General UK politics VIII - The Last Tory

[Gulliver Foyle]

It means they have a perverse incentive to have too few GPs in the practice, so I can't get to see a doctor when I want to. Which is Garrison's point. I don't want to smash the NHS because of the parts that aren't working. I want them fixed.

Sorry to break it to you nu-labor smashed up the NHS, and nu-nu-labor's Streeting is going to take a lump hammer to what remains.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Someone should tell Elon that Tommy Robinson has been jailed 4 times

For kicking a policeman in the head, for committing £160K mortgage fraud, for contempt of court and ironically, being an illegal immigrant to the USA when he travelled there on a false passport.

Fake news spread by the woke media.

 

[jimbob]

Nice thread about one "poor farmer" whos likely to struggle with the inheritance tax changes, as reported in the Times

Torsten Bell (@torstenbell.bsky.social)

Here’s a short story about who wins and loses from the status quo of our inheritance tax rules - and about, what you might politely call ‘sub-optimal’ journalism🧵

bsky.app

This is what the Times says about him

One of those older farmers, standing with his daughter and son-in-law in the bitter cold, was Sir John Kemp-Welch, 88, who owns 5,000 acres of "difficult hill farming land" in Perthshire where he and his children farm blackface sheep.

"It's not easy," he said. "Farming in Scotland is very tough but we are determined to go on."

Kemp-Welch said an inheritance tax bill would be "very expensive and possibly fatal. It will all go to my children and they will suffer."

"It would probably take all my children's lives to pay off the inheritance tax bill," he said.

TLDR: Poor 88 yr old Kemp-Welch did have a career prior to becoming a farmer. For example chair of the London Stock Exchange from 1994-2000

 

[jeremyp]

I still think that could almost have been reflex. Hit on the back of the head by an egg thrown from within punching distance. It would have been a complete surprise and would have hurt.

Of course it was just a reflex after being assaulted. I just couldn't resist making the joke once it had popped into my head.

 

[Darat]

Nice thread about one "poor farmer" whos likely to struggle with the inheritance tax changes, as reported in the Times

Torsten Bell (@torstenbell.bsky.social)

Here’s a short story about who wins and loses from the status quo of our inheritance tax rules - and about, what you might politely call ‘sub-optimal’ journalism🧵

bsky.app

This is what the Times says about him



TLDR: Poor 88 yr old Kemp-Welch did have a career prior to becoming a farmer. For example chair of the London Stock Exchange from 1994-2000

First of all "very expensive and possibly fatal" - well that kind of sums up inheritance!

"It will all go to my children and they will suffer." - is he making the claim they will have to pay more in tax than they will inherit? Otherwise the kids are certainly not going to suffer, his death is going to make them better off.

 

[jeremyp]

Dodgy petition

Bot central.

Pathetic.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1860769411218514140

I don't think so. There are a few signatures from outside the UK but by and large there are a few thousand signatures from each constituency. The ones from outside the UK could easily be British citizens living abroad.

Admittedly a bot could have harvested real postcodes, and set up real email addresses to handle the verification, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that there are two and a half million - probably many more - who think we got the election wrong and want another go.

Will they let us do Brexit again, I wonder?

 

[jeremyp]

Sorry to break it to you nu-labor smashed up the NHS

No they didn't. I think some of their changes were bad for the NHS, but, in no sense, did they smash it up. Smashing it up would be dismantling it and replacing it with a US style insurance system.

 

[jimbob]

First of all "very expensive and possibly fatal" - well that kind of sums up inheritance!

"It will all go to my children and they will suffer." - is he making the claim they will have to pay more in tax than they will inherit? Otherwise the kids are certainly not going to suffer, his death is going to make them better off.

Exactly.

 

[Vixen]

Nice thread about one "poor farmer" whos likely to struggle with the inheritance tax changes, as reported in the Times

Torsten Bell (@torstenbell.bsky.social)

Here’s a short story about who wins and loses from the status quo of our inheritance tax rules - and about, what you might politely call ‘sub-optimal’ journalism🧵

bsky.app

This is what the Times says about him



TLDR: Poor 88 yr old Kemp-Welch did have a career prior to becoming a farmer. For example chair of the London Stock Exchange from 1994-2000

I am so sorry to hear of Mr. Kemp-Welch's desperate plight. Whilst I am not a licensed tax adviser and my NVQ4 in Business Tax and Personal Tax goes back a few years, I am so moved with pity, I am willing to proffer my advice to Mr. K-W for free. I urge Mr. K-W to do what the working classes do! Pop along to the local Post Office and open a National Savings Account for the sprogs as soon as they are born. Encourage them to pay in ten shillings a week and then by the time Mummy and Daddy, Grampa and Nana, pop their clogs, hopefully the little brats will have a couple of bob saved towards the IHT. Perhaps get them to cancel their Netflix subscriptions and for heaven's sake, tell them to stop going on exotic holidays and taking expensive gap years!!!

