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| UK National Debt | |
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| Topic Started: 7 Dec 2009, 07:45 PM (413 Views) | |
| abertawe | 7 Dec 2009, 07:45 PM Post #1 |
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This is an interesting way for Gordon to reduce the UK National Debt :dur: http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/new-uk-airline-tax-hits-australia-hard/story-e6frfq80-1225807562365 |
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| Davyfella | 7 Dec 2009, 08:16 PM Post #2 |
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That's why we are by passing UK completely in april when we fly home to Belfast. Flights via Abu dhabi direct to Dublin, saves all of the Asian and UK taxes completely. |
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| Amanda & Simon | 7 Dec 2009, 10:02 PM Post #3 |
Braiiiiiinnnss
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I wondered about this when the mad snot gobbler first mentioned it. Surely there's some money to be saved by jumping on the Eurostar and flying via Charles de Gaulle. Didn't think of flying via Ireland but for Wales, the west, the midlands and bits of the north it looks as promising as channel hopping for people in the bottom right hand corner. Makes you wonder why they want a third runway at Heathrow when the government seems hell bent on getting people to piss off and fly from someone else's airports. :mah: |
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| Petals | 8 Dec 2009, 07:22 AM Post #4 |
A phenomenon
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Would have thought UK wanted all the tourists it could get at the present time, nice deterrant. We fly over next year have paid and booked already. |
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| koalakim | 8 Dec 2009, 08:40 AM Post #5 |
Legend
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They announced this when I was over in the UK in the Summer and no one was happy about it.....the airlines moaned as their yields are down already, the other airports moaned about it, passengers moaned about it so the only people happy were the Muppets in charge. The thing that really GETS MY GOAT... is that how long do you actually fly in UK airspace when you take off from Heathrow....a WHOLE 10 MINUTES!!! (Okay I know the UK then suffers the pollution from taking-off....) How many other countries do you fly over on a flight to UK to Oz...and who gets the extra revenue .....yes the one you fly over least! My immediate reaction was to fly to Paris and get the Eurostar over which I'd happily do if we didn't have to lug so much camera equipment around! It's expensive enough to go to visit the folks without this added amount - grumble, grumble.............. |
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| Amanda & Simon | 8 Dec 2009, 09:22 AM Post #6 |
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Braiiiiiinnnss
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Does it affect people travelling to the UK? I had the idea it was UK residents getting hammered for trying to get out of the place for a bit. Or is there a tax/charge/fine/levy applied to visitors on their return flights? |
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| RUNTOTHESUN | 8 Dec 2009, 09:24 AM Post #7 |
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I expect there will be a few more taxes before long, they have to get the money in from somewhere!!!!!!Thank goodness we were fortunate enough to be able to make the move over here. |
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| koalakim | 8 Dec 2009, 09:48 AM Post #8 |
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Legend
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Oh yes, in the form of passenger departure tax! All airports have taxes for leaving but of course good old Blighty has an extra one imposed by Her Majesty's Muppets! |
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| Amanda & Simon | 8 Dec 2009, 04:03 PM Post #9 |
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Braiiiiiinnnss
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So is the tax for a UK->Oz->UK flight higher than Oz->UK->Oz? That seemed to be the gist of the article - that the Aussie tourist trade was bitching because the snot gobbler's taxes would damage tourism here in Australia by putting off British people from flying this far. Presumably it's not reciprocal so an Aussie (or expat) would only have their trousers taken down on the return flight leaving from a UK airport, though again that's still a reason for coming home to Oz via France or Ireland. |
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| koalakim | 8 Dec 2009, 04:23 PM Post #10 |
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Legend
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Not necessarily as Aussie taxes are also quite high to leave this country! I'm looking at a SIA flight in May $1300 flight with $600 taxes but wait for this........same flight LHR to MEL 356 pounds with 339 taxes!!!!!! Quite often I've paid more in tax to go to Europe than I have the flight. So SIA to Mel is $1900 which at the current dismal rate (1.79) is 1061 pounds and same flight but originating from London is 695 pounds - so we proportionally pay less taxes but still being ripped off somewhere along the line! So the Brits are still better off than us lot. Paris may not be the answer as it was only marginally cheaper and you've still got Eurostar on top. Maybe the new tax hasn't kicked in yet.....maybe I should be booking soon! KK |
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| Petals | 8 Dec 2009, 05:13 PM Post #11 |
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A phenomenon
