The state of the UK

[pErvinalia]

The UK approaching third world status.

Richest 1% have almost a quarter of UK wealth, study claims

Official figures have missed £800bn of private assets, says thinktank, amid calls for wealth tax to fund Covid recovery

Almost a quarter of all household wealth in the UK is held by the richest 1% of the population, according to alarming new research that reveals a historic underestimation of inequality in the country.

The study found that the top 1% had almost £800bn more wealth than suggested by official statistics, meaning that inequality has been far higher than previously thought. Researchers said the extra billions was a conservative estimate and could well be more.

The revelation comes amid calls for ministers to consider a new wealth tax or substantial reforms to existing levies on the rich, so that they play a bigger role in helping the country deal with the Covid fallout and the costs of an ageing population. Demands for a mansion tax are also being revived.

Around 5% of the total wealth held by the very richest households has been missed by official measures, researchers at the Resolution Foundation thinktank found. It discovered the missing wealth by comparing official statistics compiled by the Office for National Statistics with data from the Sunday Times Rich List.

Left-wing source. You can't trust that data.

[JimC]

Scot quotes (and presumably trusts) data that suits his bee in the bonnet de jour...

[aufbahrung]

Wealth measured against the value of the dollar is highly suspicious to me. Whatever happened to all those toxic banks anyway?

[Brian Peacock]

The $ is the world's reserve currency so it makes sense to compare things in those terms. I mean, you could work out the numbers in terms of something concrete like relative amounts of gold, but the price of gold is set in $s and so the value of the $ is still the important number in that assessment.

[Scot Dutchy]

Scot quotes (and presumably trusts) data that suits his bee in the bonnet de jour...

I thought that was the name of the game here Jim; cherry picking. Certain members do it all the time so what is sauce for the goose...

[Scot Dutchy]

The chaos in England gains momentum:

Teachers take legal action as chaos grips England's schools plan

Unions advise teachers to stay away from schools and warn reopening plan is an ‘utter shambles’

The planned reopening of schools in England has descended into disarray, as unions advised teachers not to return to the classroom, heads took legal action over the government’s plans and senior Tories warned that school gates may have to remain shut for weeks to come.

With warnings that some primary heads would arrive at work on Monday morning unsure about whether they would be able to reopen to pupils, teachers accused the government of making an “utter shambles” of school reopening and demanded a last-minute delay. Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, was also facing renewed calls to resign over the chaos.

There are growing demands this weekend for teachers to be given swifter access to the Covid vaccine and for schools to gain greater military help in testing pupils safely and reliably. Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), told the Observer: “The people I represent will be going into their schools and colleges on Monday not knowing precisely which staff they may or may not have. There is significant uncertainty. It may well be that there are lots of school leaders who will be writing to parents saying, ‘We don’t know what we can do on Monday, your children shouldn’t be coming in’.

“It is obvious to everybody that the government has made an utter shambles of the arrangements for the start of the spring term with late and confused communications, and the lack of a clear scientific rationale.”

As if the tories worry about these sort of matters.

[Brian Peacock]

We'll be in a national lockdown by this time next week. I know this because ministers have spent the morning going round the politics shows assuring us that the PM is fully focused on the Pandemic but isn't considering that option at the present time.

[Scot Dutchy]

Really does the UK have any politicians?

Meet the new breed of cabinet minister – too rubbish to fail

Gavin Williamson has spent the pandemic being guided by populist politics rather than children’s education

You couldn’t make it up. Less than three weeks ago, the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, was threatening to take legal action against schools in Islington and Greenwich, in London, if they closed a few days early for Christmas in light of alarming increases in Covid infection rates. On Wednesday night, primary schools in these boroughs were told that they would need to reopen as usual on Monday, unlike those in most other London boroughs, despite their high infection rates and a hospital in Greenwich declaring a major incident just a couple of days before that. Then, on Friday evening, Williamson led the government in its first U-turn of the year to announce that these schools would be closing from Monday after all, giving parents and teachers precisely zero opportunity to make arrangements.

