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Oh dear Rayban - can'teven admit when you were wrong - and thats not actually the point you were proved wrong on. It was two things - 1) that the medical paradigm was changing and 2) that untreated lyme can cause life long effects.
But still - nice to see you doubling down after your rather snide attack of CG. Be another on me now I bet.
Oh dear Rayban – can’teven admit when you were wrong – and thats not actually the point you were proved wrong on. It was two things – 1) that the medical paradigm was changing and 2) that untreated lyme can cause life long effects.
I've never denied that medical paradigms can change and I've never denied the latter - it's just the antibiotics I take issue with in terms of evidence. The evidence for a course lasting more than two weeks is still iffy - but I can understand taking a risk based approach.
Also - if this was on the topic of bicycle helmets you wouldn't have quoted a policy based on dodgy evidence but risk based common sense.....
still at it. You completely denied both the points. Invoke hattersleys rule
Taxing UK residents to enable one of the richest families in the UK to live in obscene luxury – and then charging the taxpayers money to go and see it for themselves.
Do you know how much money you pay, personally, in tax, the fund the the Royals each year?
No - but the figure thats often thrown around is around £1 each per UK resident.
So if the 66 million UK residents all want to give me just £1 a year to ensure I can be funded to go to expensive and exotic places that would be great; I would get very bored otherwise.
I thought it was taxpayers, not residents, that paid for them? I hate to break it to you but there are a lot fewer taxpayers than residents in the UK...
Taxpayers yes and it's less than £1 iirc they also generate millons which goes predominantly back to the government.
We should make everyone "Royal", then we can all live in palaces, not have to work and make loads of money for the country - JUST BY EXISTING - which will fund our new Royal lives!
THINK ABOUT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you know how much money you pay, personally, in tax, the fund the the Royals each year?
Do you know how much money you pay, personally in tax, to fund the purchase of F-35 Lightning jets?
Ol' Betty is a bargain in comparison
there are a lot fewer taxpayers than residents in the UK…
This is where it gets a bit complicated because 'tax payers' aren't just people. Theres two people resident in my house but three tax-payers. The non-human one pays more tax than the two humans ones put together. And it doesn't even get to vote.
No – but the figure thats often thrown around is around £1 each per UK resident.
Look at what that £1 per year creates - even if you hate the whole royal family thing with all your heart its a pretty remarkable thing to have created for £1 a year. (and I think on a per head rather than per tax payer basis its something like 56p - that's less than the price of a stamp isn't it?)
If you eradicated the the Royal Family and got your £1 back... what would you do with it instead?
I entirely don't care about the Royals but imagine what we could all achieve just by paying a few more £1 per years
Surely the ultimate lunacy must be big businesses doing voluntary redundancy programmes.
Thus shedding their best and brightest with inevitable results.
That'd be JLR recently then. All the talent with years of experience gone.
If you eradicated the the Royal Family and got your £1 back… what would you do with it instead?
Give it to the NHS! We could put adverts on the side of the bus and everything (but then spend far more money on trying to actually get rid of the Royal Family instead).
Who would you rather have as head of state, living in the big presidential palace? Lizzie or Boris Johnson?
Lizzie or Boris Johnson?
She could take Boris. She’s proper nails
and we know Boris would throw a few punches
I am tied to one site. Every five years the contract is renewed. At year 4.5 work stops, waiting for all the inevitable new systems that come with a new employer.No one can be arsed. We are at 4.75 now yeeha.
Every time, loads of keen managers using politico jargon, filibuster their way around the "onboarding process".....After three years the new contract holder realises that the contract they signed is unworkable (impossible to make money from)...and so the wheels keep on turning.....
The purchasing system where I work is so ridiculously complicated there's a 9 page help document on how to order a company mobile phone through it (despite it being the standard approved model, an iPhone 7, and it being mandatory to have one in my role). I actually added on a case and screen protector (it was in the catalogue...), my request was rejected as a case and screen protector were considered unnecessary by my approver (despite them being listed as available items).
I emailed the approver to say it seems a strange decision not to spend an additional £20 now and potentially avoid a larger cost later (as I wouldn't be covering the cost if I accidentally dropped it). It went up to VP level before it was finally approved, but only the case - the £7 for the screen protector was apparently too much.
It wasted another 2 hours of my (billable) time to resubmit the request and god knows how much of management time.
Public services aren't alone in their ability to waste time and money :p
Then again the purchasing system is so painfully frustrating to use I often buy things like mice, memory, PDUs and USB sticks out of my own pocket rather than use it so I guess there may be some method in the company's madness.
