Tax rises to pay for Brexit

[RingoMcCartney]

no, the lie was the £350m figure that was given, not that we could spend it on the nhs.

i thought you were good at spotting all these lies?

You spotted any on the Remain side yet mate. Or were they just "opinions"!!!?

Haha

[quoonbeatz]

You spotted any on the Remain side yet mate. Or were they just "opinions"!!!?

Haha

can't say i've been looking tbh, its nearly a year since the referendum pal, try moving on like the rest of us have.

[nil_desperandum]

So when people expressed an "opinion" that the money we send to the EU could be spent on the NHS. That was a lie!?

Hahaha.

Again you prove the point that it's easier to lie to someone than it is to convince them they've actually been lied to!!

At some point you might just recognise the irony of what you wrote there.

I recognise the "lies" on both sides. I also try to distinguish between what is an actual "lie" based on its verifiable factual inaccuracy, and what is an opinion or forecast based on the facts available. Most historical decisions have been taken based on forecasts and / or opinions, but backed up by the facts, (as known at the time).
e.g. Opinion - the money sent to the EU could - theoretically be spent on the NHS. Correct.
Fact- that money is 8.6 billion / year not 17 billion. Verifiable.

Opinion - (mine). That money won't go to the NHS, because it will be needed for other things, that's why the Conservatives, (and any responsible party) will not be ruling out tax rises.
Fact - as no one has any real idea what the result of Brexit negotiations will be then I could be totally wrong. Will that make me a liar?

[Lancasterclaret]

A lot of the Brexiteers said we had to leave a failing institution that was falling apart and that the Euro elections in Austria, The Netherlands and France would spell the end of the EU.

Hows that one working out?

[RingoMcCartney]

can't say i've been looking tbh, its nearly a year since the referendum pal, try moving on like the rest of us have.

Hahaha

So you post about the 350 million for the NHS, then tell me to move on!!!!?

Hahaha

Good effort!!

[RingoMcCartney]

At some point you might just recognise the irony of what you wrote there.

I recognise the "lies" on both sides. I also try to distinguish between what is an actual "lie" based on its verifiable factual inaccuracy, and what is an opinion or forecast based on the facts available. Most historical decisions have been taken based on forecasts and / or opinions, but backed up by the facts, (as known at the time).
e.g. Opinion - the money sent to the EU could - theoretically be spent on the NHS. Correct.
Fact- that money is 8.6 billion / year not 17 billion. Verifiable.

Opinion - (mine). That money won't go to the NHS, because it will be needed for other things, that's why the Conservatives, (and any responsible party) will not be ruling out tax rises.
Fact - as no one has any real idea what the result of Brexit negotiations will be then I could be totally wrong. Will that make me a liar?

You recognise that there were lies on both sides!?

My work here is done.

[Lancasterclaret]

To be fair Ringo, as there is zero chance of that every happening, its a bit of a whopper.

Certainly worth the votes that it won, though the damage to the democracy that you so cherish might take a lot longer to repair.

[quoonbeatz]

Hahaha

So you post about the 350 million for the NHS, then tell me to move on!!!!?

Hahaha

Good effort!!

nope, i replied to your post that was discussing it.

just shooting the breeze kid. its you who's posting long rants about lies and opinions and the rest of it.

[Sidney1st]

A lot of the Brexiteers said we had to leave a failing institution that was falling apart and that the Euro elections in Austria, The Netherlands and France would spell the end of the EU.

Hows that one working out?

We will find out soon enough re France.

[RingoMcCartney]

A lot of the Brexiteers said we had to leave a failing institution that was falling apart and that the Euro elections in Austria, The Netherlands and France would spell the end of the EU.

Hows that one working out?

So far the EU has stumbled from one crisis to another.

One things for sure , before its inevitable demise. It will be the people who suffer. Look at the poor beleaguered Greek people who are being denied cancer treatment and other vital treatments due to draconian cuts oh health spending. Imposed by the the ECB, THE IMF and the EU. Or the mass youth unemployment of under 25s in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and France.

It won't be the self serving eurocrats and commissioners. They'll still have their entitled , over privileged snouts well and truly buried in the Euro trough till the very bitter end.

But, give em enough rope.........

[UpTheBeehole]

Ringo, I'm convinced that your posts are from the same random brexiteer word generator that the Daily Express use.

