Member Info for Dorfan

Starmer is TELLING all other NATO members today to increase their defence budget to 2.5% of GDP but the UK won’t be any time soon. The man is a joke already within his first week of office. This will lose the UK ALL respect and credibility of other nations around the world stage as well as putting the UK at risk as well. They will just laugh at him and put two fingers up and tell,him where to get off. He needs to go already and get someone else in who can commit to real policies. He can pass fluffy decisions through but the ones that count he fails on.

Even Labour peer and first sea Lord Alan West asked when will the UK commit to it and that the situation is not good enough.

He says he is going to spend tens of billions on the military, it might buy a few more missiles but nothing worth talking about and that will be probably be spread over the next ten years.

67Sam

“I asked what else has been holding the country back since 1945 and all I get is immigration, immigration, immigration and it just doesn't hold true.”

There isn’t a simple answer to that question, but as you mention 1945 it aligns nicely that we owed a tremendous amount to the US for WW2. If I remember correctly it wasn’t that many years ago that we actually paid it off. Loss of men in the war created an imbalance to our society with regards to men/woman and as an industry based country at the time we needed to address that imbalance, hence Windrush and previous intakes of overseas people that wished to come here for a better life. Then we have had a succession of governments on both sides that let’s be honest could have probably done a better job of governance.

The immigration problem we have now is a fairly new problem in the timeline but I, like MV believe it has and still does have an impact on our resources and not for the better. If we had access to the true data sets on lots of questions I would like to ask the old and new government then we might see the true rolling cost year on year.

Starmer if I am correct orchestrated in the last Labour government that all immigrants/migrants can claim benefits etc, happy to be corrected if I am wrong here, but why? My understanding of a migrant is someone that travels from one location to another looking for work and pays their own way on arrival and isn’t a burden to society, have I got this wrong as well? Where else in the world can you go as a migrant, arrive and be entitled to housing, benefits etc etc.

STP

When the Tories were in the driving seat it was so easy for all the back seat drivers to give advice on how the driver was doing things so wrong, now that Labour is in the driving seat the new back seat drivers are going to give you as much stick as you gave. This is just the beginning, so if you don’t like the heat then you know what you can do.

STP

“ Cardinal, absolutely agree with. All these folks with their right wing anti-immigration views, should find a more appropriate forum, to vent their fury..!”

When we went through months and years of Brexit postings why didn’t you go and find a forum that suited your need to vent off from the beginning? Is the heat getting to you so soon and you Don like it?

Skier1

“ It is well established in academic circles that only a tiny 25% of UK and overseas students ever pay back their student loans in full. The system has long been a sham, and a drain on the taxpayer. ”

Any other company will have seen the receiver by now and closed down. The ex students that really suffer are those on a wage just above the amount set by the SLC to start repaying back. They won’t be earning a fortune, but want a house and kids but at the same time are saddled with a large debt. Then there are those that go to uni, get the loans and have no intention of getting a job but end up with a rich partner and stay at home looking after the children.

The SLC needs to make all students pay back the loans regardless.

LOGG

Below was also from the FOI request to the SLC.

This brings it up to date when Brexit kicked in and overseas loans to the EU stopped.

To help you understand the simple figures below, each line starts with the date, then the number of students in question for that year, then the amount owed for the year and the last set of figures is what they actually received. The total for those last five years is quite staggering and I don’t have any data for all the previous years. The amount still outstanding is 7.5B and that will have grown by now with interest added for non payment.

2017-18 85,311 £1,268,924,890.73 £116,180,053.84

2018-19 95,282 £1,541,947,468.46 £138,833,191.89

2019-20 97,131 £1,745,934,481.26 £153,834,267.98

2020-21 120,054 £2,249,438,578.634 £147,217,182.96

2021-22 126,831 £2,521,678,852.04 £170,760,846.44

Below is an extract from a FOI request sent to the student loan company asking about pursuing outstanding loans. It makes depressing reading and just confirms that we really are a sucker country for not chasing outstanding debts. Sadly we that pay taxes are funding overseas students to a free education. If an indigenous student fails to pay his student debt he will be hounded to the ends of the earth to get it.

Within the last five years (financial years 2018-19 through to 2022-23 to

date) no amounts have been recovered by SLC through legal action taken

abroad/no foreign court judgments have been enforced in favour of SLC.

This is due to no legal action being taken against any overseas customers

during these years.

SLC seek to recover monies due without recourse to formal legal action.

In terms of legal action, legal proceedings are issued as a last resort

by SLC once all other efforts have been exhausted and only against

borrowers residing overseas and who have defaulted on their student loan

repayments/obligations to provide details of their income. Legal

proceedings against overseas borrowers is costly and needs to be

considered in the context of value for money for the UK taxpayer, ensuring

the costs of action do not exceed the likely recovery value, which for

overseas borrowers is a key consideration.

KBYK

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/820072/Scandal-foreign-EU-students-owe-Britain-1-2-BILLION-student-loans-university

MVarawa

“ And abolishing all student debt at the same time. “

Good point, we are not chasing tens of thousands of overseas students loans when they go back home and refuse to pay back to the government. Perhaps the relevant country should pay us back and they chase the individual for the money. If you look on the net as to how much is owed and potentially how much we are going to be owed in the next 10 years it is frightening. It is the Australian students that are top of the league at 10,000 that are not paying back, disgraceful.