Pretty much anyting to do with buying train tickets seems to be a dark art where you could end up paying £200 to sit next to someone who may have paid £20
Then again the purchasing system is so painfully frustrating to use I often buy things like mice, memory, PDUs and USB sticks out of my own pocket rather than use it so I guess there may be some method in the company’s madness.
I've worked in companies at both ends of the spectrum. Making purchasing too easy can be even worse. People buy all sorts of unnecessary things from very expensive suppliers because it is easy
This is where it gets a bit complicated because ‘tax payers’ aren’t just people. Theres two people resident in my house but three tax-payers. The non-human one pays more tax than the two humans ones put together. And it doesn’t even get to vote.
I'm definitely being a bit thick here (doing funding applications has fried my brain) but what is the third tax payer?
On BBC breakfast news this morning they reported that Network Rail executives were being encouraged to fly between meetings as it is cheaper than using the train.
To be fair to the fella, he said people were encouraged to use the train and the plane was an extreme. He also said in his 4 years or whatever, only 17 flights had been taken.
Why would the royals be so reluctant to disclose their costs if they had nothing to worry about
This is public information, they publish reports every year.
No – but the figure thats often thrown around is around £1 each per UK resident.
It is (the figure I read yesterday was £1.24), but holding it up as "taxpayers' money" is misleading, it's not from income tax. The money comes from profits from properties owned by the royals - things like Ascot racecourse - and a raft of commercial and residential properties. If you don't use any of these things then it hasn't cost you as a "taxpayer" a red cent (and of course if you do then you've paid to explore the facilities or whatever, same as you would if you visited Alton Towers).
This income goes to the government and then a quarter of it is paid back to the queen to cover building repairs, travel expenses etc. (it used to be 15% but was increased recently because Buck House is dropping to bits). So whilst the Sun yesterday was bleating on about £2.4m of "taxpayers' money" going towards Harry's house, it completely ignores the money which goes directly to the Treasury which is 100 times that amount. The reality is that it's not much different from a private landlord spending "taxpayer money" (ie, your rent) on replacing your broken toilet.
I’m definitely being a bit thick here (doing funding applications has fried my brain) but what is the third tax payer?
a limited company- its a legal entity but not a person (or a voter) - but it pays tax on its earnings and also collects VAT for the government too.
The money comes from profits from properties owned by the royals
Now you are being misleading. The crown estates are not owned by the royals. They are an odd category held in trust by the Queen but not really belonging to her. She can have them if she wants but then she gets a rather tax bill when she takes over funding the UK (which was why the crown estates were handed over in the first place).
How come the Royals got bundled into this thread?
The Royals aren’t a Business.
🤷♂️
Well my DHL experience was an odd one in the end. After being told yesterday that they were two stops from me then suddenly disappearing and receiving a message saying they were running late but would still be delivering, they never turned up and I heard nothing else from them.
So as far as I was concerned I had no idea what was happening (ie, when I could expect to receive the parcel etc). So today I called the supplier and their system was saying that they had attempted delivery yesterday at 9am and I had to arrange a redelivery (despite my end was saying it was still out for delivery so I had no way of doing this). So anyway I decided the easiest course of action would be for me to collect from the DHL depot so we arranged that and I got a confirmation email. Fifteen minutes later the parcels turned up at the original delivery address.
I’m definitely being a bit thick here (doing funding applications has fried my brain) but what is the third tax payer?
a limited company- its a legal entity but not a person (or a voter) – but it pays tax on its earnings and also collects VAT for the government too.
That makes sense, thanks! I figured it was something like that, just couldn't put my finger on it.
Now you are being misleading.
Not intentionally, I was oversimplifying. The Crown Estate is "owned" by the Queen in so far as she's the Queen, when she's replaced by Charlie or whomever then it'll be "owned" by him instead. It's not their private property though, they couldn't sell it. I suppose it'd have been more correct to say it's owned by the monarchy rather than the royals.
https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/en-gb/resources/faqs/
In any case, that wasn't really the core point I was making, rather that it's easy to say it's "taxpayers' money" to whip up a nice bit of outrage in order to sell newspapers and make keyboard warrior comments on the Internet, but that's not really the case. It's absolutely nothing to do with income tax.
We moved house 3.5 years ago, today i managed to change the address on my Halifax credit card.
I tried at the time but was told I needed to do it in branch. I don't live anywhere near a branch and wasn't actively using the card so never got round to it.
Then once it was all paid off I went to close the account. Phoned them up, but the card has now expired so I can't do that over the phone. The new one will have been sent to my old address. So, I need to go to a branch.
Changed jobs last year, now near(ish) a branch. Said branch is open 9.30 to 4.30pm. I work 8-5pm and lunch break isn't long enough.
