The Great Airport VAT Robbery

 Politics  No Responses »
Aug 122015
 

A link to the story in the media.

Because without a link some people might believe that this is all a conspiracy story. After all, I'm fond enough of commenting on stories of corporate greed, and this one is pretty unbelievable.

Apparently retailers have been cunningly claiming back VAT on purchases made by consumers who are travelling outside the EU. Perfectly legal, except that the total price that the consumers are paying is not reduced.

If you look at a invoice or receipt, it will usually have a line for each item listing the cost, and another line at the end totalling the VAT due. That charge for the VAT is supposed to be paid to the government. If VAT is not payable, it is not unreasonable to cross out the VAT line, deduct it from the total payable, and pay the reduced amount.

It would be amusing to try this in an airport shop.

One additional detail that has a bearing here, is that to claim back the VAT, the shops have to produce a copy of the boarding pass from people leaving the EU in order to claim the VAT back. Apparently the shops have been demanding a copy of the boarding pass from everyone and sometimes claiming it is for security purposes (which of course carries the unspoken threat of being arrested and if the airport police are bored, being prodded with automatic weapons and given a free body cavity inspection).

The retailers are claiming that it is too much like hard work to charge two different prices (one with and one without the VAT), which may well be a reasonable objection. If they don't claim the VAT back.

Now if there were a likely looking geezer speaking in a Cockney accent, hanging around the boarding gate for flights to the USA, and demanding a "Kray tax". And waving at someone dressed in a police uniform and carrying a machine gun, and saying that you uneed to pay or you'll get arrested, it would be something not entirely unreasonable to call it robbery.

So would it not be reasonable to call what these shops are doing robbery too?

 

Would Real Left Wing Policies Really Be Bad For Labour?

 Politics  No Responses »
Jul 272015
 

With all the fuss about Jeremy Corbyn being nominated for election as the Labour party leader, anyone would think that the mainstream (read "parliamentary") Labour party is terrified that the slightest whiff of a genuine left-wing agenda by Labour will make them unelectable.

Perhaps so. Anyone who remembers the height of the Thatcher era when Labour was unelectable could well be worried that Labour might again make itself unelectable. And some of that distant past unelectability may well have been caused by the policies.

But not necessarily the 'left-wing' part of those policies.

In the recent election approximately 1/3 of the electorate chose to vote for the Tories which means that 2/3 did not. And that does not inlcude those who failed to find somebody worth voting for. And given the widespread revulsion at the early plans of what the Tories plan to inflict on us indicates that people could well be interested in a genuine alternative.

And that alternative is not "Conservative-light" (I refuse to use the trendy spelling of "light"; apart from anything else, there's a word for someone as old as I am trying to be trendy … and that word is "pathetic").

There is nothing more repulsive than a politician pandering to the lowest common denominator, and modifying their principles to make them more appealing to "middle-England". Perhaps this is why Labour is loosing their core work-class support.

Labour should be for the working classes, but the working classes including everyone who isn't a member of the idle rich which includes many people who don't traditionally think of themselves as working class. Such as doctors, solicitors, surveyors, bank managers (not "bankers"), etc. 

Take a look at the results of the Green party – a genuincely progressive party with left-wing policies – who went from 1% share of the votes to 3.8%. Despite being an unelectable fringe party with no hope of being elected, they massively increased their share of the vote. 

Perhaps a Labour party with sensible left-wing policies would not be electable, but at least it would be honest. And who knows? Maybe it would be electable after 5 years of Tory mismanagement and punishment for those who weren't born with a silver spoon.

Elements Have Their Way

 

 

UK Wealth Inequality

 Politics  No Responses »
Jul 112015
 

The usual response when someone brings up the subject of the rich being just too rich, is to mention the "politics of envy".  Which is a great way of suppressing a reasonable discussion of the matter; anyone would think that the phrase was invented by the rich to protect their excessive wealth. Most people would agree that those who work hard, are creative, and contribute towards the nation's wealth should get a bit more than a chav living on benefits.

Fair enough, but they already do – and far more than people realise. And not all of the rich do contribute a great deal towards the nation; many of them are merely sitting on growing piles of wealth.

Welsh Parliament To Ban Public Vaping

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Jun 092015
 

And Just How Dumb Are Welsh Politicians?

