norm

[norm @Nrmntr]

Relief at Williams this week as James Vowles’ head reappears from his neck just in time for the first test in Barcelona

[norm @Nrmntr]

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues

[norm @Nrmntr]

POV: you’re about to receive a WhatsApp …

[Dr Dan Goyal @danielgoyal]

We are already in a two-tier healthcare system

Nuffield Trust reports this week on a massive increase in private provision

More worrying, a massive surge in people using their savings to access care

From the best health system to one of the worst in 14yrs!

Summary 🧵

[Martin Lewis @MartinSLewis]

I was interested to see some on here asking "why should a rich person pay more for the same services than a poorer person?" on the back of council tax/poll tax discussions. Now of course no one likes tax, but we need to understand it, so I wanted to bash out my quick, unpolished thoughts on tax in general.

Of course tax should be minimised, spent wisely, efficiently and productively. I'm opposed to punitive taxation ie just for the sake of punishing those with more - even though it doesn't help or raise more revenue.

Yet for me, tax is the cost of living in a legitimate civil society. It should pay for society's law and order, defence, hospitals, education, rubbish collection, legal aid, social care for our elderly, state pensions, special ed needs, disability protection, medical care and help for those who can't help themselves and more.

So it's the cost of being part of both broad national and narrow local communities - hopefully for the collective betterment of all.

If you were simply to say "you only pay for what you use" that isn't tax, that's service provision. Never mind the tricky questions of how you assign the cost of things like defence or policing (some may say that view'd mean if your house burnt down the fire brigade should bill you after).

As for why a rich person pays a more. Well because if you take £500/mth poll tax off someone who earns £1,000/mth it's crippling, off someone who earns £100,000/mth it's hardly noticed, and they still have far more disposable income.

And so if you tax everyone an equal amount, when it has a disproportionate and more damaging effect on those with less, then you start to move people into desperate situations, which risks higher crime, less safe streets, social unrest and eventually societal breakdown.

So I am generally in favour of progressive taxation, which means those say with more income , pay a reasonable higher proportion of tax, because they can afford to.

After all those who are more affluent, have broader shoulders, and have likely made money from society as a whole - and a well functioning society is needed for wealth creation.

PS I've been deliberately unspecific here, this isn't about supporting one structure of tax, just being about tax as a concept.

And equally I think tax planning is fine (ie working within the rules to minimise tax - often because you're doing something the state is trying to encourage you to do - like save in an ISA or invest or put money aside for your future)

[TechnicallyRon (On all the platforms) @TechnicallyRon]

Liz truss will not stop until she's killed every british monarch she can

[norm @Nrmntr]

Parenting tip: turn the heating up 2 degrees - everyone will go to bed early and won’t have a clue you made them do it

[norm @Nrmntr]

The two words most feared by every Range Rover

[norm @Nrmntr]

@SuellaBraverman is part-culture war talisman, part-rolling dead cat strategy, perpetually sucking column inches away from the rolling car crash of the Tories’ actual performance in government

[norm @Nrmntr]

TAKE ME TO THE WOOF FACTORY

[norm @Nrmntr]

I never realised Richard Madeley was just playing a character! This is absolute gold, @SachaBaronCohen must be spitting! 👏@richardm56

[norm @Nrmntr]

Given that I spent the last 25 years thinking that the lyrics to Wamdue Project’s ‘King of My Castle’ were utter bullshit which only rhymed by virtue of the made-up word ‘trassel’, the learnings that it’s Wikipedia entry is attempting to lay on me are frickin wild

[Jill Twiss @jilltwiss]

Hi this sounds like something I would like to name a rotund French Bulldog

[Ian Dunt @IanDunt]

The polls have closed in the first election in living memory in which the British government attempted a form of voter suppression.

[norm @Nrmntr]

TFW you are making bank by worsening the #CostOfLivingCrisis

[Samuel West 💙💛 @exitthelemming]

I'd take Sunak's crusade against teenage 'loitering' more seriously if his party since 2010 hadn't closed more than 800 libraries, sold off hundreds of playing fields, cut arts funding by a third and local authority grants by 40%.
Young people need cheap, interesting things to do

[Sarah McGonagall @gothspiderbitch]

“The less you eat, drink, read, go to the theatre, dance, think, love, theorize, sing, paint; the more you save - the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour: your capital.

The less you are, the more you have - the less you express your own life.”

[Michele Ragusa @MicheleRagusa6]

@LewishamCouncil Just like you wanted to hear views when you imposed the Lee Green LTN - decided what you wanted to do, agreed it in Cabinet, implemented it as a faux experiment, ran a consultation because you had to, ignored the result and made it permanent anyway. Great listening skills.

[norm @Nrmntr]

@LewishamLTN While I do not wish to dispute your general point, it is important to note that the extension of the ULEZ took effect in October 2021 and it is statistically impossible to separate the effects of this and the LTN in the data for these roads over these periods.