[Lancasterclaret]

I forget Ringo, which crisis are we (the UK) in now that is completely the fault of the EU?

If you could stick it on the side of a bus for added effect and add FACT in capitals that would certainly help.

Sidney, she's got 22% in the first round, which means 78% of French people voted for non-extremist parties. She might make 35% in the run off (bearing some really mental voting, the kind that puts northern england voting for Brexit into the shade) but Macron is going to win in two weeks time.

Thats good thing for Brexit btw, cos if the EU was unravelling at the same time, then the economic damage would hit everybody very hard indeed.

[Sidney1st]

Sidney, she's got 22% in the first round, which means 78% of French people voted for non-extremist parties. She might make 35% in the run off (bearing some really mental voting, the kind that puts northern england voting for Brexit into the shade) but Macron is going to win in two weeks time.

Thats good thing for Brexit btw, cos if the EU was unravelling at the same time, then the economic damage would hit everybody very hard indeed.

I've just been having a read up on Macron and he's a centrist isn't he?
He won't want to rock the boat at all will he?

I've noticed he's worked for Rothchild though, the conspiracy theorists will be loving that one.

[RingoMcCartney]

nope, i replied to your post that was discussing it.

just shooting the breeze kid. its you who's posting long rants about lies and opinions and the rest of it.

So when I post, I'm ranting in the past.

When you post, on exactly the same subject, on exactly the same thread , your just floating buy on a cloud of indifference.

You're not wearing a smoking jacket, laid on a chaise lounge are you!?

[RingoMcCartney]

Ringo, I'm convinced that your posts are from the same random brexiteer word generator that the Daily Express use.

So the Greeks aren't being denied nhs treatment and there isn't rampant youth unemployment across the EU?

Educate yaself mate.

[RingoMcCartney]

I forget Ringo, which crisis are we (the UK) in now that is completely the fault of the EU?

If you could stick it on the side of a bus for added effect and add FACT in capitals that would certainly help.

Sidney, she's got 22% in the first round, which means 78% of French people voted for non-extremist parties. She might make 35% in the run off (bearing some really mental voting, the kind that puts northern england voting for Brexit into the shade) but Macron is going to win in two weeks time.

Thats good thing for Brexit btw, cos if the EU was unravelling at the same time, then the economic damage would hit everybody very hard indeed.

I refer you to post 15

[timshorts]

Fascinating how the myth of Tory tax cuts for the rich is perpetuated. Certainly some truth in historical terms but not since 2010, as Paul Waine has pointed out to Andrew JB. The Tories since 2010 have hammered the wealthiest and highest earners. The main cases being:

Top rate of income tax increased from 40% under Blair/Brown to 45% under Cameron/May
Stamp duty top rate increased from 4% to 12%

They were even going to increase probate fees from £215 to £20,000 for the wealthiest (20 grand - a 9,300% increase) but that seems to have been scuppered by the timing of the election.

........ and of course, there's also been the removal of Landlords being able to offset their second (+) property mortgage costs against rental income to reduce their income tax - and not before time.

None of this is enough to wipe out the deficit in tax income over expenditure for the state, though. If any party comes on saying that they promise not to put taxes up then just don't vote for them. Sometimes you have to. I'd rather they were just honest about it and had a sensible plan of what to do now we have voted ourselves into a pretty sh1t mess.

[Lancasterclaret]

Thats nothing to do with the EU, unless its now the fault of the EU that we have the temerity to want to leave it?

[nil_desperandum]

We will find out soon enough re France.

France is done and dusted. A bit of a shock result that neither of the 2 mainstream parties will be in the 2nd round, but Macron's victory has been on the cards ever since Fillon's campaign hit the rocks. No surprise however that le Pen only got 22% - it's the sort of figure that had been predicted.
Opinion polls now suggest that she might get as much as 35% in the 2nd round, but it would take something absolutely seismic for her to move from 22 to 50.1%.
Macron currently running at about 65%

[UpTheBeehole]

So the Greeks aren't being denied nhs treatment and there isn't rampant youth unemployment across the EU?

Educate yaself mate.

Just looking at youth unemployment figures. Admittedly they are from 2015, but that's recent enough.