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We have always had the wrong end of the stick here but I guess we are used to it. If we want to go we have to pay, we are going in May and have booked with Singapore. Only one that did not want to charge us more for a stop over. We have done the good deal stuff in the past when we had the children to pay for but fortunately that is no longer the case. |
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| Amanda & Simon | 8 Dec 2009, 06:17 PM Post #12 |
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Braiiiiiinnnss
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Not much in it then. According to our currency exchange widget £339 at the moment is $609.631. Still, IMO still worthwhile to avoid the purgatory of Heathrow. |
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| brady bunch | 8 Dec 2009, 08:01 PM Post #13 |
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Is this really all about the environment? Will money actually be spent on helping reduce carbon emmissions and if so, how? I really do think that we should be told exactly how this money is being spent. I would feel better about the situation if we were told that the money was going to buy areas of rain forest; instead it just feels like it's going into the massive yawning chasm that is the UK's financial situation. Cynical, moi? |
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| koalakim | 9 Dec 2009, 07:19 AM Post #14 |
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Legend
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Course not....it's all about fleecing everyone to help repair the big black hole in the UK finances GB and his merry band of muppets have created! I've just been reading on Thisismoney Darlings proposed "claw back the money" possible strategy......reminds me of Alan Rickman's Sherriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood....taxes, taxes and Christmas is cancelled! It would appear that all the money you are saving in your mortgage payments at the moment will be diverted to the national coffers. Looks like he is planning a VAT rise to 20%, 50% tax rate, more NI on employers, Wealth taxes if your assets are over 1m squid, freezing inhertitance tax and also if you end up paying the 50% tax that's what you'll be paying instead of the current 40% tax oh and he might abolish the 7 year gift thing and make it 14 years - so our parents had better hand over their houses/funds well before they get old! Anyway, it was all good reading and there doesn't seem any incentive to even think about going back! That's of course if you can get a job to pay for all those taxes! I do think they have to be hard to get themselves out of the current mess but why not crack down on all the waste in public services, bludgers on benefits and benefits as a whole and not keep taxing the middle of the road bods like us! Anyway, will be interesting to see what affect his speech today has on the pound. Pound dived yesterday on static industrial output figures but then climbed a bit when some "body" reckons the economy grew in December - which I find funny as we are only 9 days into Dec....however, if it helps the pound then bring it on! What I also find funny is that they are talking about a tad of growth for 2010 and yet Aberzijan (spelling!!!) economy is due to grow by 6.8% next year.....lets all move there or many their finance minister could help Darlek out? |
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| Amanda & Simon | 9 Dec 2009, 10:25 AM Post #15 |
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Braiiiiiinnnss
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F***ing genius. VAT is levied on some essentials too so there is little choice but to pay it, and so for people on a low income it's already a nasty regressive tax that makes just getting by that little bit harder. Want to stay warm in winter or be able to get yourself to your low paid wage slave job? You're going to pay VAT somewhere aren't you? And the party who claim they care most about the poor are going to put it up? :mah: And at the same time they've got an already announced 50% income tax rate, and when you include NI the marginal rate is higher still, which is already making the well off think about leaving the country. :mah: And now they're going to add a "being minted" tax on millionaires, the people who would find it easiest of all to pack up and piss off because the wealthy have been going into tax exile for years anyway :mah: Plus the inheritance tax ideas... hey, maybe he's not mad after all. Maybe he thinks Cameron will win the next election so the plan is to bugger up the Tories for money by driving as many taxpayers out of the country as he can?:yeap: Yep. They could start with the quangos. A quick google found an article in the Guardian that said quangos cost £64 billion and another in the Telegraph that said income tax receipts are about £150 billion. Ditch the lot of 'em IMO. Some of the quangos probably do jobs that really do need to be done but before the quango was created they'd have been done by a government department answerable to a minister of an elected government, so why not go back to that? The rest look like talking shops and industry promoters, and can all burn off. If what they do is important the various industries they're involved with can fund them out of their profits, and if industries don't think it's worth coughing up then they probably weren't doing anything productive anyway. |
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| koalakim | 9 Dec 2009, 12:20 PM Post #16 |
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Legend
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Ah yes, they were also talking about adding VAT to some non-vatable items as well. Not sure about the next election there has been some mutterings about a hung parliament which would be soooooo good for the country...not! |
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| Amanda & Simon | 9 Dec 2009, 05:29 PM Post #17 |
