General Election 2024: Gone on the 4th of July

The tax thing is bollocks (we have similar arrangements with other countries, but none of them are anywhere near as poor or as bent as India) but overall it doesn't sound all that terrible at the moment. Where it could become severely shit is in terms of how many more people can scam their way over as 'chefs' and whatever other visa routes have opened up, and whatever comes of the carbon tax negotiations, because exempting their filthy industries from anything like that whilst we shoot ourselves in the foot would be genuinely laughable. Overall I just wonder what the point of it is beyond pretending trade agreements are the be all and end all. India has nothing to offer us (slightly cheaper rice and pennies of clothes wow), but we seem to think they will be clamouring to use our services.

IT industry nervously looking on.

Finally seeing Brexit benefits and able to negotiate better trade deals without the EU. Onwards💪

Just had an email from the hospital CEO about the Trust's voluntary redundancy scheme which they started offering recently. It contains the incredible line " I’m pleased to tell you that we had more than 350 replies." :lol:

We also regularly get emails asking us for ideas about how the trust can save money (maybe stop paying the useless wankers you've employed to save money who are emailing the cleaners asking for ideas).

Trusts are literally on the brink of financial collapse.

Why would Indians pay NI? They aren't drawing a pension here and need to pay to use the NHS (it's in the VISA).

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Originally Posted by AJ23

Why would Indians pay NI? They aren't drawing a pension here and need to pay to use the NHS (it's in the VISA).

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Why do I pay NI? I'm not drawing a pension. The NHS is mostly funded by Tax, not NI.

NI mostly just pays benefits. CURRENT benefits. The NI you pay isn't held in a pot for when you retire.

Aye, but your NI contributions create your future pension entitlement. If you come to the UK to work for 3 years then leave those contributions are of no value to you as you need 10 or 15 years or whatever it is. If you come and then stay can you make retrospective voluntary contributions if you want to build a pension entitlement? It all seems a bit of a fuss over nothing, I'm sure there are worse bits of that deal to get upset about.

Obviously terrible 'optics' though which is all that matters in modern policy making.

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Originally Posted by niko_cee

Aye, but your NI contributions create your future pension entitlement. If you come to the UK to work for 3 years then leave those contributions are of no value to you as you need 10 or 15 years or whatever it is. If you come and then stay can you make retrospective voluntary contributions if you want to build a pension entitlement? It all seems a bit of a fuss over nothing, I'm sure there are worse bits of that deal to get upset about.

Obviously terrible 'optics' though which is all that matters in modern policy making.

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"Why should I pay to fund schools, I don't have kids" is a whinge as old as time.

Aye, but there is a conceptual ring fence around NI even if that's not what actually happens in practice.

It's why it isn't all just income tax.

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Originally Posted by Spikey M

"Why should I pay to fund schools, I don't have kids" is a whinge as old as time.

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Some yank bombed a school over it in the early 20th century: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster

Not his fault but Sir Kier’s big trade deal getting mugged off by the new Pope is just the kind of luck you don’t need when you’ve been as shit as Labour have been over the past few months.

Not sure of the wisdom of launching it on VE Day if it really is a big deal.

Prediction: Starmer hails his trade deal as a big thing and boasts about being the first etc and then other countries will end up getting better deals.