on that latter part, of course, we can all argue forever).


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Langham said:


> I grew up in County Durham in the 1960s/70s so perhaps have a different appreciation of the 'employment opportunities' you mention - i.e. very hard, dangerous and unpleasant work. Much of the blight you mention - pit heaps everywhere - has gone.
> 
> The coal-fired power stations are all scheduled for replacement (eventually) by gas, nuclear or renewable sources, coal has no future.
> 
> ...


That the rest of the world subsidised their strategic industries, power, steel, shipbuilding, transport, fuel, shipping, whilst we closed them or sold them as "unprofitable" was an ideological decision, not an economic one. Even now, our government, having privatised, for ideological reasons, our steel industry, bleats on about competitiveness and that their hands are tied by the EU, whilst France, Germany, Spain, Italy all have state owned or state subsidised industries deemed as strategic and needing to be protected. The biggest state enemies that we face are China and Russia, yet we are inviting China in to Britain to run our nuclear power stations! The gas we use is produced by Russia!
Move on? Where to? When Smiths Dock on the Tees was closed (with orders on their books) some skilled workers left their homes (in the spiritual sense) and moved to Appledore to bring their skills to the shipyard there, encouraged to do so by the likes of Tebbit, only to lose their jobs a year later when that yard was also closed. All we produce now is services, we have virtually no real economy at all.



Langham said:


> If you think the sudden influx of 3/4/5 million immigrants over the last decade has not had a downward effect on blue-collar pay, not to mention an upward effect on rents, pressure on school places, hospitals etc, then you're badly out of touch with the real world I'm afraid.


I'm not suggesting that mass immigration isn't, and hasn't been, a problem, but the problem in our society was the destruction of "society" organised and overseen by the Thatcher government.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Chouan said:


> That the rest of the world subsidised their strategic industries, power, steel, shipbuilding, transport, fuel, shipping, whilst we closed them or sold them as "unprofitable" was an ideological decision, not an economic one. Even now, our government, having privatised, for ideological reasons, our steel industry, bleats on about competitiveness and that their hands are tied by the EU, whilst France, Germany, Spain, Italy all have state owned or state subsidised industries deemed as strategic and needing to be protected. The biggest state enemies that we face are China and Russia, yet we are inviting China in to Britain to run our nuclear power stations! The gas we use is produced by Russia!


You have a strange view of the world if you imagine that the only way businesses and industries can survive is by being subsidised. Some are subsidised, and in strange ways, but most are not. Successful businesses are not. Do you imagine Apple, or Daimler, or Rolls-Royce, survive in their current form because they are state-subsidised? State-protection and subsidy all comes at a cost, in the end.



> Move on? Where to? When Smiths Dock on the Tees was closed (with orders on their books) some skilled workers left their homes (in the spiritual sense) and moved to Appledore to bring their skills to the shipyard there, encouraged to do so by the likes of Tebbit, only to lose their jobs a year later when that yard was also closed.


A few hundred yards further down the road to another shipyard is not moving on. Workers who find their skills have become redundant may be better advised to learn new skills and if necessary move elsewhere.



> All we produce now is services, we have virtually no real economy at all.


You don't seem to understand how the modern economy works. Services _are_ the economy for most people. It is an aspect of the modern economy that sitting in a chair and shuffling pieces of paper (or stabbing at buttons on a computer keypad) produces much more wealth for the nation, and for the individual doing the shuffling, than men wielding hammers and beating pieces of iron in a shipyard ever will.


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

Langham said:


> I grew up in County Durham in the 1960s/70s so perhaps have a different appreciation of the 'employment opportunities' you mention - i.e. very hard, dangerous and unpleasant work.


It may not be pleasant work, but try telling that to well paid steel workers in Port Talbot.

A country with only service industries is out of kilter. You need to be able to do the basics - like the Germans. To quote Pat Buchanan :-

Free trade is not a zero-sum game. The losers are the workers whose jobs, factories and futures are shipped abroad, and the dead and dying towns left behind when the manufacturing plants shut down.
America is on a path of national decline because, while we have been looking out for what is best for the "global economy," our rivals have been looking out for what is best for their own nations.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Langham said:


> You have a strange view of the world if you imagine that the only way businesses and industries can survive is by being subsidised. Some are subsidised, and in strange ways, but most are not. Successful businesses are not. Do you imagine Apple, or Daimler, or Rolls-Royce, survive in their current form because they are state-subsidised? State-protection and subsidy all comes at a cost, in the end.