UK youth unemployment rate: 8.6%

EU Average: 8.4%

From your listed countries:
Italy: 10.6%
Portugal: 10.7%
Spain: 16.8%
Ireland: 7.6%
France: 9.1%

Interesting that you didn't highlight these though:
Germany 3.5%
Czech Republic: 4.1%
Hungary 5.4%
Lithuania 5.5%

I wouldn't really describe any of the above as indicating 'rampant' youth unemployment.

[UpTheBeehole]

The same table shows UK youth unemployment in 2011 & 2012 as being 12.4%, falling to 12.1% in 2013.

Worse than Portugal in 2015, worse than Italy.

[UpTheBeehole]

[quoonbeatz]

So when I post, I'm ranting in the past.

When you post, on exactly the same subject, on exactly the same thread , your just floating buy on a cloud of indifference.

You're not wearing a smoking jacket, laid on a chaise lounge are you!?

yes, always.

big difference between my posts and yours on this thread; you's are long rants about lies, opinions, remoaners etc and mine was merely correcting you, setting you straight. helping you, if you will.

thats the kind of nice guy i am.

[AndrewJB]

........ and of course, there's also been the removal of Landlords being able to offset their second (+) property mortgage costs against rental income to reduce their income tax - and not before time.

None of this is enough to wipe out the deficit in tax income over expenditure for the state, though. If any party comes on saying that they promise not to put taxes up then just don't vote for them. Sometimes you have to. I'd rather they were just honest about it and had a sensible plan of what to do now we have voted ourselves into a pretty sh1t mess.

And for Android too. I'm not perpetuating a myth. It's a reality the Tories have cut tax for the rich:

https://www.figurewizard.com/list-uk-co ... rates.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (notice how tax has gone down further for standard profits in comparison with small profits). It's no coincidence that the lowering of corporate income tax has run alongside cuts to public services and local government. How else would they make up the shortfall. So much for 'austerity'!

Inheritance Tax threshold moved from £650K per couple to £1M.

Top rate of income tax reduced from 50% to 45%

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... foundation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 24548.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - no surprise here.

http://www.luxuo.com/the-lux-list/super ... -2016.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - the richest 1000 doubled their wealth to over half a trillion pounds between 2010 and 2015. During this time the government made huge cuts.

Now the Tories are telling you they need to raise taxes. As you see above, just by reversing some of their tax cuts they wouldn't need to find the cash in your pockets. Vote Labour!

[RingoMcCartney]

yes, always.

big difference between my posts and yours on this thread; you's are long rants about lies, opinions, remoaners etc and mine was merely correcting you, setting you straight. helping you, if you will.

thats the kind of nice guy i am.

Nice selfagrandisement there!!

[RingoMcCartney]

Just looking at youth unemployment figures. Admittedly they are from 2015, but that's recent enough.

UK youth unemployment rate: 8.6%

EU Average: 8.4%

From your listed countries:
Italy: 10.6%
Portugal: 10.7%
Spain: 16.8%
Ireland: 7.6%
France: 9.1%

Interesting that you didn't highlight these though:
Germany 3.5%
Czech Republic: 4.1%
Hungary 5.4%
Lithuania 5.5%

I wouldn't really describe any of the above as indicating 'rampant' youth unemployment.

Italian youth unemployment rate 35% Feb 2017

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/italy/y ... yment-rate" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Portuguese youth unemployment rate 25% Feb 2017

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/portuga ... yment-rate" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Spanish youth unemployment rate 41% Feb 2017

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/spain/y ... yment-rate" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Irish youth unemployment rate 14% Feb 2017

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/spain/y ... yment-rate" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

French youth unemployment rate 23% at Feb 2017

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/france/ ... yment-rate" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

An average of around 30% or roughly 1 in 3 under 25 year old unemployed. Id call that rampant. How would you describe it?

Seeing as there's a disparity between our figures . Care to post yours. They aren't overall unemployment figures are they.?

Notice you have no figures on Greek people being denied access to their nhs.

[UpTheBeehole]

My source:

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table. ... e=tespm080

Eurostat is the statistics arm of the European Commission, for context.

[UpTheBeehole]

Is there a reason you used a random website rather than the official statistics Ringo?

[Lancasterclaret]

Traditional websites are full of "fake news" at a guess.

[UpTheBeehole]

They aren't overall unemployment figures are they.?.

AAAAH!!! I've cracked it!

You were posting overall unemployment figures. Your statistics class students as being unemployed.

Obviously students aren't unemployed, they're students.