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Braiiiiiinnnss
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Actually I think it could be good. Well, maybe not good, but the Tories make me want Labour, Labour makes me want the Tories and the Lib Dems make me want to batter them to death with a dictionary open at the definition of 'liberal'. AFAIC all three have at least one absolute deal breaker, so barring some incredibly unlikely result involving a coalition of minor parties and the electorate telling the usual thieving bastards to far cough a hung parliament is probably the best option. At least there's scope for them buggering up the place even more, and maybe people would even get to like governments who aren't able to do things easily. Unfortunately both the Tories and Labour, and the LibDems to a lesser extent, have got millions of loyal supporters who can be relied upon to vote for anyone/anything that shows up with the right coloured rosette on, so I'm not hopeful that if there is a hung parliament it'd be more than a one off. |
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| brady bunch | 9 Dec 2009, 07:52 PM Post #18 |
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Scary future forecasts for UK - makes me want to throw myself on the floor with my fingers in my ears and singing so I don't have to listen (works for toddlers!). True what you say A&S about quangos, surely their days are numbered. Also, I watched a documentary last year about a very successful, self-made millionaire (presume he will be buggering off from the UK then) called Robinson who became an observer at grass roots within the NHS. He was absolutely astonished at the inefficiency and downright money leaking that goes on. In the end, he managed to arrange funding for turning a spare room into a further operating theatre as it was just standing empty. There were never operations at weekends as, well, there never had been because the surgeons only worked weekdays. He again helped them arrange funding for further staff to cover these periods and therefore got the waiting lists way down and in turn attracted more funding. He was astonished at the "well it's always been done this way" attitude and the fact that no one questioned anything. I love the NHS, but know what he means. I have been in hospital so many times and waited hours for a doctor to have a final check - it could have freed up a bed hours before. One of his suggestions was a "floating" doctor to discharge patients. One good thing could come out of this mess and that is that workers become more imaginative and forward-thinking and try to find solutions and not problems. Would be nice. I looked up the thisismoney thing Kim thanks (er, I think). I googled on Tobin Tax as it relates to tax on foreign exchange transactions and my stomach sank until I realised it referred to short term speculators etc and not on the likes of expats trying to release their capital - hopefully. I wouldn't be surprised though if they expand it to include us as this all seems to be a big conspiracy to make our lives as hard as possible at the moment (sticks out bottom lip in self-pity). Holy c@*p Batman we're all buggered really. On polling day I think I'm going to do Eeny Meeny Miney Mo and just choose a party like that. However, I will be leaving Labour out. |
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| Amanda & Simon | 9 Dec 2009, 08:15 PM Post #19 |
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Braiiiiiinnnss
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brady bunch, true about the NHS, though unlike you I have little love for it. Admiration for the nurses and doctors in general, but not the institution which wanted to keep me cooped me up for three days after a minor op in a filthy ward before sending me home with a secondary infection. Actually I exaggerate - I called Amanda to come and get me and I discharged myself after two days, but the secondary infection was very real and despite a shedload of antibiotics it took a year and a half for the incision to heal. In fact it was never right and I ended up getting it re-done here at the Alfred. The place gleamed and looked like you could eat off the floors, and I was right as rain in a month. More to the point that you made about bed space, for the same op that the NHS wanted me in for three days the Alfred admitted me at two in the afternoon and called Amanda to come and get me around six thirty. That night I wasn't taking up a bed that someone might have really needed simply because they sent me home. Keeping me in was the NHS option because, as far as I could see, that's just the way they do it in the NHS. The people at the Alfred just said I was young and fairly healthy and providing I could keep a ham sandwich and some water down after the GA there was no point making me stay. |
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| brady bunch | 9 Dec 2009, 09:27 PM Post #20 |
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Horrendous experience, but not uncommon Simon (hope you're all sorted). My Dad picked up MRSA in hospital and on a follow-up op, when he pointed out that he had it (you become a permanent carrier apparently) they said not to worry and put him in a general ward! I dispair. Sorry to bore, and going off subject, but I also had an experience at our Casualty one Saturday night. Our then 4 year old was in quite a bit of trouble and was throwing up for England. I asked at Reception if there was a cleaner available or if they had anything I could clean it up with and was told no and no. Bless her, she did produce a packet of tissues from her own handbag. I ended up leaving him in his pushchair (by then asleep) and walking the length of the corridor to the ladies loo. I had to make two trips as I ran out of paper towels and when I came back someone had sat down and