But when a business is competing against state subsidised businesses, which is what I was discussing, then it is unlikely to be competitive. Hence steel and coal in Britain is unlikely to be competitive when it is in competition with state subsidised products from other countries. Why would I imagine that companies like those are state subsidised?



Langham said:


> A few hundred yards further down the road to another shipyard is not moving on. Workers who find their skills have become redundant may be better advised to learn new skills and if necessary move elsewhere.


Being from County Durham, your knowledge of local geography appears to be limited. Appledore is in Devon, as was the eponymous shipyard. Where would an unemployed skilled steel maker from Redcar go? Where would an engine fitter from South Bank go? Where would they retrain? As what? Where would they get the money from to move, and where to? It's all very well advising people to learn new skills and move elsewhere if one has enough money to do so one's self, but it wouldn't be easy without money behind one already. 
An example. A 24 year old lad from Marske, with a First in Maths from Durham has been unemployed for 3 years because he can't find a job in the area in which he lives. He can't afford to learn to drive, not at £25 plus an hour for lessons and usually 30 hours to be fit for the test, but couldn't afford a car, or the insurance, anyway. He can't afford the train to London if offered an interview, and couldn't afford even a room to live in if offered a job there anyway. His widowed mother, who has a grown up daughter with cerebral palsy can't afford to lend him money, as she can barely afford to support her family as it is. Any suggestions? Get on his bike? Sink or swim?



Langham said:


> You don't seem to understand how the modern economy works. Services _are_ the economy for most people. It is an aspect of the modern economy that sitting in a chair and shuffling pieces of paper (or stabbing at buttons on a computer keypad) produces much more wealth for the nation, and for the individual doing the shuffling, than men wielding hammers and beating pieces of iron in a shipyard ever will.


Indeed they are, but it means that we, as a nation, have no security as far as key industries are concerned, whilst European governments, for example, have taken care to ensure that key strategic industries are under state control, and thus state protection. If the global price of gas, or steel, or coal, or electricity rises, we're effectively buggered, whilst Germany, France etc will still have state protected key industries.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Chouan said:


> But when a business is competing against state subsidised businesses, which is what I was discussing, then it is unlikely to be competitive. Hence steel and coal in Britain is unlikely to be competitive when it is in competition with state subsidised products from other countries. Why would I imagine that companies like those are state subsidised?


British coal was in competition with coal from South Africa and Australia at a third the price, none of it state-subsidised.



> Being from County Durham, your knowledge of local geography appears to be limited. Appledore is in Devon.


I'm not sure the local geography of Durham extends that far to the south west. However, I think I could still have foreseen what happened to the shipworkers.


> Where would an unemployed skilled steel maker from Redcar go? Where would an engine fitter from South Bank go? Where would they retrain? As what? Where would they get the money from to move, and where to? It's all very well advising people to learn new skills and move elsewhere if one has enough money to do so one's self, but it wouldn't be easy without money behind one already.


People who want to, get on. 


> An example. A 24 year old lad from Marske, with a First in Maths from Durham has been unemployed for 3 years because he can't find a job in the area in which he lives. He can't afford to learn to drive, not at £25 plus an hour for lessons and usually 30 hours to be fit for the test, but couldn't afford a car, or the insurance, anyway. He can't afford the train to London if offered an interview, and couldn't afford even a room to live in if offered a job there anyway. His widowed mother, who has a grown up daughter with cerebral palsy can't afford to lend him money, as she can barely afford to support her family as it is. Any suggestions? Get on his bike? Sink or swim?


What a tale of misery. I feel he would benefit from a kick up the backside, rather than driving lessons. If he managed to get a good degree from Durham in a proper subject, finding a well-paid job should be fairly straightforward at the moment, even if he has to hitch a ride to London and sleep on someone's sofa for a few weeks. I feel sorry for his mother - he is adding to her burden when he could help, if he was motivated to.



> Indeed they are, but it means that we, as a nation, have no security as far as key industries are concerned, whilst European governments, for example, have taken care to ensure that key strategic industries are under state control, and thus state protection. If the global price of gas, or steel, or coal, or electricity rises, we're effectively buggered, whilst Germany, France etc will still have state protected key industries.


