Kitten Mittens

So you're saying:- Person 'A' who works hard for their whole life, pays all of their taxes, NI and pension contributions should be publicly executed for the sole fact they're employed by the Government. But Person 'B', who also works hard for their whole life, pays all of their taxes, NI and private pension contributions should not be executed because they were employed privately? Have you applied any logic to your thinking on this? I'm not questioning in an attempt to defend the civil service; I'm just confused as to how you've concluded your thoughts...

The new terms civil service pension schemes aren't quite as glamorous as you may believe, I've worked on much more beneficial private occupational schemes before. When accepting work, I would never get carried away solely on the salary offered. It's about understanding the entire package being offered, including retirement solutions. Should those who are paying into a very good private scheme also be subject to a public execution?

Although many subtle differences across the whole of Europe in respect of the age of state retirement, generally it's mostly very similar to the UK or the IOM. In fact on a slightly separate note, we're certainly better of in the IOM than the UK because any private pension that you have here that has been derived using funds accrued within the IOM has better tax benefits and can be drawn down at an earlier age than in the UK (if you wanted to), providing the scheme rules of the pension scheme you're in allow it. This is evidenced when you transfer money into your private pension from the UK or elsewhere; your pension is somewhat deemed 'contaminated' at that point unless you're pension administrator is happy to separate your pension into tranches.

I wouldn't say that it's a behaviour that can only be related to CoMin; all Governments will want their population to be as self sustainable as they possibly can. The population demographics have changed substantially since the formation of pensions and with people living much longer they cost more!

If ever you were in contracted out employment, I think this means for one reason or another you would have been paying less national insurance contributions than those paying into the 'additional state pension'. One reason this may have been would be paying into a different pension i.e. a private pension provided by an employer for example. the above is all hypothetical of course, not telling you what you did and did not pay! Hope this brief and poor explanation is of some use.

I've caught sight of a couple of threads that you have started now in relation to your frustration at not being allowed to urinate in public. Although not a passion I share, I do really enjoy your enthusiasm on the topic. Kudos to you!

Half day? God awful blogs don't just write themselves, y'know!

All of which would be classified as a hazard if seen on a hazard perception test. This supporting the argument that driver's travelling at well below the legal limit can be hazardous. On a lighter note, I s'pose it's lucky for the horses that they're not required to pass a driving test.

Ahh, apologies Emesde! More haste, less speed I think!

I'm certainly not saying that changes shouldn't be made, but I don't think the changes that were mentioned in 2015 (that you've kindly listed above) are the correct ones. They're very much aimed at teenagers/students, rather than newly qualified drivers. I get that most newly qualified drivers are teenagers or students, but imagine being the 35 year old nurse with two children. Passes a test of competence yet can't drive anywhere as a family and must abandon the car should they need to leave mid-way through a night shift. I don't think it's fair to require additional training in order to drive your family places, having already passed the standard test.

No, I get that. Hence why I said that I wasn't disagreeing with you. I know that you've clearly said that you haven't missed the point... but I'm a bit nervous that you may have still missed the point. We're still getting strung up on Stinky's question about how to safely (or unsafely) overtake somebody travelling at 35 mph in a 50 mph zone. I gathered that the aim (or at least part of the aim) of Stinky's original question wasn't for a literal response to the question but to magnify that so many people do fail to make progress in these zones and a 50 mph limit is very often too slow to safely (and legally) complete an overtake. If we read backwards, I understood that Stinky was trying to argue that a national limit of 50 mph in non-built up areas would be too slow given the fact it could be unsafe to overtake within this limit, as outlined above. Judging by the subsequent string of responses within this thread, I think it was a good question by Stinky with quite an interesting argument - 50 mph might be too slow of a national speed limit. Good food for thought!

I'm not saying I disagree with you, but we're completely missing the purpose of Stinky's original point with regards to motorists going 35 mph is a 50 zone. If it wasn't so painfully common for people to travel well under the speed limit, the conversation of safe/unsafe overtaking would never have occurred. P.s. before some wise-crack says 'its a limit, not a target', if you were to re-sit your driving test and do 35 in a 50, you will fail. Why? Because it is argued that it can be unsafe to drive well below the legal limit.

I couldn't agree more, I lost any remaining faith at that point (the little faith I had left after reading the policy statements on page 2 - which somewhat translates to 'we'll do nothing different from normal, but we have wrote 30 pages on doing nothing different, so it's okay...'). I also can't comprehend why part of the Strategy (a small part of the Strategy at that) is to produce an action plan. Should the Strategy in itself not be the plan? At best, this is a plan... to create a plan.... I s'pose it's still mildly better than Baldrick's cunning plan, to have no plan.

I have just attempted to have a quick skim over the report in question [http://www.tynwald.org.im/business/opqp/sittings/20182021/2018-GD-0050.pdf] From the few bits I read, I don't really have any belief in the report or think any change (on the scale that change is needed) is likely to occur on the back of this. I honestly don't think this document has the teeth or the balls to push the much needed BIG changes; instead, I can't help shift the feeling that it's simply just pages and pages of telling us 'what we want to hear'. Just like any report that is published on the Isle of Man, there is a lack of an implementation plan, ongoing project plan or any real logical plan to turn the 'vision' into reality. Words for words sake. @Derek Flint I'd love to hear your thoughts on the report? Disclaimer: - I really haven't had a thorough read at all yet, it was just a very quick skim. I'm happy to be proven wrong on this one.

This almost sounds like a threat. If only TSOS was a politician we might have had the first case on our hands!