Farage's £250k 'Robin Hood tax' is a free ride for non-doms, says reader
Do you agree with our readers? Have your say on these MetroTalk topics and more in the comments.
Nigel Farage's so-called 'Robin Hood Tax' is an outrageous, Sheriff of Nottingham-style con (Metro, Tue).
The Reform UK 'Britannia Card' idea is that non-doms, instead of paying tax annually like the rest of us, make a one-off payment of £250,000, which 'Hood' Farage promises will be used to benefit 'the poor'.
According to the Chartered Institute of Taxation (using figures from HMRC) the tax yield from non-doms for the year ending April 5, 2022, averaged out at £120,000 each.
So Farage's one-off payment amounts to just over two years of tax at 2021-2022 rates followed by a permanent free ride at the expense of other taxpayers.
Public services, already cut to the bone, will get even worse and the poor will suffer to support the wealthy. Paul Johnson, Ilford
Sir Keir Starmer has described Palestine Action group throwing paint over fighter planes at RAF Brize Norton (Metro, Tue) as 'disgraceful'.
He is right, the lack of security that allowed it to happen is indeed appalling and, as the leader of the government that takes responsibility for it, the buck clearly stops with him.
With his new-found humility, the prime minister could perhaps now thank the organisation that exposed the weakness.
What if they had been terrorists? Phil Goater, Sunbury-on-Thames
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How do you find a secret base in Iran? You look for the building guarded by a man with an AK-47. How do you find a secret base in Israel? You look for the building guarded by a man with an Uzi machine gun.
How do you find a secret base in the UK? You look for the building guarded by nobody – they're all asleep and the personnel officer is in charge. Jeff Sutton, Erdington
Dennis Fitzgerald (MetroTalk, Tue) claims we 'can't bomb people into peace, only into surrender'. He's wrong.
When we bombed Nazi Germany into surrender, it led to the birth of a peaceful and democratic country. Why should Iran be any different?
Most Iranians hate the murderous regime that stole their country 46 years ago. Israel understands this. That's why the Israeli Air Force targeted Iran's notorious Evin prison – not to harm civilians but to help those oppressed by the Ayatollahs' regime escape and get a chance at freedom. David Frencel, London
Are you able to consider this witticism in keeping with the recent 'doctor jokes' theme for your excellent newspaper? More Trending
Ronnie O'Sullivan went to the doctor recently and said, 'Doctor, I feel like a snooker ball.' The doc replied, 'Get to the back of the cue.' Stevie 'Whirlwind' Duggers, Sheffield
Another doctor joke. I went to the doctor today to get a vaccine. Nervous, I asked, 'Is it going to hurt?' The doctor said, 'It will hurt a bit today but tomorrow will be fine.'
Immediately I replied, 'Can we reschedule for tomorrow, then?' Pedro, Hammersmith
MORE: The Metro daily cartoon by Guy Venables
MORE: Met Police boss grilled into apologising to ITV's Selina Scott after vicious mugging
MORE: Drug kingpins guilty of plot to murder rival and smuggling £5,000,000 of cocaine
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The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
A chance to reform public services: can we get it right this time?
The autumn political conference season in the year before an election is always one to watch. It's when near-final manifesto pledges — focus-grouped and thrashed out over the summer — are given a public airing to see how they fare against the prevailing mood. Crucially, it also gives parties time to finesse or abandon them altogether if the response is less than enthusiastic. By the time spring conference season rolls around, campaigning is in full swing and everything becomes about the pitch to voters. This autumn's season will arguably be one of the most significant in the post-devolution era. Current polling points to a much broader split in representation at Holyrood in 2026 than we've seen before, and there's a growing sense that every vote is up for grabs. The public mood increasingly demands action over loyalty — something we haven't seen for quite some time. Read more by Calum Steele As things stand, the SNP is still on course to be the largest party at Holyrood, albeit a much-diminished force compared to its 2011 peak. Labour — still a long way off the halcyon days when they boasted of weighing the vote rather than counting it — will be buoyed by their recent success in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, and are starting to believe they're no longer just there to make up the numbers. Meanwhile, the emergence of Reform will almost certainly see the new kid on the block hosting its own conference, creating a dilemma for many organisations and businesses now furiously debating the optics of attending — and how such a move might be perceived. However it's sliced and diced, the very nature of devolved politics leaves little room for genuine originality. With the overwhelming majority of the Scottish budget directed straight into public services — and with increasing welfare responsibilities now falling to Holyrood — tinkering at the edges is all we're likely to see in reality. That's not to say we won't hear grandiose pronouncements about changing how 'we' do things. (No one wants to use the word 'reform' any more, lest it boost the algorithms that propel Farage's party further into public consciousness.) This probably explains why the Christie Commission of 2011 seems to have been dusted off and turned into a talking point again in recent weeks. As far as aspiration goes, the Christie Commission is right up there. In fact, I can't think of a single person I've met who disagrees with its principles. Christie rightly identified massive inefficiencies