iamnumerate

Moving people from London who don't work to Boro would reduce the number of empty houses there and increase the numbers in London a real win win.

Actually these programs have been quite good.

Actually I think his flat might have fallen so much that even if he were on a repayment mortgage (they didn't say) the debt could still be higher than the value of the flat. IIRC it went from about £95K to about 40-50 K - although even so still not a massive amount.

I guess because interest rates are low you are not losing money haggling about the amount. Whilst if you could get 10% then you want to sell and bank the money ASAP.

I was told by my dad that his council pension was funded but I am not sure he was right.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0010gxz Apologies if this has been posted before What I thought was really weird was when he said "Now everyone knows about the problem about leasehold" - they really don't in London!

I think pension credit and all other benefits should only be for people whose houses are worth less than £600k. Everyone else can move.

A very uncontroversial view. How many times can Peter cry wolf?

Can people really measure that level of performance in their own cars? Anyone who thinks that a small figure means it is great or bad seems to either a) drive a lot in very similar conditions and takes very good records b) has not realized that user error could be more significant than any flaws with / benefits of the the fuel

You don't have to have an exact comparison (and the cost of police can be calculated by looking at prison numbers). Just look at benefits out and taxes in - for similar ages and different nationalities. Life expectancies are not that different between Brits and immigrants so don't really need to come into it.

Depends on the data. If it is in a database - and hopefully the Government does know how much every tax payer pays - because that is how we get our pension entitlement it is not that difficult. SQL is not exactly rocket science. However even if it is very difficult you would have thought that they would have made an effort, considering how important it is.

Then why didn't Blair etc publish the figures? Either a) they are too incompetent (my theory) b) the figures would show that immigration from some places is not good for us c) they were worried that all benefits and taxation might be good but other figures social housing crime would be bad. So didn't want to talk about the numbers. d) Blair and Cameron wanted to get us out and so hid evidence of how wonderful EU immigration was. I think (d) is crazy and a is more likely but b and c could be true.

A friend lives off £7K pa. But she doesn't have a car, TV licence or broadband. She does has a cinema pass which I think costs about the same as TV licence which seems strange. She could work she is not retirement age yet but doesn't want to. She owns her own home.

Do people really know that? As far as I know when someone receives benefits or tax the system does not say record whether someone is from another country or not. It would be great if NI numbers did record where someone is from and then it would be possible to say these things for age and prove it one way or the other. (Give me access to the database and I can do it in a day if not less). If the average immigrant doesn't cost anything then presumably not giving them benefits or council housing etc would be a non issue as they weren't getting them anyway.

The thing is that house prices are not so important it is the ability to pay for a house. Now obviously it is better to buy at higher rates and lower rates are harmful. However HPI has really affected different parts of the UK at different levels. I calculated that in some parts of the UK the cost pcm to buy has not gone up that much more than inflation. However in others it has gone up much more so supply must have a very big effect. For example there are parts of the UK where some types of property have gone down since 2006 - and of course interest rates have crashed since then like flats in Preston (as other types of property in Preston have gone up a bit I would assume that this was caused by over supply of flats as opposed to a local severe recession) https://www.home.co.uk/guides/house_prices_report.htm?location=preston&startmonth=01&startyear=2006&endmonth=02&endyear=2020

Sadly lots of people believe that the only thing that is important is interest rates - demand and supply are not important.

Depends on what you are doing - sometimes it can be more productive sometimes less.

A friend of mine is a civil servant and was told to work from home - despite the fact that they couldn't connect to the office for security reasons. They are now back in the office.

From 2018 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-subsidy-for-non-white-members-divisive-and-illegal-l73nmslnb

Translation we had a breathing space and could have used to pay off debts - we didn't help!!!!

+1000

It is weird about people looking at fuel bills. In 2001 thanks to HPI I and other first time buyers were paying £100 pcm or more than we would have done. However no one cared about us. Gas prices rising are a disaster.

I can't believe this I would be less surprised by England winning the Ashes 5-0 than the Bank of England rushing into raising interest rates - when did they last raise interest rates and with hindsight most people agreed it was too soon?

I think it is more that it is very difficult to reduce immigration which causes population growth because a) people want to come here b) trying to stop it results in being called racist.

I wouldn't disagree with this.