unbecknownst to them his feet were in the remnants of his sick. Gawd. I complained and was given the standard "we at this health trust believe in patient satisfaction" blah, blah. I refused to be fobbed off and complained many times. In the end I had a letter from the Litigation Department who assumed I wanted to sue! WTF? I said that I didn't want money and that I merely wanted a procedure implemented to help with their infection control procedures. I then received a letter outlining action that would be taken, including names of staff who were to become responsible for this issue, along with dates and times of meetings that would be held. A caretaker would also be made available to the department thereafter. Just shows that had I so wanted, they would have wasted yet more money paying me off, rather than actually acting on my complaint. Hopefully I'll never have cause to check on whether or not all this actually happened, but if it hasn't, then there will be hell. |
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| Amanda & Simon | 10 Dec 2009, 01:08 AM Post #21 |
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Braiiiiiinnnss
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brady bunch, yes fine now, apart from briefly turning into a shopping bag - they said I was a carrier then too*. The Alfred did a great job and the follow up care at home from whatever they call the district nurses here was excellent. The only silly thing - waste again - was that they gave me a heap of dressings, aquacel, tubes of saline, and scissors and tweezers, all sealed in sterile packets. We had quite a bit left over and when I went to the Alfred to try to give the leftovers back nobody was interested :dur: I mean, probably only $40-50 worth, but even if they got back that much from one patient in fifty they'd save an absolute arseload of money each year on those sorts of supplies. In the end I found a nurses station and just leaned over and put the bag of bits on the desk, as a result of which I am sure some hospital bean counter whined that the inventory was wrong. * I'll get me coat. |
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| koalakim | 10 Dec 2009, 07:38 AM Post #22 |
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Legend
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Going back to the National Debt seems Darleks speech didn't exactly tell us how he was going to tackle the debt...typical politician! Taxes up which.........hey guess what - sent the pound tumbling because people have less money to spend to get the economy going! Talk about a catch 22 situation all the time! Do Labour really want to win the next election? Having created such a financial mess at the moment and no actual strategy of getting out of it - wouldn't they just want to slip away and "spend more time with family" and let the Tories pick up the mess? It would seem there was little confidence in his "plan" yesterday so if they get back in I can't see the pound improving at all. BoE speech today....please, please do not do anymore QE otherwise down we go again! |
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| Amanda & Simon | 10 Dec 2009, 12:54 PM Post #23 |
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Braiiiiiinnnss
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Why would any of them want to win the next election? Talk about poisoned chalices - if David Cameron isn't planning to play to lose he must be either daft, mad or so desperate for power that he just doesn't care. I can't see how it can be cleaned up in just one parliamentary term. It's not just the economic stuff but all these horrible little laws that were supposed to be used against terrorists and organised crime but are actually being used against dog walkers, parents, children, drivers, photographers, lovers... just about anyone really, and with the potential to be used against the whole country all at once. Unless of course Cameron has no plans to rip up those laws because the Tories have been giving thought as to how they might use them... And just like the Liberals here the Lib Dems seem to be liberal in name only (possibly the same applies to the democratic bit). If that's not a good reason to vote for small parties and independents instead of the usual crew of bastards I don't know what is.Don't hold your breath. They've found something that has worked elsewhere and they're damn well going to stick with it in the hopes that it'll work for the UK now, preferably before the 3rd of June when Gordon's lease is up for renewal. |
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| koalakim | 10 Dec 2009, 01:02 PM Post #24 |
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Legend
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It's all just such a mess! You're right in the fact that one term isn't going to make any huge in roads into the debt - it will probably still be going on for the grandkids at this rate. All I know is that the pound has dropped 2 cents since his speech.....thanks mate! |
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| Amanda & Simon | 10 Dec 2009, 01:21 PM Post #25 |
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Braiiiiiinnnss
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Grandkids might be a bit optimistic. The quoted national debt misses out a few things and apparently it's really a hell of a lot higher than they say it is. I can't recall the details but there was something on one of the newspaper websites about it a few months ago. I think it said either the real national debt figure is three times what they're admitting to or three times GDP, and when you're talking that sort of money it really doesn't matter which - either way it's way too high and sooner or later some very large and nasty looking chickens are going to come home to roost. |
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7:49 AM Sep 5
