onlooker

Do you have a source for why the Germans could impose a 10% tariff on our cars, but we cannot put a reciprocal tariff on theirs? John Redwood says the Germans don't want us to put tariffs on their cars - see paragraph 6, http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2015/10/30/should-we-charge-germany-to-sell-us-their-cars/ or bullet point 3 in this from Civitas, Oct 2016, claiming £3.4 billion in tariffs to be faced by Germany alone, if they play hardball - http://www.civitas.org.uk/reports_articles/potential-post-brexit-tariff-costs-for-eu-uk-trade/

PS I don't understand why Nissan is described by the BBC as Japanese, when the biggest shareholder is French, and most people think it acts under French influence. Since we approved the high profile EDF/China deal on Hinkley Point, it would have been quite churlish of the French not to reciprocate.

The BBC says authoratively (World at One, and PM) that Nissan has been promised that the UK would always have a business environment which would allow them to manufacture cars competitively. By my judgment that means if tariffs are introduced by the EU, the UK will have a lower pound, OR lower business taxes OR reciprocal tariffs on German cars. The EU could make life a lot easier for everyone by not introducing tariffs on our goods.

IMHO many of the problems started with Lawson, who failed to raise interest rates rapidly enough during the late 1980's because (it was said in retrospect) he was trying to shadow the Deutchmark as a forerunner of the ERM. Mrs Thatcher even went so far as to hire her own adviser (Prof Alan Waters) to try to argue against it. The two had a massive spat, both resigned and John Major became Chancellor of the Exchequer. In what seems like a Pauline conversion, Lawson now is a leading Brexiteer and critic of the Euro single currency - an amazing change. Lamont was told by Major to keep the £ in the ERM by raising interest rates very high, until the £ had to crash out. Lamont is also now a leading Brexiteer and critic of the Euro single currency. Appears to be a trend there. Lowering the exchange rate by cutting interest rates was the defence for the British economy in 1992, and it is the defence now. And in 1992, there was little or no resurgence of inflation, and I don't expect there to be much now. People will just tighten their belts, and buy different cheaper substitutes or do without.

The pound is not in a fixed or even loose trading band, as it was when we were in the ERM. The value can fluctuate wherever fundamentals, or even fickleness of traders, takes it.

I have never understood tourism in the Irish Republic. Since they adopted the Euro, it is not a cheap place to visit, it is a long car/ferry journey, and the weather and scenery is no better than Wales. I lived in Dublin for a year, many years ago. The Irish may be an endearing people, but they had a flexible attitude to rules and regulations. Farmers and artists/writers paid no income tax. The country was run by an old boys network of influential families who all were involved to some extent in corrupt deals. Meanwhile the poor were kept happy in their poverty by religion and brainwashing with the mythology surrounding independence. But nowadays the Catholic Church seems to be losing its hold over people's minds. The immigration issue is interesting. I suspect it reflects the ease with which 'qualified' immigrants from outside the EU can get jobs there, while the educated Irish can emigrate to Australia, Canada and the USA. Even back in the '80s there were quite a few Arabs in the Irish hospitals, because the Irish state maintained relations with countries like Libya (unrelated to the Semtex issue).

There was an article in Telegraph Personal Finance about somebody in a similar position. Sorry can't find the article using Google now, but there was some discussion on The Motley Fool at the time. Basically, for the last 10 years advisers thought is was insane to encash a DB pension, but now they think the numbers mean that the advice is not so clear cut. Encashment amounts on offer are often very large, and the finances of some DB schemes are shaky. It depends what you think will happen to interest rates, and the stability of your pension scheme. If you believe interest rates can only go up, then take the cash offered, and keep it in the stock market for higher returns.

Cameron didn't account for the fact that northern Labour voters are turning to UKIP, and Corbyn refused to be a committed Remainer. Labour lost the referendum for Remain.

We have lobbed a grenade into Juncker's trench. They made of fool of nice guy Cameron, now for the nasty one. David Davis is too lightweight, BoJo is the suitable heavyweight. I'm beginning to like the guy. When he wins the reforms Britain (and most others) want, he'll come back for a second referendum which he will win without a hitch.

deal with it. if you are lucky your mate + children will stick with you and sod off into the sunset to grow old gracefully Then you emigrate to Thailand, find a new wife, and life begins again.

Or the Germans can continue putting the Greeks through the mangel until they finally learn how to pay their taxes, turn their backs on corruption and behave themselves like any other repectable German state.

£40,000 is cheap, if you get UK residency, and a good chance of a passport after a year or two. Who says the Chinese or Indians or Africans are ever going back to $8,500/year?

