[The Weeping Angel]

Won't somebody please think of the Airbnbs?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Ok, can I apply this to your posts, Malcolm?

Don’t patronise me. I’ve been doing source evaluation since before you were born. Also, I don’t post random shit without explanation or provenance.

[Killer Whale]

Won't somebody please think of the Airbnbs?

In what way 'penalise?'

It seems that she's running a side hustle small business. That's fine, but it's legitimate that a) she should be declaring any income after expenses for tax, and b) she should be making a contribution to her direct community to compensate for any externalities that are consequential.

This is basic stuff.

[soulboy]

Won't somebody please think of the Airbnbs?

No wonder the farmers are up in arms. Many of them now have short term lets which no doubt are still considered essential to feeding the nation and exempt from inheritance tax.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Labour could have forced the day one rights but might be wise not to.

The Left deserve credit for forcing the 2 child cap to be lifted, but they’ve also got a few “brave” policies in. “Day one rights” may be one, and I think decarbonising electricity so fast may be another, with the risk that lots do decide net zero is too expensive. Other green spending with more immediate payback might have been a better idea. I know that insulation is harder to get right than it seems, but that would be poor households getting the benefit immediately.

[mattomac]

As a trade union member I’d rather get the bill done with minimal fuss than push hard on something that I am in two minds about.

As for the Air BnB person… just charge more and if you aren’t covering it then sell. Why should the government cover your lifestyle? A lifestyle that is beyond attainable for anyone earning less than 50k if not more.

Also she could also rent but I assume she does BnB because she doesn’t want to sign up to any relegulations. The new laws don’t restrict wishing to move back in the property and she could rent it under a licensee/Lodger agreement anyhow. (This is more applicable to her anyhow).

No she’d rather have a lifestyle on the back of public finances and charge silly prices for some holiday types and do the bare minimum to upkeep the property.

[kreuzberger]

The rough rule with AirBnB is that you need about 20-25% occupancy in order to outrun what you would get on the residential rental market. OK, cleaning costs, bedding crockery, and nick-nacks need to be added, but the economic case is not rocket salad.

[Youngian]

You can understand the popularity of Air BnB when hotel cleaning staff treat you like a freak or criminal because you fancy an afternoon snooze.

[Tubby Isaacs]

In itself, Air BnB means that lots more space gets used more efficiently than it would have done. One of my friends who is not well off always uses it when he visits his son, and it suits him. There seems to be a big reaction against it because of a small number of hotspots in eg Central Edinburgh. This may or may not be over the top- it's not like Central Edinburgh was Grimsby before Air BnB. Sort out the tax and regulation, and what's the problem? My friend will pay a bit more for his stays in a not particularly expensive part of Leeds, but he'll cope with that better than he will paying hotel prices.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Is there actually any social science behind this point? I'd say there's considerably more scope for people to get angry with a big tax rise than a modest one. Sure, they all complain about the modest one, but there's surely more chance of enough growth picking up to make the small rise seem less bad in 3 years time than a big one. Yet this "be hung for a sheep instead of a goat" analysis is being pushed by loads of people.

Reeves considering raising income tax seems to have set a lot of people off more than the actual budget measures would have done.

[Abernathy]

James Ball is a British journalist and author. He has worked for The Grocer, The Guardian, WikiLeaks, BuzzFeed, The New European and The Washington Post and is the author of several books. He is the recipient of several awards for journalism and was a member of The Guardian team that won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism.

So not some random, then. See how it's done?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Astonishingly, I agree with Simon Jenkins on juries. Bizarrely, he muddles the argument by chucking in imprisonment to the argument, as if juries do sentencing. But I hope Lammy follows through and reduces the number of jury trials.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ice-system

[The Weeping Angel]

Is there actually any social science behind this point? I'd say there's considerably more scope for people to get angry with a big tax rise than a modest one. Sure, they all complain about the modest one, but there's surely more chance of enough growth picking up to make the small rise seem less bad in 3 years time than a big one. Yet this "be hung for a sheep instead of a goat" analysis is being pushed by loads of people.

Reeves considering raising income tax seems to have set a lot of people off more than the actual budget measures would have done.

Also I believe a lot of the backbenchers and a fair few ministers pushed back against the idea.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Please be specific - how many and who? Or was that just media fluff?

[Youngian]

Astonishingly, I agree with Simon Jenkins on juries. Bizarrely, he muddles the argument by chucking in imprisonment to the argument, as if juries do sentencing. But I hope Lammy follows through and reduces the number of jury trials.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ice-system

Don't like the idea of a single judge deciding a verdict and would prefer three. It might make for good drama but it always struck me as a bit ludicrous to have to choose between two narratives, one of which is a tissue of lies and the other was true. Coroner court proceedings struck me as more sophisticated and effective.

[Tubby Isaacs]

As always, you never really know. The test of this sort of stuff is plausibility. And it's very plausible backbenchers wouldn't fancy being on the hook for it.

And I can give you one name- Lucy Powell, because she said so. And she got elected Deputy Leader as a voice for backbenchers.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Don't like the idea of a single judge deciding a verdict and would prefer three. It might make for good drama but it always struck me as a bit ludicrous to have to choose between two narratives, one of which is a tissue of lies and the other was true. Coroner court proceedings struck me as more sophisticated and effective.

The judge will likely have heard the same tissue of lies and rhetorical tricks lots of times, and probably did the same stuff when they were a barrister. I'd much rather a judge decide than a jury.

[The Weeping Angel]

Please be specific - how many and who? Or was that just media fluff?

I don't have a specific list of names Malcolm. But it shouldn't come as a surprise that some were wary about breaking a key pledge.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Congratulations, everyone! Starmer survives another week, and it’s only cost us £26bn
Marina Hyde

I know this is political sketch stuff, but satire is supposed to come from some sort of principle. What's the principle here? That raising tax to do nice things like decarbonization and poverty relief is bad? And that Starmer's about to resign?

This is Westminster Village satire.

[Tubby Isaacs]

So, can we now be sure that this, which got a lot of attention, was a load of rubbish?

Chancellor warned ‘tax rises needed to fill £51bn black hole in public finances’
Niesr said Rachel Reeves is facing an ‘impossible trilemma’ and will likely need to resort to tax rises in the autumn budget.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/busi ... 02750.html

By my estimate, she raised taxes by £26bn and now has something like £22bn headroom. That doesn't suggest a £51bn black hole. That suggests a £4bn black hole. I'm not big on "they should apologize" stuff. but it seems funny that the errors on this stuff (in August, it wasn't like this was last year or there's been a big economic development in the meantime) tend to be so bad and always in the direction of Rachel Reeves being shit and naive.