[UpTheBeehole]

A nation where 100% of the 15-24 population educated themselves to doctorate level would have 100% youth unemployment rate by your measure Ringo.

That's a ******** measure.

[Damo]

A hit on pensions will no doubt be a vote winner with all the spoilt millenials on the left.
They despise the elderly after they their futures, by voting to leave the EU

[RingoMcCartney]

AAAAH!!! I've cracked it!

You were posting overall unemployment figures. Your statistics class students as being unemployed.

Obviously students aren't unemployed, they're students.

No mate I was referring to youth unemployment.

So pick the Spanish example.

Click on my Spanish figures. Scroll down. It shows overall 18% Feb 2017. Youth unemployment at over 40%.

That's grim .

And there's no specific reason. Just Googled youth unemployment rates and it's the first to come up. I

[nil_desperandum]

AAAAH!!! I've cracked it!

You were posting overall unemployment figures. Your statistics class students as being unemployed.

Obviously students aren't unemployed, they're students.

That's correct. The 40% includes what are known as both active and inactive unemployed, and not only will include those who are in education, but also those who for whatever reason are not looking for work, or unable to work.

[UpTheBeehole]

But I've just told you, you're classing students as unemployed. That's a ******** measure.

[mikeS]

Parking on the Pioneer Car Park in Burnley has gone up from 60p for an hour to a whole One English Pound!
Shocking truly shocking.

[Paul Waine]

And for Android too. I'm not perpetuating a myth. It's a reality the Tories have cut tax for the rich:

https://www.figurewizard.com/list-uk-co ... rates.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (notice how tax has gone down further for standard profits in comparison with small profits). It's no coincidence that the lowering of corporate income tax has run alongside cuts to public services and local government. How else would they make up the shortfall. So much for 'austerity'!

Inheritance Tax threshold moved from £650K per couple to £1M.

Top rate of income tax reduced from 50% to 45%

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... foundation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 24548.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - no surprise here.

http://www.luxuo.com/the-lux-list/super ... -2016.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - the richest 1000 doubled their wealth to over half a trillion pounds between 2010 and 2015. During this time the government made huge cuts.

Now the Tories are telling you they need to raise taxes. As you see above, just by reversing some of their tax cuts they wouldn't need to find the cash in your pockets. Vote Labour!

Hi AJB,

My thoughts on your ideas:

1) Corporation Tax - it's got nothing to do with "the rich." CT is paid by the owners/shareholders of these corporations - this includes pension funds, your's and mine. (I've argued many times that CT should be abolished - but that's a separate subject and has got nothing to do with Conservatives or Labour);

2) Inheritance Tax - it hasn't happened yet. it is only now starting in that direction. IHT rules are wrong to discriminate between assets (main residential property) they are also wrong to discriminate between beneficiaries (offspring only..). But, if IHT had kept pace with inflation, or better still with house prices the limit would be massively above £1 million per person now.

3) Top rate of income tax - was 40% through 13 years of Labour Gov't. Gov'ts should not change taxes for periods when they are not in power.

4) Rich list: many, many on the UK's rich list (the link is wrong, btw, the luxuo article links, via S.Times, to world's wealthiest, not UK's) earn their wealth outside the UK, some on the list aren't UK citizens, so only their UK earnings are subject to UK tax, the people on the top 1,000 aren't all the same people in the periods you mention.

I know one of the guys who is on the 2016 list - I don't think he was there in earlier years. He's built a business over 30+ years. He's employed hundreds of staff. He's on the list because of the hard work he's put in over all those years - and because the market now demands what the firm he created produces and other investors now are adding to the investment in his firm. All credit to him - not at all to David Cameron and George Osborne, or Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before them.

John B's business is probably in a similar position. That's why he can now afford to be a director of Burnley FC.

I'm not rich and I'm not envious of the rich. If someone has the talent to make a lot of money, whether it's by playing football or by building a business (and employing a lot of other people), good luck to them. We should treat the "top 1,000" the same way as we treat the "top 1,000,000" - and, if we do that there will be more taxes collected by a single higher rate and thus more wealth to share with the needs of the nation and support those who require the support of the "broadest shoulders."

"Stop Taking, Start Giving" (c) Paul Waine, 2017

[dermotdermot]

Quo Vadis isn't quite as good as you said unless anything spectacular happens in the last forty five minutes. I'm up to the bit where Nero has just set fire to Rome.