According to the news this morning, the Welsh assembly is to prohibit vaping in enclosed public spaces in the same way that smoking is banned; a bit of cut&paste on the old law. You might expect a moron in a hurry to look at vaping, and say "It looks like smoking so it must be bad." but you should be able to expect that politicians would make a decision based on the available evidence.

However it appears that Welsh politicians have more in common with a moron in a hurry than an idealised poltician.

Before I carry on, let me explain that despite being a vaper (and ex-smoker), if I were to live in Wales, this ban would make practically no difference to me. I don't vape at work (in the office!), in pubs, shops, on trains, or anywhere you can expect the Welsh ban to take effect. I do sometimes wish there was a vaping lounge I could go to on occasions.

The main reason this is such a stupid ban is that it treats vaping as if it were as harmful to the health as smoking. There is not a single serious person who would claim that vaping is as dangerous as smoking. And treating it the same as smoking tells smokers (remember the moron in a hurry) that there's no point in switching to vaping instead because vaping is just as harmful.

There is an argument that whilst the risks are unknown for sure (there is no evidence that secondary vaping is harmful; and plenty of studies that show that secondary vaping is harmless [1], [2], [3]), that it would be nice to stop vaping in public enclosed spaces; just not on the same level as smoking. For example :-

  • Allow pubs to decide whether they allow vaping or not. And to encourage a bit of trendy localism: Why not allow the pub regulars to vote on whether vaping should be allowed or not?
  • Ban vaping in restarants (some of the strange flavours could easily put people off their food) but allow vaping in a lobby area or other ventilated but isolated space.
  • Allow other work-places to set up isolated "vaping lounges".

The intention is to minimise a probably non-existent risk to non-vapers whilst letting vapers get away with just a bit more than smokers. 

Amusingly enough, by consigning vapers to the same sin bin as the smokers, these dumb politicians open themselves up to a class action suit in the future – why should I have to endure the risk of secondary smoking?

There are two daft arguments that I heard used this morning which indicate that some of the Welsh politicians realise just how dumb they're being :-

  1. Allowing vaping in enclosed public spaces normalises smoking. It doesn't normalise smoking unless you're a moron in a hurry – it's quite easy to tell the difference between vapour and smoke. The smell of vapour is far nicer! It "normalises" vaping as a better choice than smoking.
  2. It acts as a gateway to smoking. No; it's a gateway out of smoking. 

Even if you were to disagree with my assessments of these two arguments, the fact they are being made at all indicates just how poor the argument for banning vaping in public really is. 

Bring Back Hunting? Sure, But With A Couple Of Small Changes …

 Politics  No Responses »
May 242015
 

Apparently there is some senile old fart who has decided to try and turn the clocks back to the 18th century and wants to bring back hunting with packs of ferrocious animals desperate to rip apart cute fluffy animals (with the assistence of a few hounds). It would seem that wannabee toffs have been nagging their Tory glove-puppets and David Cameron has caved in to their whispers.

For those who were too young back in the day, or for those who have forgotten, we used to let inbred morons ride around the countryside on horses (often crashing through land they didn't have a right of way over) with a gang of yapping hounds chasing around something they could kill – foxes, deer, peasants (well perhaps the later wasn't too common). During the Great Debate on hunting (which wasn't that great really as their excuses for hunting were really quite pathetic), the hunting lobby tried to convince everyone that they were only hunting for the good of agriculture. 

Which had us all rolling aboutt the floor laughing of course.

Perhaps the most ridiculous comment about the prospect of removing the ban on hunting comes from the Countryside Alliance who clain that removing the ban will eliminate the risk of their supporters from being prosecuted for "accidental" fox killings whilst they are playing at hunting. A bit like claiming that murder should be made legal because if I fire off a shotgun repeatedly in a crowded supermarket, I might "accidentally" kill someone.

It's strange how easy it was to ban certain cruel "sports" (such as cock-fighting and bear baiting) which were more popular with the working class whereas the "sport" of the wannabee toffs is trying to make a comeback. Anyone would suspect that class differences are still important today.

But yes let's bring back hunting with a couple of small changes :-

  1. Hunts have to turn in their hounds in favour of Chihuahuas.
  2. They have to release and hunt Grizzlies.

That should either make hunting less popular, or at least reduce the number of hunters to an appropriate level (zero).

Just to pierce a few pre-conceptions about those opposed to hunting :-

  1. I don't like animals much.
  2. Whilst I live in a city, I grew up in a semi-rural area
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