Yes, the European economies are very well run; unemployment rates are, oh 26% in Greece, 25% in Spain, 10% in France, 12% in Italy ...


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/poli...on-old-enough-for-the-tax-chat-20160407107815


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## Odradek (Sep 1, 2011)

Chouan said:


> https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/poli...on-old-enough-for-the-tax-chat-20160407107815


I only wish someone had given me that sort of chat years ago.


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## Haffman (Oct 11, 2010)

Langham said:


> This doesn't affect my estimation of David Cameron; it is his attitude over Europe that I find insupportable, not the fact that his father had concealed wealth.


Ageee 100% on your Europe point but I find the tax avoidance subject disastateful too. I am embarrassed that I ever voted Tory in the past. I would now prefer the proverbial pigs bladder on a stick to Cameron or any of his cronies...


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Langham said:


> British coal was in competition with coal from South Africa and Australia at a third the price, none of it state-subsidised.


And most of all from Poland, which was, and still is, state subsidised, and which we were importing.



Langham said:


> People who want to, get on.





Langham said:


> What a tale of misery. I feel he would benefit from a kick up the backside, rather than driving lessons. If he managed to get a good degree from Durham in a proper subject, finding a well-paid job should be fairly straightforward at the moment, even if he has to hitch a ride to London and sleep on someone's sofa for a few weeks. I feel sorry for his mother - he is adding to her burden when he could help, if he was motivated to.


It's always refreshing to see a wealthy man, from a wealthy background (how else could private education, including boarding, be afforded) being judgemental about the poor, blaming them for the situation that they've been put in.



Langham said:


> Yes, the European economies are very well run; unemployment rates are, oh 26% in Greece, 25% in Spain, 10% in France, 12% in Italy ...


Germany? Which is the most protective of its heavy industry? 4.7% unemployment. Of course, *our* unemployment figures are cleverly disguised with only those unemployed "and claiming benefits" being included. By keeping kids in school until they're 18, and then encouraging them to go to university, there's a vast number of people aged 16-21 who would be unemployed were they not pointlessly, in education. Then there are those in "apprenticeships", where they are earning £2 an hour until their "apprenticeship" is completed, when, instead of stepping into a proper job, they are "let go" and replaced by another sucker.

In any case, your argument that people should abandon their communities, move away from their families, from their homes and from their culture and society, is what has caused the serious social problems that we have now. It isn't immigration that has caused social dislocation, it was the deliberate destruction of Britain's society for ideological reasons.

As a final note, whether your remark was meant to be witty, or was through ignorance, or contempt, there is a lot more to shipbuilding than "men wielding hammers and beating pieces of iron". Shipbuilding, and large scale engineering (like building the Sydney Harbour Bridge) may have been hard, and at times unpleasant, work, but it gave the workers immense pride in having created something worthwhile, at every level, from the designers to the platers. People knew that there was work if they wanted it, whatever their level of education and talent, and gainful employment in a community that valued it made for a positive self-regulating society. Most of the social problems in the North East, for example, where immigration is minimal, simply didn't exist before the deliberate closing of the heavy industries. Then, to be perceived as a successful young man meant one who worked and provided for his family, now, to be perceived as a successful young man they are more likely to be a drug dealer.


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## Odradek (Sep 1, 2011)

Haffman said:


> Ageee 100% on your Europe point but I find the tax avoidance subject disastateful too. I am embarrassed that I ever voted Tory in the past. I would now prefer the proverbial pigs bladder on a stick to Cameron or any of his cronies...


I've never voted Conservative, but Cameron is not really a Tory though, and never has been.
Just a continuation of Blair's New Labour with a blue tie. Both were run by outside forces.
He has sunk the party.

On the tax issue, while he may have done nothing illegal, it's the cover up and the hypocrisy that grate.
Hopefully it has holed him and his traitorous remain campaign below the waterline.

But while we get a full expose of Cameron's father's tax affairs, the media are still quite reticent to go after the Milibands, Tony Benn, or Margaret Hodge, for their own, legal, though somewhat tricky tax issues.

Labour's Chris Bryant, who apparently was getting very vocal in condemnation of Cameron on last night's BBC Question Time, has gone to ground on his own tax matters.