I finally made it there today and changed my address! Now I can't order a new card for 24hrs. Once I have my new card I can close the account and throw said card in the bin!
It's frustrating how I managed to apply for, use and manage the money all online or phone, but can't do a bit of simple admin without going to see a man in person who can type it in to his computer in front of me.
I have now been told that DHL will be delivering tomorrow despite them already having delivered today.
It’s absolutely nothing to do with income tax
Aside from it is. The crown estates were effectively handed over to government in return for the monarch no longer being personally responsible for funding the government.
The money taken by the royals is removed from that available to the government and so the burden falls on everyone else. Unfortunately Osborne the arselicker decided to hand even more funds over.
Do you know how much money you pay, personally in tax, to fund the purchase of F-35 Lightning jets?
No, but we could probably work it out with the help of google.
The UK has bought 16.
They're about $10mil/year to run, each.
Current sticker price is around $100 mil.
30 million taxpayers.
Running costs, about $5 per taxpayer per year, so far.
Purchase costs, total, about $50.
Maximum fleet is meant to be 138, so multiply by 9.
it’s almost as if they want you to keep the card open…
If they had let me change the address easily in the first place then they could have sent me some nice balance transfer offer letters. If they'd done that then there's a good chance that I'd have some money on there now instead of wanting to close it.
Cougar
Subscriber
It’s absolutely nothing to do with income tax.
You do realise there is more than one type of tax in the UK dont you?
Why does the UK even need a Royal family in this day and age?
I can understand tax payers money maintaining the touristy places .. its buisiness sense; but paying for a bunch of parasites to live in them and live a life of overindulgence and extreme luxury is totally ridiculous.
The tourists come to see the Royal buildings etc; they dont pay to actually spend time with the Queen ... just like tourists go visit the Eiffel tower in Paris or St. Basils Cathedral in Moscow.
.
And as for the Royals publishing their financial reports; they do .. but in a vague fashion, and safe in the fact that they cannot be audited. Try and see what the Royals personally paid towards the recent marriage of Harry and his wife ... the general opinion is that it is hidden within the other expenditure of the Duchy of Cornwall pre-tax.
You do realise there is more than one type of tax in the UK dont you?
I do. But that's not the implication, is it. It's specifically worded to illicit an emotional response. And, demonstrably, it works.
What about money from non-taxpayers, why don't they get a mention? I spent £30 of taxpayer's money in ASDA last night, I don't see that making the front page of the gutter press.
Why does the UK even need a Royal family in this day and age?
Because amongst other things they are a net benefit to the economy.
tomhoward
Subscriber
I thought it was taxpayers, not residents, that paid for them? I hate to break it to you but there are a lot fewer taxpayers than residents in the UK…
I hate to break it to you but it was £1.24 per person in the UK according to the link above for 2018-19.
So if you all happy to give me just £1 each, then I will actually be saving the country money too; win win!
Cougar
Subscriber
You do realise there is more than one type of tax in the UK dont you?I do. But that’s not the implication, is it. It’s specifically worded to illicit an emotional response. And, demonstrably, it works.
Where was it specifically worded as income tax payers? I hate to break it to you, but we pay lots of different taxes in the UK.
Cougar
Subscriber
Why does the UK even need a Royal family in this day and age?
Because amongst other things they are a net benefit to the economy.
Again; tourists do not come to UK to spend time with a member of the Royal family. And what they regard as their official duties are all nonsense anyways ... pinning a silly badge of merit on a contemporary celebrity or a unscrupulous business person or politician are things we should be stopping anyways.
The royals are a relic that continues to enable the upper class privelidge. Its silly people still think a modern society needs it. It should be looked upon as morally wrong as the days of the British Empire.
nickjb
Member
I’ve worked in companies at both ends of the spectrum. Making purchasing too easy can be even worse. People buy all sorts of unnecessary things from very expensive suppliers because it is easy
We have an excellent balance at my place- anything that goes through invoicing and purchase orders takes ages to do with our creaky IT and understaffed demotivated AP team. Getting orders approved depends on whether the right person is checking their email, and sometimes needs that to line up for 4 people, one after another,before it takes effect. And we have multiple tendering for everything over £500 (which i think is legislated rather than throough choice.
But we all have purchasing cards with a limit of £50000 and the only checking is by your line manager, a month after you've made the purchase.
The royals are a relic that continues to enable the upper class privelidge. Its silly people still think a modern society needs it. It should be looked upon as morally wrong as the days of the British Empire.
Yeah but the entire British legislature is written around a constitutional monarchy. You think Brexit is bad, it'd take a similar effort to untangle Monarchy from Government.