By the way, are you getting the tickets for Bournemouth or am I?

[Paul Waine]

Just looking at youth unemployment figures. Admittedly they are from 2015, but that's recent enough.

UK youth unemployment rate: 8.6%

EU Average: 8.4%

From your listed countries:
Italy: 10.6%
Portugal: 10.7%
Spain: 16.8%
Ireland: 7.6%
France: 9.1%

Interesting that you didn't highlight these though:
Germany 3.5%
Czech Republic: 4.1%
Hungary 5.4%
Lithuania 5.5%

I wouldn't really describe any of the above as indicating 'rampant' youth unemployment.

Hi UpThe Beehole, your youth unemployment figures surprised me when I read them earlier today.

I've now do a little research on the Eurostat figures. It appears that you have quoted the "youth unemployment ratio" and not the youth unemployment rate."

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics ... 012-2015Q4_(%25" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)_T1.png

Youth unemployment rate counts unemployed youths - it does NOT include students in the "unemployed" figures, only the youths who are in work or looking for work. (It does include new graduates looking for their first job after college...).

I couldn't quite work out what the "ratio" is - maybe there is an easily understood explanation of the stats somewhere in eurostats.

AAAAH!!! I've cracked it!

You were posting overall unemployment figures. Your statistics class students as being unemployed.

Obviously students aren't unemployed, they're students.

Sorry, no, The unemployment rate does not count students as unemployed. It looks like Ringo was quoting the more accurate figures.

[If it be your will]

.

[aggi]

The corporate tax rates is less of an issue, more the ability for large corporations to get away with paying minimal tax (as we've discussed elsewhere) in the UK through dubious corporate structures. Whether or not the tories are more culpable than labour here is debatable but moving into an increasingly isolationist position isn't the way to deal with it.

The more money you have the easier it is to make avoiding tax economical. If you earn £30k you probably pay all your tax through PAYE, if you earn £3m then you can afford to pay an accountant to make sure that you're paying a lower rate. When the 50% tax rate came in, my place had a guide on half a dozen ways to avoid it before the day was out.

[RingoMcCartney]

Is there a reason you used a random website rather than the official statistics Ringo?

Seems my figures are accurate then eh?

[UpTheBeehole]

Because not every young person is in the labour market, the youth unemployment rate does not reflect the proportion of all young adults who are unemployed. Youth unemployment rates are frequently misinterpreted in this sense. A 25 % youth unemployment rate does not mean that '1 out of 4 young persons is unemployed'. This is a common fallacy.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics ... employment

[Lancasterclaret]

The more money you have the easier it is to make avoiding tax economical. If you earn £30k you probably pay all your tax through PAYE, if you earn £3m then you can afford to pay an accountant to make sure that you're paying a lower rate. When the 50% tax rate came in, my place had a guide on half a dozen ways to avoid it before the day was out.

This. Any half decent accountant can run rings around the HMRC completely legally.

[RingoMcCartney]

Traditional websites are full of "fake news" at a guess.

And eurostat are definitely definitely not going to have a vested interest in calculating the unemployment figures to try and make them look more favourable!? At all. !!

All I did was Google the phrase *youth unemployment in (insert country) and the figures came up.

You only have to watch the news to know that youth unemployment in the EU is rampant.

But what's amusing is the reluctance , by europhiles, to even acknowledge it.

And the fact that national governments because they're strapped to the single currency , are unable to adjust fiscal and monetary policy, and vitally important, their own INTEREST RATES . Means the euro's, one size fits all, straight jacket, suits one country and one country alone.

Germany.

And as the only country in Europe that is a net exporter to the rest of the EU, Germany seems to have the "I'm alright Jack " approach.

But the europhiles will have non of it.

[Lancasterclaret]

Fair point Ringo, youth unemployment is a big issue, but not just in the eurozone

And it has to be said its impossible to have any problems if you have your own currency isn't it?

[UpTheBeehole]

Why on earth would a dedicated, official statistics site skew the statistics? This isn't North Korea.

You're showing yourself up as a europhobe, and accusing the actual facts as being europhile.

As my previous quote shows, you've made a common fallacy of not understanding the correct statistics.

There's no need to be a common phallous about it.

