ballaughbiker

They showed that a few weeks ago regarding the re-taxing of a rare 1937 Excelsior that has lived here years although only brought out at the TT. In fact they issued a tax disc and then demanded it back. One of my jobs this week is to export it to the UK where it will pay ZERO rfd but you're right. They couldn't care less.

Indeed finlo but just driving the point home.

Just a few more figures to mull over. The two old vehicles mentioned produce a max of 672 kg of CO² per year added together. The new one? 1460 kg/year! Sooo.. I think the old ones are paying £1.22/kg C0² and the new one 4.6p/kg. Has anyone in gov the balls to come on here and justify that? I am well aware that this is anecdotal evidence based on our particular needs and furthermore that CO² is hardly the be all and end all of assessing environmental impact or health concerns. What would be interesting is determining what the real full life CO² output of each vehicle is and what the full life tax is. That would make this look worse. MUCH worse. I was sort of OK with this as one of these would have paid half tax in 4 years but that looks like becoming 9 years away if these proposals go through.By then the econutters will have probably forced them off the road anyway. In 9 years at current figures just one of these old vehicles will pay £1305 more rfd than if it lived in the UK. That is of course assuming they remain taxed all year every year. If one of the old ones lived in the UK, it would be in a nice warm garage on a SORN paying nothing all winter.

Fair enough and an understandable emotion. What happens when someone born here refuses to accept something crazy needs changing? I am happy to pay a bit more here for the way of life. But a lot more? I run two old vehicles in the 3.0 - 3.5 litre tax bracket that are charged on engine size due to their age. Neither exceeds 1000 miles a year (one by a big margin) and I have just paid £820 for the road tax. Both added together use around 55 gallons of fuel per year. Mrs biker has a small 'roller skate' to go to work in all over the island doing 8000 miles a year with a road tax of £68 burning 180 gallons a year. The disproportion of environmental impact to tax ratio is mad yet we keep with this stupid old system year after year but what I really question is that the two old vehicles together would cost £530 in the UK(so IOM £290 more and the modern roller skate would be £30 so IOM £38 more) So I am happy to pay a bit more but this much more is hard to justify. Put tax on the fuel now and the polluter would pay in proportion to the environmental damage they cause which must be the way to go. Edit: the old vehicles are effectively paying £14.90 / gallon in rfd, the new one 38p / gallon in rfd. This difference is f.ing madness and it makes one want to drive the old ones about to reduce that figure instead of the 4 year old Euro5! Then there is the very thorny issue of how long new cars last. Both of these old ones will exceed a life of 40 years if we are left in peace.One is just over halfway through its life and the other just under halfway through. Has anyone who "wears a suit every day" thought about this in depth? Slim? are you there?

Is this blondie who has since been outed as an alleged EDL sympathiser and may have been been (re)'selected' for another QT 'audience' less than a year ago by Alison Fuller Pedley ? It's been obvious to me for some time that audiences for QT were specially selected (and pre-on air rehearsed) but Mentorn Media are coming under ever closer scrutiny now. No wonder the BBC is loosing credibility by the day. Ask yourself why Blondie is still apoplectic having got what she wanted..... Update : Blondie is believed to be Sherri B (surname now changed by marriage to P). who allegedly stood as a NF candidate in a NE London constituency in a general election. Now... was she selected by Pedley* apparently for her imo unenviable CV and did she get seated on the front row by accident? Who put a clip of the QT rant put on SM? Questions Questions about Question Time. I think an enquiry might be in order.

Yep fair drawbridge points. Nothing is forever but when I worked in Oldham back in the 80s it was common to hear migrant's UK born progeny to be anti further immigration. I still can't grasp the real reason for that.

Nobody even half reasonable (so not Steptoe then) is advocating an open door policy. Even the EU law (which is now irrelevant) makes a distinction between those who work and better themselves and those that don't and criminals. Despite woody's oft used example of the 3 ?Poles who escaped deportation on UK lawyer driven human rights arguments, we could have sent back any who did not work/could not support themselves financially but never did. If we had done this like Spain and France always have, I think brexit would not have happened. Trouble is, we have no ID system or coherent way of tracking "holidaymakers" (EU visitors staying up to 3 months) so many took the p enabling the charalatan in chief to falsely blame the EU which was misdescribed as forcing us to keep them We could now have our own similar system where a minimal time, enforced by visa, was required to establish oneself financially and if not...offski. Patel's parents eg would have met such a requirement. Enforcing something this is the opposite of an open door policy but ultimately it depends on whether we want to cut off our noses etc or have an ID system. I suspect the former will appeal more.

It is future principle that we are discussing. Much is made of 'worthy' migrants but this policy will exclude potentially very worthy migrants because their parents may not be high earners. Regretfully, there may be many very capable persons excluded because of the new rules. I can think of one person I know very well since we were students who came to the UK from Kenya in the 70s with nothing financial or academic. He now has significant business interests in Essex and Kent which have made him a multi millionaire. Whilst woody will dilute the point by saying he may be presently excluded from Kenya using modern criteria, we are about to invoke this to millions much nearer home to our imo considerable detriment.

Which is an 'answer' to a question not asked. How about answering the point that Patel would not have been able to move here under the rules she is proposing if her parents had, for example, Swedish passports and, say, did not earn enough.

So we do have some control of our borders? However the actual point which went ''whoosh" or more likely you chose to ignore was that Patel would not be here now as HS under the more restrictive changes she is planning. Just imagine the wealth of future ability you will now reject because their European parents do not have adequate earning potential (rather than actual ability).

Pritti Patel's "unskilled" parents wouldn't have got through this proposed system when they arrived from Uganda. Just imagine, for 1 second, not having been able to benefit from Ms. Patel's undoubted charms....

I travel a lot on the southern cross pennine route between Sheffield and Manchester. The service is dire with that 'converted cattle truck' rolling stock. The stopping train holds up fast stuff and freight and HS2 won't do anything for this unfortunately but electrification would help a lot in getting to the passing points quicker. It would be great if HS2 could be modified to provide another cross pennine route.

HS2 isn't really about getting to say Manchester 15 minutes or whatever quicker. It's about getting the fast stuff off the old lines which can then have much better pax stopping services and free up freight capacity. The fast lines can also be used for freight in the middle of the night. Whether it's worth it in terms of cost is very debatable. Personally, I'd rather lines like St Pancras to Leicester/Derby/Nottm/Sheffield etc were electrified past Bedford and the two cross pennine routes were electrified. The madness in 1970 ish of closing a cross pennine route with a relatively new tunnel now seems madness but a lot changes in 50 years.

The irony...

Fatush Lala?