> Labour MP Chris Bryant yesterday refused to answer detailed questions about tax payments he may have made in connection with three homes he has sold.


I'd venture that many, if not most of these MPs are checking their closets for skeletons.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Haffman said:


> Ageee 100% on your Europe point but I find the tax avoidance subject disastateful too. I am embarrassed that I ever voted Tory in the past. I would now prefer the proverbial pigs bladder on a stick to Cameron or any of his cronies...


This morning's headlines will, I think, change a lot of minds about Cameron. He has been going down in my estimation for some time, and I now see him as merely the third in a line of Scotsmen who have been intent, for obscure reasons I cannot explain, on selling England down the river.



Chouan said:


> It's always refreshing to see a wealthy man, from a wealthy background (how else could private education, including boarding, be afforded) being judgemental about the poor, blaming them for the situation that they've been put in.


I'll be 60 in a few years' time and I'm still having to work for a living, ergo I'm not wealthy. When I was the same age as the young man you wrote about I was very poor so of course I can be judgemental about him. I think you should give the young man a good talking to; what was the point in him going to university if at the end of it he was merely going to live parasitically at home?



> Germany? Which is the most protective of its heavy industry? 4.7% unemployment.


Yes, the Germans have a very successful economy; now that they are in control of the euro, they can set the exchange rate to favour their exports, even if that means the poor Greeks and Spanish suffer for it. However, it would be wrong to characterise their economy as one that is reliant on state aid - their most successful companies are all large privately owned businesses.



> Of course, *our* unemployment figures are cleverly disguised with only those unemployed "and claiming benefits" being included. By keeping kids in school until they're 18, and then encouraging them to go to university, there's a vast number of people aged 16-21 who would be unemployed were they not pointlessly, in education.


Perhaps ... and think also of the teachers who are thereby needlessly employed.



> In any case, your argument that people should abandon their communities, move away from their families, from their homes and from their culture and society, is what has caused the serious social problems that we have now.


Is this about immigration? I'm certainly against that...



> As a final note, whether your remark was meant to be witty, or was through ignorance, or contempt, there is a lot more to shipbuilding than "men wielding hammers and beating pieces of iron". Shipbuilding, and large scale engineering (like building the Sydney Harbour Bridge) may have been hard, and at times unpleasant, work, but it gave the workers immense pride in having created something worthwhile, at every level, from the designers to the platers. People knew that there was work if they wanted it, whatever their level of education and talent, and gainful employment in a community that valued it made for a positive self-regulating society.


I agree that work is a necessary, and quite often deeply fulfilling, facet of life. However, it's a facile argument that employment should therefore be provided for communities when there is no economic rationale for it.

Just as an aside, my great-grandfather (Scots-Irish side) was one of the designers of the Sydney Harbour bridge. He fell off it during the course of construction. The shock left him with diabetes for the rest of his life.


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

Langham said:


> I'll be 60 in a few years' time and I'm still having to work for a living, ergo I'm not wealthy. When I was the same age as the young man you wrote about I was very poor so of course I can be judgemental about him.
> 
> Yes, the Germans have a very successful economy; now that they are in control of the euro
> 
> Perhaps ... and think also of the teachers who are thereby needlessly employed.


Not only would a 60something have had no tuition fees on a degree 'back in the day', he would have received a grant which was subject to parental income. His degree would be useful in obtaining employment - regardless of subject - as there were fewer graduates and more jobs. 
Back in the day, you could leave a job in the morning and have another lined up by the afternoon. Employers would fund interview expenses. There was no such thing as an unpaid 'intern', though tales were told of articled clerks who had to pay their employer back in 'the bad old days'.

The German economy has been strong for a very long time - well before the introduction of the euro.

Education has now been turned into a complete racket. It is an industry on the up. There is a principal at a higher education college near me on £300,000 per annum. I am not sure how this benefits either the students or the country.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

^ It's true, I received a student grant then*. My recollection of that period (late 70s) was that for many people, it was actually quite hard to get a good job. It was a much more laborious process then, before the internet and mobile phones made such things easy - lots of letter-writing and then waiting. The economy was also on the ropes, which didn't help.

* I was much poorer when I was no longer a student, but sharing a squalid flat in the World's End - very poor indeed.


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## SG_67 (Mar 22, 2014)

Kingstonian said:


> Education has now been turned into a complete racket. It is an industry on the up. There is a principal at a higher education college near me on £300,000 per annum. I am not sure how this benefits either the students or the country.