in public service delivery and emphasised the need to shift spending away from ever-growing demand and towards preventing that demand in the first place. Few disagreed on the what — the how was never addressed. The First Minister has already cited the creation of Police Scotland as an example of the kind of reform Christie inspired. This is, of course, as politically courageous a claim as it is an inaccurate one — police reform was already well under way before Christie was even established. But it illustrates just how far apart political interpretations of 'successful reform' are from public perceptions. It also assumes the public has forgotten what that reform was actually supposed to deliver. When Alex Salmond ran the temperature check on a single Scottish police service at the SNP conference in October 2010, he declared: 'If it comes down to a choice between cops and bureaucracy, between bobbies on the beat and the boundaries of police authorities, then with me it's simple — it's policemen first — safety first — communities first — bobbies before boundaries.' John Swinney is right that £200 million has been cut from the annual cost of policing, but beyond saving money, police reform brought leadership chaos, consecutive years of accounting failures and bailouts, catastrophic headlines, and several years of political pain — before finally settling into a model that delivers a much-diminished quality of service across the country, far removed from how it was sold. John Swinney (Image: PA) It's inevitable that this summer recess will see parties of all stripes grappling with questions of structural reform — particularly across local authorities and health boards. How these deliberations manifest at the conference lecterns later this year will largely determine the direction of travel for the post-2026 parliament. Structural reform holds many appeals for politicians. They look at the number of chief executives and the size of management teams replicating much of the same functions and see easy wins in cutting their number. They'll claim procurement benefits and economies of scale, while ignoring the chaos increased centralisation always causes — simply hoping that service improvement will follow. The Police Scotland experience suggests those hopes would be very misplaced indeed, as new, more expensive bureaucracies emerge to replace old ones, and those actually delivering services are jettisoned to make way for shiny new corporate functions measuring them. We can debate whether Christie failed because it was designed for an ideal world rather than the real one, or whether Christie was failed by the very institutions it aimed to inspire — who simply ignored it and carried on as before. Either way, it has not delivered the outcomes that the fanfare surrounding its publication promised. The reasons for that are not structural. Almost all of them come down to failures in leadership — and unless politicians are prepared to tackle that problem, the only thing that will change is that our public services will become centralised beasts, even further removed from the communities they are meant to serve. The fall out from that would be a price no government could survive. Calum Steele is a former General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, and former general secretary of the International Council of Police Representative Associations. He remains an advisor to both
New Statesman
2 hours ago
- New Statesman
Thomas Skinner's full English
Illustration by André Carrilho 'I don't plan – I just do everything on impulse.' So Thomas Skinner told the producers of The Apprentice before his television debut in 2019. And as we chatted before he spoke at the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation's Now and England conference, I began to believe him. He was grinning at me in his bulky suit, his face ablaze with a suntan like a bank holiday weekend. I asked him what he knew about his co-panellists, the High Tory MP Danny Kruger, the Brexiteer historian Robert Tombs and the ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe, latterly famous for calling for mass deportations. Skinner said he didn't know much about them. I asked him who had invited him to speak. 'James,' he replied, meaning James Orr, the Cambridge theology professor and close friend of JD Vance. But he said that he didn't really know James either. He'd simply accepted an invitation to talk about 'how much I love England'. Skinner's very presence here is a sign of the new strategies and gambits of the political right. His name will puzzle many otherwise switched-on, urbane readers. He started out as a pillow and mattress salesman, and then after his firing from The Apprentice – one of those decent, head-held-high firings, without the usual pleading and back-stabbing – Skinner remade himself a star of reality TV. He appeared on Celebrity MasterChef and 8 Out of 10 Cats. And, to far greater recognition, in mid 2022 he started to post videos of himself eating elaborately unhealthy meals on (then) Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. These meals are generally drawn from what I think of as the Great British, mid-week, can't-be-arsed menu: cottage pie, jacket potatoes and those domesticated exoticisms, curry, chilli con carne, Chinese. And like a Dickens character reminding you who they are after a multi-chapter absence, Skinner narrates these meals in a language of cheery catchphrases: 'Don't go home until you're proud'; 'Tough times don't last, but tough people do'; and, simply, 'Bosh!'. These videos, along with rolling footage of the Romford good life (golf, family BBQs, early-morning gym), have won Skinner an audience of 683,000 on Instagram alone. In recent months, however, something has shifted in his online persona. Skinner had always presented himself as a graduated member of the petite bourgeoisie (Ford Transit for work, red Bentley for play). But suddenly he started to post about his mates not wanting to go to church with him, about how families need more support with childcare costs, and about how 'London has fallen' with people 'too frightened to walk down their own street'. 