I thought the old Southern Railway line skirted the NW side of Dartmoor, and I'm not sure it was ever blocked by snow. With global warming, snow will just be a thing of the past anyway. Beeching chose the Dawlish route to remain open because he was influenced by old Great Western hands in his office, plus the GWR from Exeter to London is shorter and more easily graded. Dawlish was breached because (as you can see from the recent photos) that short length of sea wall has never been strengthened since Brunel built it. Somebody has some explaining to do. I am sure it will be infinitely cheaper to rebuild the Dawlish sea wall, than reopen 50 miles of abandoned railway, so I don't see the Southern route ever being reinstated.

Its a Hindu Indian thingy, with some religious or ethnic connotations I believe.

Modern genetic data points to the radical view that the Anglo Saxon invasions were numerically very small, and that the pre-existing population of England (subjugated by the Romans) were already Germanic. They were Belgae according to Julius Caeser, so the clue to their affinity is in the name. It is a Celtic victimhood myth that the Welsh and Irish owned all of Britain before the Anglo-Saxons arrived. Nursing home fees will be the challenge for the future. But the replacement population is already here - primary schools are bursting, haven't you noticed?

I realized this was an issue 3 years ago when my family got a dog, and I ended up doing most of the dog walking in our neighbourhood. I got to notice, for the first time, who lived where. I would say about half the properties are under-occupied, with many houses occupied by quite infirm elderly people who would be better off in flats or even care homes. As a result, I am very cynical about the need to build huge numbers of extra houses in the UK, just use better what we have already.

Try 'George Hudson, the Rise and Fall of the Railway King' by AJ Arnold and S McCartney, 2004. Hudson was right at the heart of it.

You seem to think that oil and gas discovered in the UK (and surrounding waters) belong to the discoverer, who can 'keep it all'. Oil and gas production is highly taxed and has provided the UK with a valuable income stream since the mid 60's. UK governments change the tax rates continually - virtually every budget in the last 50 years contains some major tinkering to enable the Govt to encourage a pet project or technology or business practise. They have to give tax breaks to get investment into new and high (financial) risk projects, because once a successful project has been established, they will be taxed to the hilt.

Oil & gas exploration does not attract an R&D tax break at present, AFAIAK. I don't understand your restaurant analogy. If you sampled restaurants for a living, your travel, overnight accomodation etc become a business expense. If you found a clever way of doing it remotely (say by drilling there) you would surely expect an R&D tax break? Most of the companies looking at fraccing in Europe are small. The Apple sized oil and gas companies are mainly sitting on their hands.

Do you believe in tax breaks for companies that invest heavily in research and development? This is no different. There is an enormous amount of hype about the potential for producing gas from fracced rocks in the UK, but nobody has yet produced any. Why not? Well, it is probably the most regulated of industries. Companies have already spent money on a couple of trial wells in Lancashire nearly 2 years ago, but the government has, so far, not given the go ahead for testing the wells. So all the investment the companies have made is just sitting there idle. In the USA, fraccing has required up to say 4 wells per square mile, deviated from one surface pad. Fields cover hundreds of square miles. Can you imagine the planning nightmare this would be in the UK? Most companies just would not be bothered with the hassle. This is an industry which will only germinate and grow if there is full government support.

I think this intervention is one of those times when a (quasi) independent civil servant tries to inject some sanity into election promises made by the various parties. It is probably designed to send a message to Labour as they start to write their 2015 manifesto 'You can't make unreasonable promises - the economic situation is dire'.

IMHO the best advice with pensions is (1) make the most of tax allowances given by the Govt - they are really worth a lot if you are currently a higher rate tax payer, but will be standard rate tax payer in retirement, and (2) diversify as much as possible, because over my working life, investment fashions have changed, companies have shown real deviousness (Equitable Life), the Govt has changed the rules many times, and your own retirement objectives may change over time. Real pension funds (unlike BTL) are protected from bankruptcy.

Labour have correctly identified that there is a fault line in Conservative support between those who favour development (of all kinds) to generate prosperity, and those who want to retain a pleasant environment (pleasant for them, that is). They are trying to induce more discord between these two opposing views. Anyway, Labour's recipe for prosperity doesn't need new building, just more credit and higher state payroll and benefits. Well, it worked for them last time......

Actually, Harold Wilson took away free school milk from more children in 1968 than Thatcher did in 1974, but why let the truth get in the way of a good socialist rant.

As expected, the biased BBC ignore the truth, and don't issue a correction: http://devilsknife.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/ids-and-53-per-week.html?m=1