And another good idea would be if Labour re-nationalised all those council/public owned houses that were sold off cheap, and back dated tax, on the profits made by the original sellers !”

I had a work colleague who got a council house, sold it after two years and made a stinking profit and catapulted himself to a nice four bedroom detached house, it didn’t go down well with the rest of us that started from scratch.

“They could stop the payments to female MPs for child care, level up the field so to say. “

My daughter has two children at nursery four days a week at £90 each a day, doesn’t qualify for child allowance and gets nothing from the government of any value. I wouldn’t be surprised if the MP mums get child allowance on their salaries which just shows transparency between the and the working man and woman doesn’t exist.

Alisha

“ France will finance the retirement age with what we give to carry on the wonderful work they are doing stopping the illegals coming here! ”

Talking about illegals, I have noticed since the beginning of the month that daily boat numbers are not being recorded on the government web page. Is this how Labour are solving the migrant problem, massage the data and tell us no one is crossing now. I suspect in reality the numbers are much higher than the week before and they can’t publish them.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats-last-7-days#small-boats-data

MVarawa

“ Yes France is/will be in chaos, Macron has opened a can of worms.”

If the French now achieve the change of retirement age back down to 60 it will be interesting as to how they fund this and how it will impact central coffers over the next few years.

Perhaps we should be pushing Labour to reinstate retirement age for men back to 65 and women at 60.

It’s when Reeves starts to put pressure on large pension funds to bank role Labours new projects that potential disasters can happen. It’s not her money so nil risk as far as she is concerned. Many projects won’t return any money for years if at all back to the pension funds and at worst if they fail the government hasn’t lost anything.

The people at risk are millions of pensioners who may be forced to see a reduction each month to pay for the governments failure. I bet Reeves won’t underwrite any losses to compensate if it goes belly up. More pensioners will now need claim benefits to survive.

MB

If ‘decisive’ means that rigging the voting system to get a result then tell me where ‘democracy’ truly lies? This is how EU politics works to maintain its centrist control.

Then we have the EU Primaxy Law, another mechanism to control countries which may want change to suit how they wish to function best for them but can’t if the EU wishes to go against that change as it dictates its control centrally. A one size fit is never going to work for all EU countries, as we have seen the push back by certain players. When the UK went to the EU wanting subtle changes which they didn’t like we were quickly told where to go. Hence Brexit.

MB

The Lib/Dems bang on about a PR voting system but I wonder if they are so short sighted that they believe it will only revolve around the current players.

Trust me, if PR comes in we will see a single Muslim party and a broadside of other parties that will split the voting system to pieces. We will end up like Italy and other countries that will spend months trying to cobble a government together only to find they have to go to the people again. The current option isn’t ideal and PR isn’t the answer either, in fact I can’t see what is a solution that would appease everyone. A bit of a bugger really.

MVarawa

It’s rather disgusting that Skunky Starmer was so conceited that he kept it very secret at the start to enable a pension that Labour supporters would say is more aligned to a Tory pension. Double standards comes to mind.

Don’t do as I do, do as I say seems to be the order of the day.

RR

EU politics is about being democratic as long as it is Centrist . Any sign of people moving outside of what they want brings in engineered rigging of the voting system.

Wasn’t it Barnier that said the little people of the EU shouldn’t be allowed to vote because they don’t understand politics only he and his cohorts do. Typical EU arrogance at its best.

DaddyPaul

“ Starmer himself is a multi-millionaire with a very nice gold plated pension, that at a cost to the tax payer”

Here is a link that shows how Starmer has that special pension pot that no one else is allowed to have and how he is going to make it worse for for many people soon. Hypocrite comes to mind.

Also when Brown killed final salary pensions for millions of people they were very cunning to keep it for civil servants and MP’s. To be fair the Tories didn’t change it and I doubt Starmer will change it now, it is too lucrative and we can’t upset them can we. Looking after his mates again.

We also have seen that Starmer/Reeves are going to hit pension funds again by the sounds of it, so will be interesting to see if any collapse if they rob them too much.

https://www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/1906823/General-Election-2024-Keir-Starmer-55-pensions-tax-pensions-lifetime-allowance-LTA

TFE

"The good thing about buying gold Sovereigns is that that you don’t pay CGT on them when you sell them."

Well not yet but that maybe about to change. ”

I hope not but let’s see how the future pans out regarding a number of taxes.

It does seem that CGT could be liberally used for many situations and another most hated tax.

The good thing about buying gold Sovereigns is that that you don’t pay CGT on them when you sell them.

Am I right in saying that gold Sovereigns are based on the US dollar for value? If so then I will wait and see if the exchange rate improves before looking at long term investing over the next few years.

No help

“ My future son in law (who was a little naive took a car loan through the dealer, provided by Black Horse in 2018..... the APR was 15.9 %..”

The average APR on a credit card now is apparently 35.1%, so I would say your SIL got a good deal. Now if people are looking to get compo on so called illegal car loan deals then why are we not seeing a similar movement against all the banks and credit card companies saying they are rinsing the poor worker who needs a better deal.

Buyer be aware comes to mind and look for the best deal on offer at the time.