[Paul Waine]

"That's yours and my pension funds your talking about!" is another one of those little sayings the press always use to defend all corporate interests. It's repeated so often it has become common knowledge: "Any attack on corporations is an attack on our pensions!" As if, maybe, we're all in this together or something. Obviously, this is complete and total nonsense. Corporate profits overwhelmingly end up in the hands of the rich. To take your point as an example, we can look at who actually owns our stock market:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/investme ... 2015-09-02" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Insurance companies held an estimated 6% and pension funds an estimated 3% by value at the end of 2014, continuing the downward trends in these sectors seen in recent years

3%. And how much of that 3% is in pension funds held by the poorest half of society? Practically speaking - none. To argue corporation tax is nothing to do with the rich is, frankly, absurd.

Hi if it be your will,

My thoughts on above:

1) Your figures are quoted for UK quoted companies only (i.e. traded on UK stock exchange) and for UK insurance and pension funds only.
2) Corporation tax also applies to all the unquoted companies in the UK (almost always smaller companies) and all the non-UK companies that have taxable activities in UK.
3) Most (maybe all) UK insurance companies and pension funds will also hold assets in other countries, including both quoted and un-quoted companies in those other countries.
4) Pension savings are held in other asset classes - they aren't limited to "insurance companies" and "pension funds" (and there are other reasons insurance companies hold assets other than pensions).
5) Agree that the "poorest half of society" will hold fewer investments than the other half of society that holds (in most cases a little) more wealth. On John McDonnell's definition of "wealthy" income over £70,000 p.a. we are already talking about less than 1% of the population (can anyone add the exact figures). What's the average annual earnings today? Somewhere below £30,000 I understand.
6) The government has recently introduced NEST, so most workers (unless they opt out, but why would they) will have an increasing investment in their own pensions. This will grow over the coming years.
7) There are very few final salary pension schemes that remain open in the private sector - the schemes that continue (and those that are now closed) continue to hold assets in quoted and unquoted companies (alongside the government bonds, where these are felt to match their liabilities).
8) A large part of the public sector pension obligation - where earnings based schemes continue, including both final salary and more recently average salary - are to a greater or lesser extent unfunded. They rely on the promise of the taxpayers to fund their pension.
9) we hear an increasing amount today of the intergenerational transfers between the "baby boomer" older generation and the younger generations. The latter includes the children and grandchildren of the baby boomers, it also includes migrants.
10) Gordon Brown's 1997 changes to tax rules for pension funds is reported as removing £5bn a year from these funds. (£5 x 20 years = £100bn). It is one reason, but not the only one, why pension funds struggle to meet their promises. Maybe if GB had not made these tax changes there might have been larger share of "insurance companies and pension funds" holdings in UK quoted companies. Whether that is the case, or not, it is certain that the pension funds would have had smaller deficits today, there would have been fewer closed funds and fewer calls on the Pension Protection Fund.
And, when a pension fund is "rescued" by PPF the "poorest half of society" are included in those that experience a 10% cut in their pension.
11) A number of pension funds have been in the news in past several months: BHS, Tata Steel, Royal Mail, Jaguar Land Rover and more. BHS is "inexcusable" in my book. The others are faced by a number of legacy issues, all their workers (and former workers) will have smaller pensions as a result of these issues.

I've posted before that it would be great if all our MPs had knowledge and understanding of taxation, investments, business and the economy (and so much more).

Happy for you to draw your own conclusions.

[Paul Waine]

Why on earth would a dedicated, official statistics site skew the statistics? This isn't North Korea.

You're showing yourself up as a europhobe, and accusing the actual facts as being europhile.

As my previous quote shows, you've made a common fallacy of not understanding the correct statistics.

There's no need to be a common phallous about it.

Hi UpTheBeehole,

Sorry, I suggest you take a look at the eurostats table. It's has two columns, one is unemployment "rate" the other is unemployment "ratio."

You have quoted the "ratio" figures but stated that they are the "rate."

The unemployment rate for many EU countries is very high, in some countries more than 40% of the "youths" (under 25s) who aren't studying(school/college/uni) or travelling (gap years) are unemployed and cannot get work. These figures include new university graduates.

As I posted last night, the "ratio" is a different statistic. I'm not familiar with this statistic - and haven't yet understood what the ratio is. I'm sure there's a good reason for including the "ratio" in the stats. I'm sure we can trust that it is exactly what it says it is. Yes, Eurostat is not North Korea.

[UpTheBeehole]

I've given a link to explain