The cost of higher education in this country is even worse. Universities have become large, bloated and inefficient bureaucracies with more emphasis on getting Federal money and donations as opposed to their core function.

I went to med school just over 20 years ago. Tuition was, if I remember, $12-15k / year. It is now $60k/year. I'm not sure why.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Indeed, the good old days. When I applied for my first job, in 1974, I had my pick, I decided which one I wanted. When I decided to go to sea I wrote to 5 companies, all of whom offered me at least an interview, two of them offered me a job without an interview. When I applied to the RN, either I was so ideal to them, or they were desperate, as I was offered an interview board at my convenience. Mind you, as a qualified navigating officer at sea they were probably aware of the difficulties I might have had in getting to an interview board. 
The shipyards and the steelworks and the engineering works all had apprenticeships that led to proper paid employment, with a chance to climb the ladder of promotion. From the shipyard, once time-served as an engine fitter, ie building ship's engines, one could go to sea as a Junior Engineer, with a career ladder that led to shore based management, if one wanted it, and was capable of doing so. Even without a degree, if one could write well, one could get a job as a "cub reporter" on a local newspaper and work one's way up in journalism, eventually, in one was good enough, getting a place on a national newspaper. Now one works in London as an unpaid intern, supported by one's parents, if they can afford it, on the promise of a job at some point. The opportunities were many. There was also plenty of unskilled work for those without aptitude and ability to do anything else.
Now, the low grade, and low paid, jobs are done by graduates, who don't necessarily have worthless degrees, and the people with limited ability or aptitude are abandoned by society. No wonder crime rates and drug use are so high!
Of course, those who are skillful enough to have been born with right parents, parents with sufficient money and the right connections, can find well paid employment without much problem, and can then sneer at the feckless indigent poor and blame them for not making the most of the opportunities that they've not had.
Some people, of course, have always had the ability to get on, by good luck and good judgement, but those with an enterprising ability now, who don't have those parental advantages, no longer aspire to run a small business, but aspire to being gangsters and drug dealers.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Kingstonian said:


> Education has now been turned into a complete racket. It is an industry on the up. There is a principal at a higher education college near me on £300,000 per annum. I am not sure how this benefits either the students or the country.


Indeed, our current government has removed the controls on numbers of students that used to ensure that only those with ability got to university. Now universities run, as you suggest, purely as businesses, keen to get as many students in as possible, teach them as cheaply as possible, using graduate students paid by the hour on zero hours contracts, encouraged to do by the state, as it keeps the numbers of unemployed down. At the same time, of course, as you point out, the pay scales of senior management go up and up. Despite this, Cambridge still sends me begging letters every few months, inviting me to make a donation.

Our current government has announced that all schools are to become academies, that is run by private companies. Not because it makes education better, but it does three things. 1) Takes them out of the control of local authorities, who don't always do as central government tells them. 2) Puts them under the direct control of central government, which will make it easier for central government to dictate the curriculum. 3) Puts them in the hands of "entrepreneurs" who make a packet by paying themselves enormous salaries, whilst reducing the money that the actual schools get. They also help themselves to other lucrative contracts, of course, so that a "not for profit" organisation doesn't itself make a profit, but it's senior management make a fortune!https://www.theguardian.com/educati...te-firms-schools-education-revealed-education https://www.telegraph.co.uk/educati...ademy-chains-from-taking-on-more-schools.html https://schoolsweek.co.uk/academy-ceo-pay-how-the-biggest-trusts-stack-up/ But never mind, academies good, LEA schools bad..... 
4) Academies can emply people to teach who aren't qualified teachers, and who don't even have to have a degree in the subject they teach. Obviously, unqualified teachers are much cheaper to employ! 5) Probably the real reason, Academies aren't subject to the National Teachers Pay Scale, and can, we are told, offer incentives to attract teachers by offering higher rates. Really? LEA schools can already offer incentives to attract teachers, and have been able to do so at least since I qualified in 1999, having twice been offered considerable sums, to me, to go to a particular school. The real reason is, of course, that if the Academy Chain isn't tied to the NTPS they can pay less that the Nationally agreed rate! Ba$tards.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/poli...lishes-nectar-points-statement-20160412107952


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