Jeremy Corbyn

Quoted from Grim74

Unless your talking about our towns and city's such as Boston or London for example, where a high European migrant influx courtesy of new labour has saturated wages for the self employed tradesman then I suggest you are talking bollox.

I know a local gas engineer who left East Coast gas services when they folded a few years ago, he went self employed and is now raking it in, he's moved from a council house to the top end of Cleethorpes in  250,000 house.

If your not in an over prescribed immigrant town i suggest you work harder or your not very good at your job.

You are rude ignorant and worse than foolish(not unusual tory traits);- maybe you think dave is leading us in a booming economy? The truth is he and Osbourne are quite happy with the record immigration figures(Despite his no ifs no buts Guarantee which has gone the same way as Osbourne`s promises on the defecit), it is the only thing keeping the economy expanding, an extra 350,000 buying food and goods and keeping house prices high and wages low.

Maybe you have been self employed in a competitive industry in one of the lowest income areas of the country and believe that most people don`t just want the cheapest quote?   There is a strange race to the bottom mindset with a lot of tories and a perverse jealousy of anyone with a bit of money or success who supports labour.

Quoted from Chrisblor

Cool anecdotal evidence Grim74! Let's examine some empirical data on wage growth from the Office of National Statistics:

[img]http://i66.tinypic.com/6731bc.png[/img]

Hmm, what's that? A sustained period of annual wage growth between 0 and 2% since the tories got into power? Oh it looks like you're talking out of your bottom again.

Here we go another lefty line chart, bar chart, pie chart merchant, that doesn't prove that the self employed are worse off now than 5 years ago your just another bitter Guardianista.
The 2% growth by the way is the average since coming into power taking into account a massive recession at the start of the coalition, coupled with low inflation I think we all should be reasonably content considering.

Quoted from codcheeky

You are rude ignorant and worse than foolish(not unusual tory traits);- maybe you think dave is leading us in a booming economy? The truth is he and Osbourne are quite happy with the record immigration figures(Despite his no ifs no buts Guarantee which has gone the same way as Osbourne`s promises on the defecit), it is the only thing keeping the economy expanding, an extra 350,000 buying food and goods and keeping house prices high and wages low.

Maybe you have been self employed in a competitive industry in one of the lowest income areas of the country and believe that most people don`t just want the cheapest quote?   There is a strange race to the bottom mindset with a lot of tories and a perverse jealousy of anyone with a bit of money or success who supports labour.

Another one out of the woodwork it's like a yogurt knitters convention on here!

You think I'm rude but it cuts both ways, the problem is if I wasn't on here it would be a lefty labour little bubble click everyone slagging the goverment off, whilst at the same time wishing we had Corbyn and is fat racist toad of a girlfriend Abbott in charge.

I come on here and give an alternative view but the little bubble you have now entered just don't like it, they seem to hate free speech coming from the right its almost fascist like on here, and that's when the silly childish abuse starts and the most pathetic think of all the little red crosses! So excuse me if I seem a tad rude in response to rude replys aimed at me, I want a civil debate believe it or not.

As for your conspiracy theory you may well be right who knows, I just know if we had a labour goverment in charge those migrant figures you talk of would be a drop in the ocean, the flood gates would be back open now and you know it!!!

Quoted from Grim74

Another one out of the woodwork it's like a yogurt knitters convention on here!

You think I'm rude but it cuts both ways, the problem is if I wasn't on here it would be a lefty labour little bubble click everyone slagging the goverment off, whilst at the same time wishing we had Corbyn and is fat racist toad of a girlfriend Abbott in charge.

I come on here and give an alternative view but the little bubble you have now entered just don't like it, they seem to hate free speech coming from the right its almost fascist like on here, and that's when the silly childish abuse starts and the most pathetic think of all the little red crosses! So excuse me if I seem a tad rude in response to rude replys aimed at me, I want a civil debate believe it or not.

As for your conspiracy theory you may well be right who knows, I just know if we had a labour goverment in charge those migrant figures you talk of would be a drop in the ocean, the flood gates would be back open now and you know it!!!

Why don't you start engaging in one then? It's you that makes the majority of petty, personal and rude responses.

Maringer:

"You may note that the taxresearch link under discussion there was simply an analysis at the data as released by HMRC - no opinion involved whatsoever as Town Monkey later agreed."

Just to clarify, I hadn't read the article but I have now.  I actually disagree with his simplistic extrapolations.  He may have a point but the data provided doesn't support his conclusion sufficiently.  As ever, he has claimed that the data shows something which we simply can't know.  It's pure propaganda which is his way of course.  That said, it's cleverly written so that it appears to give a clear view supported by evidence without overly committing.  Unfortunately, as with much of the media out there at present, it's not what you know but how loudly or widely you can say it.

Btw, the Guardian referred to him as a "tax expert" yesterday in his response to the Google tax agreement.  If he's a tax expert, I'm Omar Bogle!  (I'm not by the way, nor am I Scott Brown)  

Quoted from Grim74

Here we go another lefty line chart, bar chart, pie chart merchant, that doesn't prove that the self employed are worse off now than 5 years ago your just another bitter Guardianista.
The 2% growth by the way is the average since coming into power taking into account a massive recession at the start of the coalition, coupled with low inflation I think we all should be reasonably content considering.