 

[Norman Alexander]

Fake news spread by the woke media.

What, that Tommy Robinson is a cowardly, lying prat with a criminal record as long as your arm?

 

[Norman Alexander]

I don't think so. There are a few signatures from outside the UK but by and large there are a few thousand signatures from each constituency. The ones from outside the UK could easily be British citizens living abroad.

Admittedly a bot could have harvested real postcodes, and set up real email addresses to handle the verification, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that there are two and a half million - probably many more - who think we got the election wrong and want another go.

Will they let us do Brexit again, I wonder?

Just change the title at the top of that petition. Job done.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

First of all "very expensive and possibly fatal" - well that kind of sums up inheritance!

"It will all go to my children and they will suffer." - is he making the claim they will have to pay more in tax than they will inherit? Otherwise the kids are certainly not going to suffer, his death is going to make them better off.

You'd think a former Chairman of the London Stock Exchange & HSBC Board Member would be able to afford inheritance planning advice.

 

[Darat]

You'd think a former Chairman of the London Stock Exchange & HSBC Board Member would be able to afford inheritance planning advice.

You think a poor farmer working from 5am to midnight 7 days a week, and barely keeping a roof over their head can afford either the cost or time to get inheritance planning advice?

 

[jimbob]

You think a poor farmer working from 5am to midnight 7 days a week, and barely keeping a roof over their head can afford either the cost or time to get inheritance planning advice?

Especially if he has to look after 20 sq km on his own at the age of 88.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It's not like the inheritance tax is going to hurt him anyway; he'll be dead. If his kids are anxious about losing a portion of their hoped-for inheritance, maybe it would be in their interests to persuade their dear old dad to take some advice from someone who knows a little about financial matters. If I were them, I might try to persuade him to pass on the farm now and make every effort to keep him as healthy and happy as possible as they have a stake in keeping him going at least until he's 95.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Michael Caine the famous actor's home is in the UK. So obvious not that Michael Caine. Must be one of the thousands of other Michael Caines around the world and also in the USA.

Apart from he spends more time in the USA than in the UK.

In the UK he sold his Surrey Mansion in 2022 and 'downsized' to just an apartment in Chelsea Harbour.

 

[Wudang]

How many of the farmers working 24x7 actually own the land instead of being tenant farmers?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

First of all "very expensive and possibly fatal" - well that kind of sums up inheritance!

"It will all go to my children and they will suffer." - is he making the claim they will have to pay more in tax than they will inherit? Otherwise the kids are certainly not going to suffer, his death is going to make them better off.

But if all the tax dodgers try to sell their land at once it will be worth less. Won't someone think of the tax dodgers' children?!

In reality IHT is still the easiest tax to not pay. E.g., Parents gift enough of the farm to their children at least 7 years before their death to bring them below the threshold. If the children are going to continue on the farm then presumably they would naturally take on more of the responsibility of running the farm as their parents get older anyway.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

How many of the farmers working 24x7 actually own the land instead of being tenant farmers?

There's quite a few, but their farms are relatively small.

The value of the farmland has been inflated by the wealthy (e.g., James Dyson, inventor of the Die-Soon vacuum cleaner) buying up large swathes of it (36000 acres) for the tax benefits.

Then there is the landed aristocracy, such as the Duke of Westminster who got his land as a gift from William the Conqueror, which goes to show it's who you know and not what you know that counts in life!

 

[jimbob]

How many of the farmers working 24x7 actually own the land instead of being tenant farmers?

But if all the tax dodgers try to sell their land at once it will be worth less. Won't someone think of the tax dodgers' children?!

In reality IHT is still the easiest tax to not pay. E.g., Parents gift enough of the farm to their children at least 7 years before their death to bring them below the threshold. If the children are going to continue on the farm then presumably they would naturally take on more of the responsibility of running the farm as their parents get older anyway.

Exactly, also, from one of the parents at the local scout group who has made a career helping "high net worth individuals" (>£20M) in the NW from managing such things, there are fudges one can take with regarding their wealth as a family company and gifting different types of share to the kids, whilst keeping control.