'We need leadership that understands the streets, the markets, the working class', he wrote. 'People like me.' Dominic Cummings immediately offered his services for a London mayoral campaign. The reactionary right sniffed out a new champion in their battle against the libs. They believe Ray Parlour can be remade into their very own Hereward the Wake. And so, here is Skinner, taking his seat next to Rupert Lowe, in an Edwardian auditorium in Westminster. Around us were the Tory boys of stereotype: legions of gelled Malfoys, spotted with misshapen Crabbes and Goyles. First, though, both he and we had to endure the other speakers. Kruger kicked off. As he started speaking, Skinner spun his seat side-on and leant back a deckchair 45 degrees. Kruger talked about how England was the 'first nation', about Wycliffe, Bede and Alfred. And though we had been 'interpenetrated by foreigners', he exalted the great continuities in English history and that 'anyone can become English', a remark the man in front of me seemed to find oddly exercising. Behind me, a woman was resting her eyes. Skinner slouched and itched, swigging water directly from a large glass bottle (forgoing the tumbler provided). Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Next up was Tombs, who was straightforwardly dull. He talked about how we should teach the history of the country we share, emphasising what we have in common. He recommended a long march through the woke institutions, making funding of public projects more accountable and regularising the national history taught in schools. By this time, Skinner was nearly horizontal, and gurning madly on a stick of chewing gum. Last of the old guard was Lowe. The most exciting part of his speech came at the start: his reading glasses hung around his neck in two halves, and when he started speaking he snapped them together at the nose with delicious emphasis. Lowe is captivating, like a public schoolmaster at chapel; indeed, he reads his own words as if they actually come from the Bible. He gave his usual scripture about the Blairite coup and government by lawyers. Skinner was completely lost to his phone, typing away, the stage lights glinting off his golden watch. But when his turn came around, he bounded to the podium. His speech was titled 'The England I Love'. England is 'the absolute guv'nor', he said, home of the rule of law, the Industrial Revolution and the World Wide Web. It is built on family, graft and community: 'The single mum up at 5am, getting her kids ready, before a long day of work, but who still finds the strength to smile.' But these people have been failed, 'left behind in [their] own country', with 'kids being taught to be ashamed of their own flag'. He advocated once again for better childcare and support for young parents, as well as more forceful police (because, 'let's be honest, they're pussies at the minute'). It was simple, stirring, populist stuff. He was the only speaker to be interrupted by applause. Throughout, Kruger was looking at Skinner warily, as though a drunk had wandered into his train carriage. Tombs was studying him intently, like the president of the Royal Society confronted with a baffling new specimen. Lowe just grinned maniacally. When Skinner had finished, he offered him an awkward, lingering but reciprocated high-five. I couldn't help but wonder what united Skinner with these three: a post-liberal party intellectual, a grandee academic and a seigneurial landowner. As the panel took questions, Lowe went further, leaning into his 'family business' (and, he neglected to say, multimillionaire) background, and championing people 'like Tom and his family'. And he was rewarded with an 'I agree with what Rupert just said', before the final 'I would literally say what Rupert just said but I'm getting hot and ready for a pint'. Skinner ultimately scrambled off the stage during the Q&A – he said he had to take a call – and it was a good time to leave. First, there was a question from Carl Benjamin, a disgraced alt-right YouTuber. And then, as Tombs was saying something anodyne about how anyone could be English, he was interrupted by a nativist heckler. 'Ridiculous!' someone said. 'You inherit Englishness, it's in your ancestry.' Tombs argued him down, but the mood had soured. Perhaps he had just meant inheritance in the sense that these things must be actively passed down. Perhaps not. In his present incarnation, Skinner is far too goofy for such talk. But, an hour after the social media star sprinted off the stage, Robert Jenrick posted a video with him (two hours from then, I see from X, Skinner was having spag bol at home). More than any other politician, Jenrick is desperate to join Skinner in the realm of the algorithmic celebrity. And here was their crossover, a discussion of tool theft and its effect on tradesmen. In his speech, Skinner confirmed he's 'thinking about giving it a go in politics'. In so many ways, he's already there. [See also: Dominic Cummings: oracle of the new British berserk] Related
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
This electoral weapon could keep Nigel Farage out of Downing Street