I hate to break it to you but it was £1.24 per person in the UK according to the link above for 2018-19.
Correct. An outrageous amount, I'm sure we can all agree.
Where was it specifically worded as income tax payers?
Do I need to link you to a dictionary definition of "imply"?
But yeah, whatever, forms of taxation aside my point is that the use of the phrase "taxpayers' money" is intentionally manipulative. People read it and get cross because they believe that whilst they're scraping away a living they still have to pay for housing improvements for really rich people. And that's simply not true.
Again; tourists do not come to UK to spend time with a member of the Royal family.
I hate to break it to you (to coin a phrase) but money comes from sources other than tourism.
The royals are a relic that continues to enable the upper class privelidge. Its silly people still think a modern society needs it. It should be looked upon as morally wrong as the days of the British Empire.
That's as may be. Personally I don't have a dog in this race as I couldn't really care less about the royals either way, if you hate them then good for you. But that's just a distraction from this discussion and an entirely different argument.
I’m going to offer up the Big Four Consultancy firms.
Cornered the market by buying up smaller Audit & Consultancy firms, made the corporate machine abide by their rates.. moved in and have effectively written their own Bonuses ever since.
Do they provide a service, certainly. Is it effective, doubtful as I’ve personally seen the exorbitant invoices and signed off quite a few (plenty, many plenty) . Does the original contract to “come in, give us a quote for XX and YY” mean anything? No, because once they’re in they stay in and bring a load more of their organisation in to prop up what once was a simple ask and expand it into something unrecognisable from the original requirements.
Luckily the Mergers and Acquisitions body are looking into breaking the stronghold they have.
Who have they brought in to look at the situation?
One guess...🤷♂️
Jive honeyjive?
Airline check-in.
Flew from la to Gatwick on Sunday with Norwegian and it was an excellent flight.
But why oh why do you have to check in at a touch screen console entering all your details, passport, flight number etc then have to go to the frigging check in desk and repeat the whole process again.
Cougar
Subscriber
I hate to break it to you but it was £1.24 per person in the UK according to the link above for 2018-19.Correct. An outrageous amount, I’m sure we can all agree.
Of course £1.24 a year is not a lot; but from every man, woman and child .. from 66 million people it accumulates into something more significant.
That’s as may be. Personally I don’t have a dog in this race as I couldn’t really care less about the royals either way, if you hate them then good for you. But that’s just a distraction from this discussion and an entirely different argument.
Would you be happy to agree to give Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his family £1.24 every year for the next few hundred years?
Mooman, Cougar. Do you guys need to get a room and thrash this out 😆
Big Four Consultancy firms
I saw some research (I think by Bristol university) that looked at the impact of consultancy on NHS efficiency. It found that spending £1m on consultancy services we associated with a drop in productivity/efficiency of £10k per year. That's not a huge fall given the size of the NHS, but they'd just spend a million pounds to be made £10k worse so were £1,010,000 down overall.
#£250k a week, for 5 bods here..
At work they sell seven item breakfasts. You're allowed 2 sausages, 2 rashers of bacon and a selection of non-meat sundries as part of the seven items.
However, while you can have 2 sausages and 2 bacon and 3 other things......you CANNOT have three bacon and 4 other things, as you are only allowed a maximum of 2 of sausages or bacon even if you don't have any of the other one.
I once asked for a seven item breakfast (with 2 bacon and 5 sundries - no sausages) and an extra rasher of bacon.
They served the extra rasher of bacon on a second plate.
I work for an IT consultancy.
What tends to happen is the client goes 'we want X, please tell us what you'd do and how much it'd cost'. So us techies go 'certainly, you want to do this and that and the other'. Sales people go 'right that comes to Y, that's too much, how can we pretend it'll be quicker and easier?'. This goes on at all the companies competing for the business, so we all end up with a proposal that's unrealistic. The company chooses the cheapest one and then acts all surprised when the work goes over budget. But because they selected the rock bottom bid with all the cheap resources in it, it turns out that they don't know what they are doing anyway.
In contrast, two of our German colleagues were hired as experts to work with their German client's team, because we're the experts. They paid our daily rate until the job was done. And guess what - everything worked out really well.
Meanwhile, the bargain bin UK project is totally crap, everyone hates the product, with the result that the whole lot will start again in 5 years. FFS. It's generally not our fault (although sometimes it is). (I should point out this is hypothetical, not a real project - although the example of how the Germans work better is real)
If you haven't already seen it, this is exactly how it goes:
It’s generally not our fault (although sometimes it is).
But if you end up supplying unrealistic proposals driven by your sales guys surely it is your fault?