"Lefty line chart" ffs - it's from the politically independent Office for National Statistics.

And to refute your point, it's very clear from that chart where the recession took place (late 2008 to mid-2009). You can quite clearly see in early 2010 a marked bounce-back in wage growth which we can attribute to Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_Kingdom_bank_rescue_package]bailing out[/url] [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_Kingdom_bank_rescue_package]the banks[/url].

Suddenly, in May 2010 wage growth slumped and hovered between a pitiful 0 to 2%. What happened in May 2010? The Tories formed a Government with the Lib Dems and enforced a blindingly stupid plan of harsh austerity which crushed the nascent recovery. Wages only started to grow again once Osborne quietly changed tact and severely cut back on the degree of austerity (which is why he's missed every defecit reduction target he set).

While you can argue that yes there is a small increase in living standards due to low inflation, the sustained period of low interest rates we're currently experiencing is in no way a good thing for the economy and severely restricts the fiscal options open to the government if we're faced with another economic downturn (which is looking increasingly likely).

But feel free to continue banging on about "bitter Guardianistas" and claiming every source is biased (when it's actually impartial and just doesn't fit the economically bankrupt "WE HAVE TO PAY OFF THE NATIONAL CREDIT CARD" narrative you've been fed and swallowed whole-heartedly) instead of engaging with facts.

Quoted from Town Monkey

Maringer:

"You may note that the taxresearch link under discussion there was simply an analysis at the data as released by HMRC - no opinion involved whatsoever as Town Monkey later agreed."

Just to clarify, I hadn't read the article but I have now.  I actually disagree with his simplistic extrapolations.  He may have a point but the data provided doesn't support his conclusion sufficiently.  As ever, he has claimed that the data shows something which we simply can't know.  It's pure propaganda which is his way of course.  That said, it's cleverly written so that it appears to give a clear view supported by evidence without overly committing.  Unfortunately, as with much of the media out there at present, it's not what you know but how loudly or widely you can say it.

Btw, the Guardian referred to him as a "tax expert" yesterday in his response to the Google tax agreement.  If he's a tax expert, I'm Omar Bogle!  (I'm not by the way, nor am I Scott Brown)  

Oh come on. You may not like Murphy or may disagree with many of his conclusions, but trying to claim he isn't a tax expert is just nonsense. He's dedicated more than a decade to the field, has advised many NGOs, has given evidence to various select committees in government and is recognised as a well-known campaigner in the field both by friends and foes alike. He's certainly not averse to self-promotion but, as far as I can tell, this doesn't seem to be with the aim of filling his own pockets. His main critics work hand in glove with the big 4 accountancy firms who are, of course, those he is attacking the most for their work in helping corporations and the wealthy avoid or evade taxes.

Regarding the particular article itself with the self-employment data. Which particular extrapolations don't you think hold true? Looking through the figures, it seems to me that his conclusions seem pretty obvious - the minutiae might not be shown in the numbers but the gist of what he says surely can't be any different? Providing the income data are correct, then surely the low income figures for most of the self-employed is worryingly accurate.

The only difference I can think of which might make the figures suspect would be if a large proportion of the self-employed weren't declaring a very large proportion of their income, which would of course indicate they are operating in the black economy. I don't doubt that this holds true to some degree around the margins, but do millions of the self-employed really all lie to HMRC about a huge proportion of their income? Seems doubtful to me.

You can earn over £10,000 per year before tax, so if the figures are correct, then the majority of the self employed won't be paying tax anyway. Of course they may also be dodging other stuff they are liable for.

Just to show i'm not totally biased toward Labour, i think the raising of the tax threshold under this and the last parliament is a very good move. Of course it was a Lib Dem policy that the Tories had to take on to get the Lib Dems on board for the coalition and they did introduce it more slowly than the Lib Dems wanted, but all the same........

Quoted from ginnywings

You can earn over £10,000 per year before tax, so if the figures are correct, then the majority of the self employed won't be paying tax anyway. Of course they may also be dodging other stuff they are liable for.

Just to show i'm not totally biased toward Labour, i think the raising of the tax threshold under this and the last parliament is a very good move. Of course it was a Lib Dem policy that the Tories had to take on to get the Lib Dems on board for the coalition and they did introduce it more slowly than the Lib Dems wanted, but all the same........

I think it's fair to say most self employed  and I speak from experience will bend the rules to save a few quid here and there, and it  also helps having a good accountant, I know  tradesmen locally from joiners to plasterers who I'm pretty certain will have a shoe box or something similar stuffed with notes and tucked away for that rainy day.

Yes good move raising the threshold my son has an apprenticeship earning nearly 16000 a year and he only pays about 1000 in tax, so now he can save for a decent future and have a good deposit for his first house, this is how it should be.

I feel for the school leavers under the Blair years who where led to believe university was for everyone, causing a lossed generation in skilled labour, sadly most of these people are now working at Costa (joke) well in low paid jobs that don't require a degree anyway,.