Our democracy is in a mess. We don't need a think tank to tell us this because we can see it with our own eyes. But in its annual survey published today, the National Centre for Social Research has confirmed that this gnawing sense of a system that is no longer working has become deeply ingrained in the national psyche. Its most obvious manifestation is a surge in support for Reform UK, which is now running well ahead of Labour and the Tories. There is already talk of Nigel Farage becoming the next prime minister, though with another election four years away, a good deal can happen in that time to scupper his chances. Reform would need to win 326 seats in the Commons from their present base of five MPs. That seems highly unlikely, but is no longer inconceivable. What the 2024 election showed is that its possible to achieve a substantial majority with the support of just one third of the voters, which is roughly where the polls put Reform. Last July, Labour won with 33.7 per cent; Reform are currently on 34 per cent, though without a strong base that does not necessarily translate into a majority. Since the turnout last year was only 60 per cent, the Government had the support of around one in five of those eligible to vote. It was the lowest share ever won by a party with a parliamentary majority. In addition, the Tories recorded their worst result. Fewer than three in five of all votes were cast for either Labour or the Conservatives, the lowest proportion since, and including, 1922. Moreover, Labour won just 1.6 per cent more of the vote than it did in 2019, when it lost comprehensively, yet this time won 411 seats – 63 per cent of all MPs – and a majority of 174. That worked out at 23,000 votes per seat, whereas Reform needed 850,000 for each of its MPs. For obvious reasons, Mr Farage used to be an ardent supporter of proportional representation (PR) since his party was being woefully disadvantaged. Had the last election been run under the system of PR that operates in Scotland for the Holyrood parliament, then Labour would have had 228 seats and Reform 100. But there comes a point where first past the post (FPTP) suddenly becomes Mr Farage's friend and PR no longer seems the pressing moral crusade it once was. If at the next election Reform won one third or more of the votes, with support elsewhere split three or four ways, then they can do what Labour did. As more and more voters become disillusioned with Labour – and remain so with the Tories – then FPTP becomes ever more attractive to Mr Farage. At around 34 per cent of the vote, he reaches an inflection point where Reform can itself disproportionately pile up the seats. Not since the 1950s has a party won office with around 50 per cent of the vote. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair both won large majorities with around 43 per cent, but on bigger turnouts than we are now seeing, which provided legitimacy. The social attitudes survey suggests the turnout has fallen precisely because voters are fed up with the way their wishes are ignored and have lost confidence in parties to do what they promise. In 1987, almost half of voters said they trusted the government to place the needs of the country above the interests of their party. In the recent survey, that had fallen to 12 per cent, an astonishing collapse. Again, in 1987 30 per cent of voters wanted to change the voting system – now 60 per cent do. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, support for PR has surged among Tory supporters and fallen, though only marginally, among Labour voters. The Lib Dems, funnily enough, have also stopped talking about PR after winning 72 seats, which roughly reflected the support they received. But is PR really the answer? We have been here before, after all. At the 1983 general election, the SDP/Liberal Alliance secured 24 per cent of the vote and won only 23 seats. Labour notched up just 27 per cent yet bagged 209 MPs. If ever there was an argument for proportional representation along continental lines, there it was. Yet it has never been adopted even, if it is periodically flirted with. Before the 1997 election Blair led Paddy Ashdown a merry dance by hinting at his support for PR. When he won a majority of 170, his enthusiasm evaporated. The Tory failure to win outright in 2010 meant a coalition deal with the Lib Dems, the price of which was a now-forgotten referendum on voting reform. When it was held in 2011, few wanted the alternative vote (AV) that was on offer. AV is not true PR and the country could not get excited at the prospect, with 68 per cent opposed to a change on a 42 per cent turnout; but the idea never went away. In 2022, fearing they were never going to win outright again, the Labour conference voted for PR in what supporters called 'a seismic shift towards a fair voting system'. However, Sir Keir Starmer shot it down and has subsequently reaped the rewards of sticking with FPTP. Reform voters still overwhelmingly support PR, though that might change when they realise they could win under the current system, while 90 per cent of Greens – who would have 70 seats under PR rather than four – want change. FPTP usually produces strong government able to get things done, though the system does not need PR to produce a coalition, just the failure of one party to win a majority, as in 2010. The trouble with PR is that the need to keep disparate coalition partners on board leads to solemn election pledges being abandoned. It can also give disproportionate influence to small parties, as happened when the DUP held the balance of power after the 2017 election. In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is in thrall to extremist settler parties without whose support his government would collapse. Between 2010 and 2015, the Lib Dems comprised half the so-called 'Quad' that ran the administration. They wielded 50 per cent of the power with nine per cent of the seats, though a fat lot of good it did them at the following election. The social attitudes report suggests disenchantment is such that public opinion is now more inclined towards favouring a coalition over single party rule than at any time for 40 years. Judging by the polls, they will probably get their wish after the next election, though how it will be made up is anyone's guess.