It is just the latest example of Williamson’s breathtaking incompetence. At every turn in this pandemic, he has made missteps that will affect children for the rest of their lives. A half-decent education secretary would have worked with teaching unions to set in train a staged reopening of schools last May when infection rates were falling, as senior paediatricians were calling for at the time. They would have put on a programme of structured outdoor activities over the summer holidays for children who had missed months of school. They would have properly invested in equipping schools and homes for distance learning in the event of the second wave everyone was expecting. They would have introduced a school-wide test, track and trace scheme run by public health experts, rather than expecting headteachers to organise and oversee volunteer-led mass testing with virtually no notice. They would have stumped up for a tuition fee rebate for undergraduates and asked universities to move to distance learning rather than encouraging students to spread the virus across the country, which has resulted in many young people forking out for a university experience that has involved long spells of self-isolating in boxrooms. None of this is rocket science. It just takes a little imagination, a modicum of competence and a tiny bit of passion for wellbeing.

[aufbahrung]

Apparently some people are richer than other people in the UK. Under socialism it would be the other way around though. Could be worse with a cure for mortality. Some rich folk in the future would scoff at the idea you can't have too much money.

[pErvinalia]

What?

[Scot Dutchy]

Covid has exposed how incompetent the British state is, from top to bottom

It’s not just our ministers who are rotten – our whole system of government, from local to national, is at fault

Come the day of reckoning, who gets blamed? No one could call this week’s reopening of England’s local schools anything but a shambles. The prime minister has declared that all primary schools are “safe … very, very important to stress that” and must stay open. That appears not to apply where they stay shut, as in London and possibly Manchester, Newcastle, Slough, Brighton … and perhaps elsewhere as the week goes on.

The appearance is of a man embattled in Downing Street, wholly out of touch with the country he is governing. Inconvenience, cost and stress are inflicted on millions, with Boris Johnson seemingly concerned only for his daily press conference.

No government in Europe has had an easy ride over the past nine months, but none has had a worse one than Britain’s. Indecision on lockdown was followed by chaotic PPE supplies, the “world-beating” test-and-trace shambles, school exam confusion and now the multi-form bureaucratic deterrent to potential vaccinators.

British politics likes to keep blame simple. Politicians are entitled to the pleasure of success and the pain of failure. When things goes wrong, we blame the person in charge – be it Johnson, Matt Hancock, Michael Gove or Gavin Williamson. Damn each incompetent, damn the lot of them. That feels better.

Certainly Johnson’s lack of grasp over his government is distressing to see. He sacked many of his best colleagues from Theresa May’s team and replaced them with nonentities. The nation is paying a high price for a prime minister who puts blind loyalty before ability.

But the current incompetence of British government is due not just to poor ministers. The PPE contract scandal exposed deep-seated cronyism in state procurement. The decanting of sick elderly people from hospitals into care homes showed institutional NHS contempt for private care. Last year’s exams algorithm debacle was the result of officialdom’s obsession with quantification. The multibillion-pound test-and-trace fiasco resulted from Whitehall’s aversion to local government.

[rainbow]

A brief introduction about me, I am Mr. Michael Bolton Greg, a bank manager here in the UK. I have worked here for a little more than 16 years. I am contacting you concerning an abandoned account in the sum of £10million Pounds. I was the account manager to late Mr. Liam Logan Mason, a foreign contractor to the department of works and housing who has an investment account with our bank. Late Mr. Liam Logan Mason died without any named beneficiary or a WILL to the account. According to practice, the Private banking sector will by the end of 2021 broadcast a request for statement of claim to my Bank, failing to receive viable claims they will probably revert the deposit to the ownership of the UK Government Treasury according to United Kingdom Banking and financial law.

I am proposing that after a successful execution of the business deal, the funds will be shared in the ratio of 50/50. You will get 50% and I will be entitled to 50%. You know that I must have done my homework already before contacting you. Although the project is CAPITAL INTENSIVE, I know we will be able to pull it through following proper banking and legal Channels with your assistance at your end by standing as the next of kin/Business associate to late Mr. Liam Logan Mason. This claim will be executed without breaching any UK laws and success is guaranteed if we cooperate on this. The bank will release the account to you as the business associate and my recommendation of you as the business associate to the deceased.

An opportunity like this only comes once in a lifetime and I think we need the fund (10million Pounds) to take care of ourselves and family.

I would like you to think about this and let me know your decision because such a deal happens in the banking industry but only the outside world is not aware. If you give me a positive response, I will give you the relevant INFORMATION for the successful completion of this deal and we both enjoy it in peace. All I require from you is honesty/sincerity; I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.

Must be legit.

[rainbow]

Ada eze nwere oke ara, ya mere i bia ka anyi nwee obi uto na Lagos?

[Scot Dutchy]

Linky rainbow?

[Brian Peacock]

It's an email scam.