lazyred

I dont think it will be.Rachel Reeves in the Times this morning says Labour will be more pro business than Blair with another hint about watering down the workers rights proposals.

Me too I could decide to travel by train with no notice, I'd know the fare and I could jump on any train that was going my way.

Stonewall have had to correct their lie about the research included in the Cass report. I hope the likes of Billy Bragg Dawn Butler and the Scottish Greens will push the correction as quickly as they pushed the lies.

The whole interview is worth watching. There's more than just bashing the Tories

That might be better. I was coming from having electable leaders but I agree Prime Ministers should not be picked by members without an election.

Its the same for all parties, the members aren't representive of voters. MP's should choose leaders.

The unfinished business includes abolishing the Supreme Court, the human rights act and the OBR.

I think labour Lords said they wouldn't oppose it indefinitely. The govt is in talks with other countries for similar deals: Armenia, Ivory Coast, Costa Rica and Botswana,

Its healthy to check other news sources, you dont have to agree with them. Just reading the Guardian or tailored social media distorts your view of the world. At the moment the Sun has good political reporting and their recent online interviews are worth watching. The Mail is still as bad as you'd expect.

This time it might have been leaked by the witness himself becuase there is bad blood between them. According to the Sunday Times he's Matt Finnegan who used to work for Rayner. He sued her for unfair dismassal and disability discrimination. She paid him off but made him sign an NDA which isn't great. He then wrote a "fictional" novel about a northern female union offical who becomes a senior Labour MP nicknamed the Diva.

The BMJ cover this https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj.q837 One emerging criticism of the Cass review is that it set the methodological bar too high for research to be included in its analysis and discarded too many studies on the basis of quality. In fact, the reality is different: studies in gender medicine fall woefully short in terms of methodological rigour; the methodological bar for gender medicine studies was set too low, generating research findings that are therefore hard to interpret. The methodological quality of research matters because a drug efficacy study in humans with an inappropriate or no control group is a potential breach of research ethics. Offering treatments without an adequate understanding of benefits and harms is unethical. All of this matters even more when the treatments are not trivial; puberty blockers and hormone therapies are major, life altering interventions. Yet this inconclusive and unacceptable evidence base was used to inform influential clinical guidelines, such as those of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which themselves were cascaded into the development of subsequent guidelines internationally

Just read a possible reason why Rayner reported she lived apart from her husband. She bought the council house at a discount in 2007. If she moved out in 2010 to live with her husband she would have to repay some of the discount. If true its more serious than the tax allegation.

Yep no press coverage at all for Wragg.

The worst thing about this story is how people who rightly call out every Tory scandal are saying Labour shouldn't be scrutinised.

Thats right but they are all getting mixed up now and its bringing bad publicity. The police investigation is the first item on the midday BBC1 news.

Its all self inflicted. The Electoral fraud and Council Tax fraud investigations started when she said she lived with her brother . She has now switched to saying the cost of home improvements offset the capital gains. If she took tax advice as she claims then she could have said this weeks ago without saying where she lived.

Yes and in the past research trying to establish what happens has been shut down by trans activists.

No every little helps, just that the people you think will pay won't be the ones that do pay. Try this https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/09/how-realistic-labour-aspiration-cut-tax-gap-5bn-rachel-reeves

It's just every Govt promises to crack down and the missing proportion stays the same. A proper crackdown will hit more people like Rayner and very few like Ashcroft. To raise large amounts everyone has to pay a bit more. If we keep the tax allowance freeze until 2028 it will raise 33Bn extra that year.

Cracking down on tax evasion means going after small businesses not the rich. From June 2023 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tax-gap-holds-steady-at-48 Further findings for the 2021 to 2022 tax gap publication show: at 56% (£20.2 billion), small businesses represent the largest proportion of the tax gap by group, followed by criminals, large businesses and mid-sized businesses at 11% each (£4.1 billion, £3.9 billion and £3.8 billion respectively) wealthy individuals account for 5% (£1.7 billion) while all other individuals account for the remaining 6% (£2.1 billion) of the overall tax gap Income Tax, National Insurance contributions and Capital Gains Tax makes up 35% (£12.7 billion) of the total tax gap when measured by type of tax Corporation Tax (CT) is now estimated as the second largest component of the tax gap by tax type at 30% (£10.6 billion). New data has increased our understanding of the CT tax gap, resulting in revised estimates the VAT gap continues a long-term downward trend falling from 14.0% (£11.9 billion) in 2005 to 2006 to 5.4% (£7.6 billion)

The Tories have spent the Nom Dom taxes Somehow a bit extra on Nom Dom is going to find 5Bn more. Compared to Europe UK income tax on the top earners is already simialr and on the middle/low earners quite low. This is because we take less from social taxes (National Insurance) and have a high tax free allowance. We can tax unearned income and property or wealth more and increase NI eg reverse the recent cut or make pensioners pay it. However taxing to European levels will mean more from middle earners. https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/how-do-uk-tax-revenues-compare-internationally?tab=tab-402

This link concludes its better overall to preserve exisitng forests even though new trees absorn more carbon. https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-many-new-trees-would-we-need-offset-our-carbon-emissions

Wouldn't that release carbon?

Yes but the funny thing in this case is that she didn't need to live apart from her family to avoid the tax. This post from Feb quoted earlier is about the tax rules. https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/02/29/rayner/ If she is telling the truth or lied she may still have owed tax. A married couple with multiple houses can nominate one as the main residence regardless of where they mainly live. If you don't nominate an assumption is made. The deliberate tax avoiders know the rules and flip their houses. It all looks like a mistake she could have cleared up weeks ago and the attempted cover up made things worse.

Hebden Bridge Trades Club, thanks for the tip