Very few people have a million quid in liquid assets. That’s a seriously small pot of people.

Oh wholeheartedly and I’m absolutely a hypocrite here at the other end. Asset poor (comparatively) but household income is (comparatively) high. I certainly feel asset poor but don’t feel like we have a high income.

Yes it absolutely can do. Tricky area but I think it’s reasonable to say that it’s not the states job to secure middle class inheritance and you should contribute towards the cost of care in some capacity. Whether as part of IHT or otherwise.

I mean it’s net worth, how else are we defining millionaires.

Golden oldies: Are one in five pensioners millionaires? – Full Fact A quarter of over 65s live in households with wealth above a million pounds.

It’s a touch overblown but it’s something like 1 in 5 households headed by an over 65 is a millionaire. 1 in 4 by some metrics. fullfact.org/economy/mill...

Hadn’t necessarily thought about its usefulness as a tax that is tolerated but I do think it limits the elasticity of the market. Personally I’d abolish it in line with introduction of a proper property tax but I appreciate that’s unpopular.

Stamp duty is a pretty rubbish tax all things considered. Only justification I could see would perhaps be to make it more like capital gains and you pay a % on the increased value between what you sell and buy. Encouraging people to downsize and not sit in 4 bed houses when kids have all left.

If it’s a regulatory change, pension providers are (presumably) going to have to review portfolios more regularly. They will charge for that. Unless I’ve misunderstood.

More regulations means more costs. Ultimately worse for more people as fees rise.

How many LL have a low fix as usually BTL are variable and interest only.

Yes and no. Because rental properties tend to be higher density and thus it’s not a 1-1 switch. Loss of a 3 bed flat that had 3 seperate people paying per room is unlikely to go to 3 people. More likely 2 people.

Aussie have (or did have) a similar stance the word.

This is the freight train almost no one has noticed coming down the tracks.

Wage stagnation, expensive housing, smaller private pensions are going to be a terrible combination.

Aren’t most levers available to government largely blunt instruments.

Great piece. I joined at a similar time. Lured by the fact that you could interact with ‘famous’ people. Mine principally YouTubers or similar. Stayed for Iran, Arab spring etc and just the feeling that you were watching in real time. Later YIMBY twitter but even that lacks substance now.

Who also make up a huge chunk of their councillors in London (and I would imagine other large cities).

They know this and making a joke about the wording of the headline.

PS3 was widely critisised for its price point at release and had a pretty slow start in tems of sales numbers becuase of it. Espeially outside of Japan.

If this had happened at the BBC the Telegraph would be openly wanking over the whole thing for the next 3 months. As it happened at the Telegraph it will be NEVER SPOKEN OF AGAIN.

This thread is front and centre of my feed. Feels a bit like old forums circa 2008-2012 as reddit was taking over. You know it’s dying because all the highly engaged with content that people have options on is about the platform itself.

Absolutely. Chap knocked on my door yesterday (London -no elections in the pipeline) ask me if I had any issues. He’s not even my cllr as I’m in a lab ward. Had a chat about housing and their new waste drop off points (a good idea) and he was honest about the poor Con candidates in mayoral elections

One of the top replies in that thread is “the British mind cannot comprehend” and then goes onto say that Marco Pierre White has the best tips for cooking steak.

We just picked one car over another whose big selling point was actual buttons for basic settings like AC rather than touch screen sub menus.

Screenshot of Times article with headline: "Florida may loosen child labour laws to fill gap left by migrants" The article explains a law has been proposed in Florida to allow children as young as 14 to work overnight shifts in agriculture & constraction to make up for lost migrant labour. Yes really.

You truly could not make it up.

You could not.

Among other things, Johns Hopkins is one of the world's leading centres for research into Motor Neurone Disease and associated degenerative conditions. I presume much of that funding is now threatened. Because, er, medical advances are woke or something.

That’s my office (well sort of)

To be fair the integration was always going to be hard but the gov.uk website has been very good for a long time. You just often hit bits that meant to had to go to another department.

It's not a 'narrative'. The lack of certainty about what Downing Street wants is a matter of observable fact - frankly even if you don't talk to Cabinet ministers and ministers you can see that just by looking at "timestamps on the Guardian liveblog".

How many people ? Teams definitely struggles north of 50 or so on a call but it has an entire means of working for what should be town halls / presentations.

320 million daily users of teams sounds pretty good to me.