Posts

You can't accuse me of posting nonsense then quote Wikipedia 

Nice to have someone feisty though, welcome back 

The bit I'm completely baffled on is this Tory promise of making it law about no tax or NI rises in the next 4 years.

How does that work? So if they break it do they go to prison? 

How long does it take to get an act of law through parliament? Years. For once I agree with Miliband and this does sound like a desperate gimmick.

What's next, NHS Doctors waiting time law, or maybe locking up your dentist if he over runs?

Enjoyed the Andrew Neill debate about the various parties stance on the Armed Forces and in particularly Trident.

Think the greens representative was out of her depth, and claims that the Greens would disband the standing army, scrap the Navy and Airforce didn't lend much to credibility.

Then the bizarre analysis of the Greens website which allegedly said you can join the Greens if you are a member of a terrorist group, as long as you haven't killed anyone, which the representative finally got badgered into saying she didn't agree with the policy.

I thought the Lib's came out with the best policy ref Trident, renew, but have 1 less boat, and scrap the current 24/7 expensive nuclear patrols, as we don't really have an obvious nuclear threat to combat. But the deterrent is their to be re-activated as and when needed if the world stage changed, or Russia slid into a more nuclear aggressive posture.

Interesting analysis from the Tory defence minister ref giving up Nuclear weapons. The Ukraine recently gave up it's stockpile of former USSR nuclear weapons. If it hadn't, would Russia been so quick to invade? 

Scary "what if" food for thought...

I remember talking to a solicitor recently who I know well who is told to charge by the 1/4 hour. So 1 minute over, then that's another 15 mins.

I think unlimited free advice is a risky strategy, too many people want everything for free these days and are unwilling to pay for it. Free consultation makes sense to see if a case or further action is viable, or subscription service as Indizine says makes sense.

I'd be wary of unlimited free legal advice as (in my mind) I'd be dubious of the quality. Having had access to lots of "free" business advice as part of various accountancy services, in hindsight most of it was either duff, low quality or I could have easily sourced myself. Any genuine issues which needed professional advice always came back with a "you'll need to source a specialist in your industry caveat". In other words they didn't know or wouldn't stand by it, so pointless.

Where as the times I've needed legal advice, I've always paid for it, felt I've had a good service and it's achieved the required result, official letters, putting the frighteners on, documentation etc.

Unless you move in to a traffic monetisation model, with the legal content being the traffic driver and hook. But you would need substantial traffic to cover solicitors salaries

Well this one seems to have back fired!

Karen Brady apparently encouraged small business owners to sign a 5000 strong letter of support, published by the Telegraph, which it seems was full of dupes and originated from Tory HQ.

This has led to a social media backlash, with one business demanding to be taken off the list as they never signed it!

At least they got a good social media boost out of it and plenty of Newspaper coverage

Well a week on, and this is starting to feel like an anti climax. Yet to see any huge seismic shift in the mobile search results. Other than getting a "mobile friendly" moniker in the results, I'd say we are about exactly the same as we were 2 weeks ago.

No doubt there will now be a bolt of Google lightening and we'll disappear fro ever off the mobile results 

Anyone else seen anything good or bad?

Great story on the beeb how the IFS has analysed the main parties financial plans and picked holes in them and questioned the need and complexity of more layers of tax.

"Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats plan to increase the personal allowance - the amount one can earn before paying income tax - to £12,500 by the end of the next parliament.

But the IFS said that would not help the 44% of people who now pay no tax...

Labour's plans to introduce a 10% starting rate for income tax also came in for criticism.

The IFS said this change would be worth a "princely" 50 pence a week to most tax payers...

...Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats plan to introduce a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2m.

But the IFS said it would be much more sensible to let the council tax take care of wealth in the housing market.

"Setting up an entirely separate tax is unnecessarily complicated", it claimed.

The bit that really made me smile

"The IFS accuses all the parties of planning to extract a huge amount of money by clamping down on tax avoidance -"mysteriously missed" in all previous clampdowns."

IFS: Households can expect lower incomes, whoever wins the election - BBC

These tax avoidance clampdowns are starting to sound like a 1980's Daz advert, even whiter than the last time..

Great image, but also a very powerful point, from web designers to builders!

Image credit unknown.

Betting wise I'm thinking it will be the same as now, a Tory led coalition with the liberals. I can't see any outright winner. Maybe the Liberal influence is a good checks and balance to some of the Tory headstrong policies.

I almost wish I was Scottish and could join in some of that nationalistic passion that seems to be fermenting away. Our alternative, Farage seems a bit watered down in comparison.